Max Ravenhill is a history professor, or so he thinks: but then a
strange woman tells him that he's really an exile from the lands of
the Fae…
Yes, well, everything I've read by Malan does go over
well-trodden ground. But rather than just crank out another genre
fantasy book, she always manages to make things interesting. Max's
whole life is a false memory, the latest of many sets he's had over
the thousand years he's been on Earth, and he's reasonably worried
that if his "real" memories are restored the "him" that's living now
may well cease to exist. (And various allies of the man he was are
surprised that he isn't all in favour of that.) This is the sort of
thing I want, if a standard idea is being used: dig into it, look at
the implications, make it a part of the story rather than just pasting
it into the background to remind us that this is a fantasy.
Similarly, there's an evil prince who's in charge… though while one
couldn't call him a good guy, he does at least have a consistent
mental landscape, a set of reasons for doing the things he does.
There are armour and weapons crafted from the user's own blood, which
work superbly for them and not at all for anyone else. There are
various sorts of Fae beasts and people (and the dividing line isn't
universally agreed), and no humans, though the Fae look close enough
to them that this has implications about Earth. There are various
shapes of magic, though nobody seems to know as much about it as
they'd like. Yes, there are also Significant Capitals; and it's
probably fair to say that this isn't as good overall as the Dhulyn and
Parno books that were the reason I started to read Malan. But there's
a lot more here than one might assume.
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