Wednesday, December 26, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Darkspell by Katharine Kerr




Darkspell is the second book in Katharine Kerr's long-running epic fantasy Deverry cycle, and the second book after "Daggerspell," which I reviewed earlier on this blog here.  Darkspell follows a similar formula to Daggerspell, alternating between a story set in the present day (of this world at least) and stories set in the distant past featuring prior incarnations of the main characters.  The book also features an increase in the amount of magic (or "Dweomer" as its known in this series) as our heroes come to face darker forces than the mortal men who served as the first book's antagonists.

The result is still a book I enjoyed, but one that works a bit less well than Daggerspell, as the alternating story structure didn't quite work as well this time around and just distracted from the more interesting present day story.  Also the dark magic users who serve as the antagonists fuel their magic through the use of rape, which is a trope that just makes the book feel as old as it actually is.  Overall the book still works and I'm going to continue the series shortly, but it's a slight drop-off from Daggerspell.


------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
After his exile, Rhodry now follows the long road as a Silver Dagger, with Jill at his side.  It's only due to Jill's long experience managing her da and her practicality that Rhodry has been able to survive his dishonor as she has forced him to take on roles he dislikes and to save money for the future.  The result is that they are beginning to eke out a life for themselves, distasteful as it is.

But when a gem filled with the power of Dweomer comes into Jill's possession, Rhodry and Jill find themselves hunted by Masters of the Dark Dweomer, and in great peril, with the light Dweomer master Nevy too far away to provide immediate help.  It will take all of their abilities, as well as Jill's inner Dweomer potential, to possibly make it out of the situation alive, as they get caught in a power struggle of mages they once couldn't have imagined.

And roughly 300 years in the past, Jill, Rhodry, and Cullen's past incarnations met once more, with Gweniver (Jill) being a warrior priestess, the common-born soldier Ricyn (Rhodry) being her most loyal companion, and the King's bastard brother Dannyn (Cullen) lusting for Gweniver's body, despite her oath of chastity.  As the trio fights in a Deverry divided by a three-sided civil war, the actions of the three will shape a dynasty fundamental to Deverry's future....
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Like its predecessor, Darkspell is a book told in parts, with its main storyline in the present introduced first in two small parts around one long novella-sized story that occurs 300 years in the past, before having its main present-day plot occurring in the final 40% of the book.  In the present day the story alternates perspectives between that of Jill, Rhodry, Nevyn and the main antagonists (with a few others mixed in there); similarly, the past story also alternates mainly between the main trio and Nevyn as it goes forward.

And both stories are rather strong on their own.  Starting with the past storyline (Deverry 773 - also a typo lists this as Deverry 733 for some reason), the story being told would seem to be a classic of the genre - of the warrior priestess who leads an army to war in a world where only men are supposed to fight and proves her valor.  But Kerr greatly subverts the story - Gweniver is a berserker when she fights and Nevyn rightfully declares her mad as anything, and the story is clearly from midway on heading toward a tragic end.  And the characters are fantastic, even Dannyn who could easily have been seen as a creeper works out really well.

And then there's the main storyline, which also works rather well and surprises on quite a few occasions.  As I imagine will happen more and more as we go further in the series, there's a lot more magic going on here, with Jill and Rhodry's main antagonists being two dark dweomer wielders, a master and the apprentice (yes, the Dark Jedi comparison is gonna be natural).  But the book's magic remains believable in what it can do and never feels arbitrary, and the characters' reactions to it and how they have to deal with it always makes sense.  And Jill, Rhodry and Nevyn remain really great characters who are all very easy to root for.  And one of the two main antagonists, the apprentice Sarcyn, is rather interesting as a character.  And while the book does have some very heavy cliffhanger-ish bits - for example one plot thread is introduced in the prologue and is left near completely unresolved by the book's end - enough plot threads that are the focus of this plot are resolved to form a satisfying conclusion to this novel, even as it teases for more.

That said, Darkspell is a weaker volume than Daggerspell for two reasons.  The first, and more major one, is that while the stories in the past enlightened the happenings in the present in Daggerspell, the connection between Gweniver's era and Jill's is a lot less strong.  So while (as I mentioned above) this story is rather well done, by the end of it, and by the second time we jump back to this timeline especially, I couldn't help but wish it would be over quicker so we could return to the main characters.  And when we do get back to the main characters, the past histories don't really pay off in their impact on the present, unlike in Daggerspell.

The second reason is well, our antagonists are demonstrated to be evil through the use of rape, which is an icky trope that I've mostly avoided in modern books.  It isn't helped by the fact that the book gives the impression that it's more evil when it's M on M rape, which well....yeah.  I could get past it in this book since I was already invested in the series, but if I wasn't, it might've been enough to put me off completely - this is a bad trope that has mainly gone by the waysides for good reason.

I'll be back for book 3 in this series shortly, once again in audiobook.  Hoping it can take another step up and avoid the archaic tropes Darkspell possessed, because I love these characters and this world is fascinating.
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