SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Wizard Hunters (Fall of Ile-Rien #1) by Martha Wells: https://t.co/LejTcWnBxn Short Review: 9 out of 10 (1/3)— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) September 27, 2018
Short Review (cont): With her country and all its mechanical and sorcerous might about to fall to a mysterious enemy, ex-playwright Tremaine Valliarde must overcome depression & self-doubt and travel to a parallel world to find a way to fight back. Just so good all around. (2/3)— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) September 27, 2018
The Wizard Hunters is the first of Martha Wells' "The Fall of Ile-Rien" trilogy, a trilogy of books set in her less well known fantasy world of Ile-Rien. I've sung high praises of Wells' work quite a few times on this blog, from her Raksura books to her Murderbot series, and have even enjoyed one previous book in the world of Ile-Rien, the stand-alone The Death of the Necromancer (Review Here). The Wizard Hunters requires no prior knowledge of any prior Ile-Rien book (although it features the daughter of TDotN's protagonists and fans of that book will enjoy some call backs) and forms an excellent start to a new fantasy trilogy.
The Wizard Hunters features a very different protagonist from its predecessor: Tremaine Valiarde, ex-playwright, daughter of master thief Nicholas and master actress Madeline (from TDotN), but who lacks the confidence of either. Moreover, the world it features is very different - Ile-Rien has advanced technologically another step, but much of the plot takes place in a parallel world which is much more primitive, with the native people there wielding bows and swords rather than guns and fearing any magic whatsoever. It's almost a portal fantasy....except the portal our characters go through isn't from our world to another world, but between two different fantasy worlds altogether, and the result is a story with compelling heroes, interesting villains, and an all round satisfying plot even as it leaves open questions for the rest of the trilogy to solve.
Note: I read this book as an audiobook, and the audiobook reader is excellent. Worth your time in this format.
-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------
The Country of Ile-Rien is at war with a mysterious enemy known as the Gardier....and it is losing. The Country's school of sorcery has been blocked off by the Gardier, who seem to possess strange magical powers and deadly airships....and Ile-Rien's top sorceror, Arisilde, and the secret king of its criminal underground Nicholas Valiarde are dead after a sorcery experiment to stop the Gardier went awry. It only seems a matter of time before the fall of Ile-Rien is complete.
In the midst of this, Tremaine Valiarde, ex-playwright and Nicholas' daughter, is looking for a way to end it all that won't look like suicide, having failed to die after six months of dangerous tasks for the country. Instead, she finds herself approached by the sorcerer Gerard for help with the same spell that killed her father, thanks to a magical sphere gifted to her by Arisilde years ago. But what they find is that the spell is not a weapon...its a transportation spell to a strange new world from which the Gardier are launching their attacks.
But this new world isn't simply inhabited by the Gardier - it is also inhabited by a more primitive people who designate certain people to hunt "Wizards," believing all such magical powers are evil by nature. In order to survive and help fight back against the Gardier, and to maybe find a purpose for her life, Tremaine will need to team up with the natives who hate her very allies and find a way to improvise a means to destroy the Gardier base....before its too late.
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Again, a lot of the reason this book is so great is its protagonist, Tremaine Valiarde. Tremaine's parents were the protagonists of The Death of the Necromancer, with her mother being an assured master actress and part-time thief and her father essentially being a fantasy version of Professor Moriarty - a master of the criminal underworld who was absolutely ruthless at pursuing his own ideas of justice (and had to avoid his own version of Sherlock Holmes.). Tremaine is....not her parents. Yes she was definitely trained by Nicholas in more than a few of his criminal ways and her career has also been in the theater like her mother (as a playwright, if not an actress). But while Tremaine is incredibly capable when put to the test, she lacks something both her parents, especially her father, had: confidence. Even when Tremaine puts her mind to a plan of action, usually one that is reckless and incredibly dangerous, she is afflicted by tremendous anxiety and doubt. And when she's not acting, her situation due to this war and the death of her family has made her tremendously depressed.
This wouldn't make her a fun character to see act - unlike again her father Nicholas (who casts a large shadow on this book even if you haven't read TDotN) - except that her anxieties and capabilities also make her incredibly witty and sarcastic at times, not willing to take nonsense from others who think they know more. Tremaine begins the book a bit passive, unwilling to offend those who think they know more or who are in roles as superiors, but as the book goes on, and as she gets further away from what has been her situation in her world for the past few years, she becomes more assertive and sarcastic, leading to some great moments. At the same time, while she genuinely grows during the experience of this book, she never quite loses her anxieties - this is not a book where she learns to be comfortable with taking her father's role as that's just not who she can be. Reading most of the book from her perspective is excellent.
That isn't to say the other characters aren't excellent as well. Most of the remainder of the book (about 30% to Tremaine's 60%) are told from the perspective of Ilias, one half of a duo of a more primitive people who hunt Wizards with swords and bows and consider anything form of magic evil....and who find themselves out of their depths when they discover a Gardier base in their world. It could be a little grating if the book overplayed the "viewing technology and thinking it's magic because of his primitiveness" angle it starts Ilias' perspective with, but it manages to avoid that problem, and Ilias grows into an excellent more action-oriented compliment to Tremaine. Ilias lacks Tremaine's anxieties and doubts (though he fears magic naturally), but has a greater sense of justice that counterbalances the more "ends justify the means" attitude of Tremaine that she gets from her father. The rest of the characters, whether we get to see their perspectives or not in this book (three other characters get that honor), make up nice compliments to the rest of the main duo, making it very easy to care about them or at least see who they are as people.
As for the plot, it's an excellent satisfying start to a new trilogy, with a satisfying ending in case one doesn't want to seek out the remaining two books (which I will be doing, mind you). The book spends a substantial portion dealing with a time when our two groups of characters are unable to understand each others' speech due to a language barrier, but Wells makes that seem natural and not annoying to the reader, with it hindering the characters quite a bit but still allowing them to work together to overcome that barrier in the face of grave danger. There's an arguably abrupt swerve near the end that presents a new conflict quickly and then gets resolved just as quickly that kind of felt unnecessary, but otherwise the plot has excellent pacing and flows wonderfully. And while reading the prior novel isn't necessary by any means, the few cameos by characters/ideas from that novel just made me smile quite a bit.
Definitely recommended, as usual for Wells' work.
Again, a lot of the reason this book is so great is its protagonist, Tremaine Valiarde. Tremaine's parents were the protagonists of The Death of the Necromancer, with her mother being an assured master actress and part-time thief and her father essentially being a fantasy version of Professor Moriarty - a master of the criminal underworld who was absolutely ruthless at pursuing his own ideas of justice (and had to avoid his own version of Sherlock Holmes.). Tremaine is....not her parents. Yes she was definitely trained by Nicholas in more than a few of his criminal ways and her career has also been in the theater like her mother (as a playwright, if not an actress). But while Tremaine is incredibly capable when put to the test, she lacks something both her parents, especially her father, had: confidence. Even when Tremaine puts her mind to a plan of action, usually one that is reckless and incredibly dangerous, she is afflicted by tremendous anxiety and doubt. And when she's not acting, her situation due to this war and the death of her family has made her tremendously depressed.
This wouldn't make her a fun character to see act - unlike again her father Nicholas (who casts a large shadow on this book even if you haven't read TDotN) - except that her anxieties and capabilities also make her incredibly witty and sarcastic at times, not willing to take nonsense from others who think they know more. Tremaine begins the book a bit passive, unwilling to offend those who think they know more or who are in roles as superiors, but as the book goes on, and as she gets further away from what has been her situation in her world for the past few years, she becomes more assertive and sarcastic, leading to some great moments. At the same time, while she genuinely grows during the experience of this book, she never quite loses her anxieties - this is not a book where she learns to be comfortable with taking her father's role as that's just not who she can be. Reading most of the book from her perspective is excellent.
That isn't to say the other characters aren't excellent as well. Most of the remainder of the book (about 30% to Tremaine's 60%) are told from the perspective of Ilias, one half of a duo of a more primitive people who hunt Wizards with swords and bows and consider anything form of magic evil....and who find themselves out of their depths when they discover a Gardier base in their world. It could be a little grating if the book overplayed the "viewing technology and thinking it's magic because of his primitiveness" angle it starts Ilias' perspective with, but it manages to avoid that problem, and Ilias grows into an excellent more action-oriented compliment to Tremaine. Ilias lacks Tremaine's anxieties and doubts (though he fears magic naturally), but has a greater sense of justice that counterbalances the more "ends justify the means" attitude of Tremaine that she gets from her father. The rest of the characters, whether we get to see their perspectives or not in this book (three other characters get that honor), make up nice compliments to the rest of the main duo, making it very easy to care about them or at least see who they are as people.
As for the plot, it's an excellent satisfying start to a new trilogy, with a satisfying ending in case one doesn't want to seek out the remaining two books (which I will be doing, mind you). The book spends a substantial portion dealing with a time when our two groups of characters are unable to understand each others' speech due to a language barrier, but Wells makes that seem natural and not annoying to the reader, with it hindering the characters quite a bit but still allowing them to work together to overcome that barrier in the face of grave danger. There's an arguably abrupt swerve near the end that presents a new conflict quickly and then gets resolved just as quickly that kind of felt unnecessary, but otherwise the plot has excellent pacing and flows wonderfully. And while reading the prior novel isn't necessary by any means, the few cameos by characters/ideas from that novel just made me smile quite a bit.
Definitely recommended, as usual for Wells' work.
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