panguitch's Full Review: Sean Russell - The One Kingdom
Dease closed his eyes. His sorrow kicked inside him.
Sean Russell's The One Kingdom grabbed my interest more forcefully and in fewer pages than any other book in my memory. The reader is made witness to a dire meeting of cousins, the Renné men, who plot to murder one of their own. Toren, heir to the Renné claim to the throne of Ayr, seeks peace with the rival Wills family. His cousins fear he will give too much and doom the Renné. He will not listen to reason, so they plan his death, some with glee, some with harrowing reluctance. "I will do this thing," Dease Renné says, "for I love him best."
These six pages set the hook deep, and though Russell lets the reader run with it, when he finally reels us in we are helpless.
The fratricidal pact soon recedes into the background, and instead of the nobility Russell spends most of his book with Tam, Fynnol, and Baore, three young men from the isolated Vale who wanted to see a bit of the world before settling down. They innocently share their campfire with a man named Alaan, but learn that he has enemies. Their adventure turned nightmarish, the Valemen flee down the river Wynnd pursued by black-clad men-at-arms.
At the same time, a former ally of the Renné, Haffyd, is orchestrating a marriage between Elise Wills and the Prince of Innes, a move sure to rekindle the feud between the Renné and Wills clans. It is something Elise wants no part of, but when grown men tremble before Haffyd, how can a young woman hope to resist him?
This troika of storylines gradually converges and it becomes apparent that they are only three aspects of one greater story: the children of the ancient sorcerer Wyrr are returning to the world, and they will break it to pieces between them.
I even like the elegantly restrained cover art for this book. Other than some initial lurching in perspective, my only gripe is that I would have liked a map. In fact, despite the colorful feud and the medieval flavor (complete with jousting) the setting does feel somewhat contrived. It consists of a "land between the mountains" and beyond those mountains . . . nothing. Such a narrow setting can inhibit the reader's ability to buy-in to the story. But the land between the mountains occasionally interacts with another world, a parallel universe or faerie realm, and the characters sometimes pass between the two. In this way the setting is vertical rather than horizontal.
This connection to the other world centers on the river Wynnd, which is the symbolic focus in several ways. The spirits of sorcerers who have not passed through the final gate of death lurk in its waters. The river is also a metaphor for story, and Russell has much to say about the concept of story and the way our lives both construct and are constructed from stories, as my friend Dave shows in his own review.
Beyond these intriguing concepts and the beautifully orchestrated plotting, the characters of The One Kingdom are superbly attractive. It's easy to identify with the men from the Vale and its Shire-like isolation. They are the Bildungs-hero and everyman that we join in his grand adventure. At the same time they are each distinct in personality. The stranger they meet, Alaan, is wonderfully entertaining and mysterious, a Robin Hood-like rogue and a rake. In contrast, Elise Wills is a sweet girl of pure intention, who happens to run into a succession of attractive men. Her purity, tempered by maturity, is shared by Llyn, but that good woman's disfigured face keeps her in the shadows. Nevertheless, Dease Renné loves her with the same tortured nuance with which he plans to murder his honorable cousin Toren.
It's hard to do justice to these characters. They are well-fleshed, variously motivated, and each serves a purpose. Although we come to know the Valemen best, it's an ensemble cast, and far more successful than most of its kind. The supernatural is subtle and mysterious in The One Kingdom. The magic is in the characters.
Russell's writing is polished; he has clearly considered carefully his decisions in crafting this novel. He balances action and description well, with the same sense of proportion that can be felt as he gradually tugs his storylines together. They converge at a climactic masquerade ball, a marvelous and flavorful scene where a million things happen almost too fast, too confusingly. While it is popular to begin books in media res, Russell very definitely ends his that way, and I can only imagine the suffocated gasping of those who read it in 2001 and had to wait a year for the next book, The Isle of Battle, to be published.
The best fantasy being written today understates traditional fantastical elements. Fans of, as Orson Scott Card terms it, naturalistic fantasy should also try Robin Hobb, George R. R. Martin, and Lois McMaster Bujold. Those intrigued by water spirits or water/death symbolism might consider C. J. Cherryh's Rusalka or Garth Nix's Sabriel.
Since the death of the King of Ayr over a 100 years ago, the land has been fought over by the most powerful of noble families, the Wills and Rennés, ...More at Alibris
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