Curse of the Mistwraith - Introduction and Prologue

[kalinara]

So, when I was preteen, ish, it seemed like the big thing was doorstop series. You know what I mean. When authors would write these seven, eight, ten book long series, and each book was 500 pages at the minimum, often closer to 700 or 800. Robert Jordan was probably the most famous, with Wheel of Time. He didn't even manage to finish the whole thing before he died. Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth (sporked admirably over at das_sporking) is another example.

Now, you need both halves of the equation. The Dresden Files is a long series, but the individual books are of a sane length. A Song of Ice and Fire have very big individual novels, but probably needs one or two more before I'd classify it as a true doorstop. But your mileage may vary, of course.

What I remember though was that every fantasy reader I knew had ONE doorstop series they read religiously. And well, this one was mine. "The Wars of Light and Shadow" by Janny Wurts.

Now I'm cheating a little. I reread this series maybe ten years ago or so. So I do remember at least some of the overarching plot beats. That said, for a series this large, I've definitely forgotten more than I remember. Mostly I remember that the lead character is a total angst-hound, and a good portion of the series seems to be just having more and more horrible things happen to this poor son of a bitch. I remember reading a review where someone had gotten so sick of his emo wallowing that they just wanted the adversary to win once and for all. But I remember liking him, myself.

Sometimes I have a thing for the sad sack.

Anyway, I have NO idea how long a book this large will take. Let alone any of the sequels. So this ought to be fun.

--

However, I AM horrendously lazy, so I'm only starting with the prologue today. It's one page. I'll try not to strain myself.



So anyway, the Prologue of the series tells us that the series-titular "Wars of Light and Shadow" were fought in "the third age of Athera", which is the "most trouble and strife-filled era recorded in all of history."

Now, according to a religion founded at the time (it's not clear if at the time of the prologue, it's still a dominant religion), the Wars involved two figures: "the Lord of Light", who was "divinity incarnate" and a "Master of Shadow", whose given name is Arithon, who is a servant of evil. We're told that the "[t]emple archives attest with grandiloquent force to be the sole arbiters of truth"."

Present tense there, so presumably the religion IS still around.

The prologue tells us however, that there is contrary evidence, fragments of manuscript that supposedly reveal that the entire "religion of Light" is fraudulent. They call this Arithon fellow a saint and a mystic. The prologue thinks the truth is probably somewhere in between.

Apparently, this has led "sages in the seventh age" to do some nifty meditation and vision techniques to find out what actually happened. There's one surprise already: the story doesn't start on the world of Athera, which is the primary setting of the story, but in an ocean covered "splinter world" named Dascen Elur.

The series then is supposed to be the chronicles recovered by the sages. "Let each who reads determine the good and the evil for himself".

It's a little pretentious. But a reasonably good hook. I mean, it's pretty easy to predict which one the audience is meant to sympathize more with. (It wouldn't make for much of a story, in universe, if the church of Light was right, after all. And also, well, only one of these guys gets a given name.)

The prologue ends with a stanza from a ballad of this world:

All for the waste of Karthan's lands the Leopard sailed the main,

s'Ilessid King then cursed s'Ffalenn, who robbed him, gold and grain.

Well, on a scale from Lachlan to Menolly, it's...still pretty bad. Obviously the reader is not supposed to understand it. I, having read this series in the past, remember enough that it does make sense.

But honestly, both of those names are terrible for a song. "s'Ilessid" in particular is almost impossible to sing without some kind of spit flying out. "s'Ffalenn" is a little better, but still.

I was intrigued enough to continue actually, but then I flipped pages and well. Chapter One seems to be pretty fucking long. Maybe less so when I actually review it. But I'm lazy and sleepy, so you'll have to wait for another day.

Comments

[copperfyre]

Yaaaaaaay!

I'm excited!