Tuesday, August 11, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Memory of Souls by Jenn Lyons



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 25, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.


The Memory of Souls is the third book of a planned five in Jenn Lyons' "A Chorus of Dragons" series of Epic Fantasy novels, which began with 2019's The Ruin of Kings (which I reviewed here) and continued that same year with the second book, The Name of All Things (which I reviewed here).  And when I say "Epic Fantasy", I mean "Epic", both of the first two novels were absolute doorstoppers of novels - well over 500 pages in small text print (I'm not kidding about the text size in the hardcover either) - that even I couldn't finish in a single day, featuring a lot of characters, mythological histories, gods, demons, and magic, to the point of being well...everything that a lot of people might love or hate about Epic Fantasy as a genre.  

And honestly, I didn't particularly love the first novel in this series - The Ruin of Kings (review linked above) - finding it too concerned at times with setting up its epic fantasy over-arching plot to really feel like a cohesive story and not having the time as a result to set up its characters in interesting ways.  But when I took a chance on the second novel in the series without bothering to reread the first (because that would take far too long), I discovered a much improved novel that I really greatly enjoyed, with its new two main characters both being fascinating, a setting that was suddenly much more interesting (and more explicitly queer incidentally), and a plot that combined both its long term myth-arc with its single book plot in a really effective way. 

So yeah, I was excited to read the third book in this series when it showed up on NetGalley, even if its length was intimidating and made me keep pushing it off.  But the results was very much what I wanted after book 2 - continuing a story filled with excellent characters, expanding on a number of plots, and keeping me constantly amused and entertained at the interactions and events throughout.  The book still have many of the same problems of the first two - the framing device and narrative structure just feels insanely clumsy, the rape issues (see below) prop up again early on before going away, and the book loves having a billion terms and historical characters who are hard to keep straight and adds even more here.  But even with those issues, I couldn't help but be exceedingly entertained the more I got into the book, binging through it in two days.  This is almost certainly the best of the series so far, and its a decent high note if you can get through it.

TRIGGER WARNING:  Rape.  The series includes mind control and charm magic as a magical ability in the setting, and in the past (off page), at least one character has used mind control to have sex with and impregnate an enslaved woman.  In this book, that turn is reversed, with the now formerly enslaved woman doing the mind controlling of the man for a similar purpose.  It doesn't last long in this plot and never happens again, but it's there and I should note it.   

Note:  Spoilers for Books 1-2 are discussed below; I don't think they'll reduce your enjoyment of anything, but they're impossible to avoid 3 books in.  Also, if you've read the first two books, you don't need to reread them to enjoy this, as like in the second book, the story essentially contains a summary of the major events of the last book in the foreword. 

EDIT:  This is a non-spoilery review of this book.  I enjoyed this book a lot, and actually wrote up a spoilery discussion of what happened in another post, which you can find HERE.  

----------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
Vol Karoth - the King of Demons - is awake.  The events in Atrine, in which Kihrin and Janel attempted to stop the Dragon Morios from destroying the city, could not have gone worse - Vol Karoth awoken, the godslayer Urthaenriel taken by Relos Var, the city destroyed and the Hellwarriors betrayed by Brother Qown, who at the last moment threw his support behind Relos Var and his sinister agenda.  

Now, the four Hellwarriors - Kihrin, Janel, Thurvishar, and Teraeth - are given a task by the Eight Immortals: To convince the King of the remaining immortal race, the Vané, to enact the Ritual of Night, which would strip from them their immortality in order to repair the warding crystal and force Vol Karoth asleep once more.  

But naturally convincing an immortal race to give up their immortality isn't something done easily, and the four find themselves taken to the Blight - the very place where Vol Karoth is imprisoned.  There Kihrin discovers a terrifying fact, Vol Karoth is calling to him, calling for Kihrin to reunite with the part of his being that is the King of Demons.  Escaping the monster's call will test all four of the Hellwarriors, and require them to reexamine the bonds between them.  And even if they do escape, their original task will require them to figure out who really opposes them, and to find a way beyond them....even as outside forces of great power, freed from former bonds of slavery, begin to muster for their own intentions on the Vané throne.......

And somewhere out there remains Relos Var and his minions, planning the next step in his long term agenda of power, which might result in the freedom of Vol Karoth, who killed not only the gods the last time he was free, but threatened to destroy the entire world.......
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As with any plot summary of an epic fantasy novel, the above is hilariously incomplete, but well to go into all the major plot threads (and I've omitted two that show up very early) would result in it being way too long.  But we're in book 3 now, so you should expect that.  You should also expect The Memory of Souls to continue the strained framing device of the first two books - the very novel itself is a manuscript written by a character (Thurvishar in this case), with Thurvishar putting together various accounts of other characters together into a cohesive story of what just happened in-universe, with Thurvishar adding comments in footnotes.  Like I said, it's a bizarre framing device that just seems a bit silly, and the footnotes are often not as humorous or useful as they seem to be trying to be, but the book actually manages to use the fact that the prior novels were manuscripts characters could read in-universe for some entertaining moments.  Unlike the prior two novels however, this novel is not split into two narratives (book 1 being split into two Kihrin narratives taking place at different times and book 2 being split between Janel and Qown), but rather there are at least 9 point of view characters throughout the book - which strains credibility as to how Thurvishar managed to acquire them all mind you even more if you think too hard - which is a bit ridiculous, and very much feels like the author trying to pull together a mess.  

Thankfully that mess still results in a very good story, thanks to the fact that for most of the characters - particularly the main quartet - we already have a good grounding in who they are and why we should care about them.  And I really love the main quartet quite a lot, or really the main trio plus Thurvishar.  Readers of the first two novels will know of course that Janel, Kihrin, and Teraeth have a bit of a love triangle starting up, and wow does this book explore that fully, featuring all three of their points of views at times.  And while all three have other parts of themselves unrelated to the others, as well as goals and ideals they aim to achieve, their connections are tremendously fun parts of this book as they try to figure it all out (well, mainly Kihrin and Teraeth, as Janel more or less just wants the two to figure out they love each other already).  It makes it really easy to love the trio and care for them all, especially as we see through all of their heads in this novel.*

*I should point out that this relationship somehow becomes even MORE Queer than the very Queer last novel, and when all the reincarnations of people are added in, it becomes absolutely delightful.

Which is not to say the other characters are any lesser, as this book does a phenomenal job - better than its predecessors - at really making those side characters feel like important characters (and a number of them get their own viewpoints).  Thurvishar, as the odd one out of the main quartet, has his own love story sort of which is incredibly cute.  Then you have an undead queen on a quest of vengeance with the human woman who doesn't think herself good enough for her.  And you have Kihrin's messed up parents, returning from book 1 in a VERY different power arrangement, you have an antagonist from book 1, as well as Senera from book 2 and well, all of these characters are fascinating, with their own feelings and goals to go along with it all.  I haven't even mentioned the drunk out of his mind legendary wizard who the team has to find in the second act.  

All these characters collide in an epic fantasy plot, which is split again into multiple parts like the last books, but this time is really split into three parts:  Part 1 deals with the main quartet altogether while occasionally flashing away to other parts of the world; Part 2 splits the party in two, and those other parts come into full play; and then Part 3 features it all coming together (like Part 2 did in the prior books) into an epic finale.  I will say, after reading an epic space opera that tried something similar recently, that this book does an excellent job not cutting away from interesting plot lines to ones I didn't care about at extremely tense moments, so I never got annoyed by a cutaway.  Instead, it kept me riveted and wanting to know where it was going, even if the wheels within wheels of the plots of the two bad guys and others was often incredibly confusing to try to follow.  

So yeah, the book still has some of the typical epic fantasy flaws - figuring out the geneologies and reincarnations of various characters is still confusing (my eARC copy suggests that a "Family Tree" will be included in the final copy, but my eARC did not include it)  - and has so many characters, terms, races and events going on that it's very easily confusing at times.  And as I put in the trigger warning above, an element of rape in the first book - Kihrin's biological mother Miya(body) / Khaeriel(mind) being gaeshed (enslaved) by his biological father Therin which rendered any sex they had obviously nonconsenual) - comes back in reverse in this book with Khaeriel enchanting Therin for the same thing.  That whole relationship is INCREDIBLY squicky, uncomfortable, and honestly problematic and well, it's not good.  

But the rest of the book is strong enough that I'm willing to overlook it, and the plot resolves in a way that surprises and is tremendous as it ends yet again in a massive cliffhanger, that makes me eager to read the fourth book, when that eventually comes.  But I will be back for it, and probably won't take so long to read my copy once I get it....
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