By Jaine Fenn
This is Jaine Fenn’s second novel and while it’s set in the same universe as her first – Principals Of Angels – it is a very different thing, reading much more like a traditional fantasy novel.
It begins with Karin, a young, slightly rebellious widow in a small and remote village, out during a storm and looking for her young son, Damaru. She finds him on the moors standing over a naked, barely-alive stranger and together they take him back to their hut to nurse him back to health. Damaru appears simple and acts a little wayward but is tolerated for being ‘sky-touched’ – he can affect matter, move things around, by thinking – and he will eventually be taken to be tested by the Beloved Daughter, Cariad, who rules their world from The City Of Light, If Damaru passes the tests he will become a Consort of the Skymothers and Kerin, will be left living alone.
When the stranger comes to, he has complete amnesia. He names himself Sais, which means ‘Stranger’, and Kerin, who has saved his life, helps him to relearn what he has forgotten about their world in order to rebuild his memories. Pretty soon, as a widow facing the prospect of losing her only son, she begins to dream of a future with him but, as the jagged pieces of his memories start to return, Sais realises that all is not as it appears in this world, and a terrible lie has been controlling the fate of its people. Worse still, when he travels with Karin and Damaru to the city, the two of them discover the truth about the terrible fate of the Consorts and now they must unravel thousands of years of culture to save Damaru and the others like him before it is too late.
It’s difficult to dig deep into a review here without giving the ending away but I think it’s fair to say that there’s nothing terribly new here and it doesn’t take much guesswork to figure out where the story is going. Having said that, someone (obviously someone much smarter than me) once said that any plot twist should be “surprising and yet inevitable” and I think that’s what Jaine Fenn does really well; just when you think you know what’s going to happen next she sticks a lovely big twist into things, but one that makes perfect sense, leaving you surprised and delighted at once – difficult enough to pull off once but half a dozen times is pretty good going.
The writing is generally good, while there is a distinctly feminine feel to it, partly because of who the author is and partly I suspect because of the central characters POV it never gets too flowery and the pacing, given that it is not the most action-packed book, is superb, reeling you in chapter-by-chapter until you find yourself gripped by an ending that ties together nicely with Fenn’s previous novel. The characters too are nicely drawn, contrasting and complementing well, each of them growing and changing in tune with the revelations from Sais’ memory, though not always in ways they will immediately know or understand.
In a lot of ways the amnesia ‘trick’ is a smart move on the author’s part, as Sais is learning about this world he remembers nothing of, Fenn gets her characters to give us great chunks of world-building exposition as dialogue without it ever feeling forced or clumsy, we believe it because someone has to tell Sais how things are. It also allows her to build and grow the characters at a gentler pace and this slow process of discovery is intriguing for the resder. The flip side is that it’s a pretty big crutch to lean on and some of the lesser characters would have had to have been better developed had she not had this plot element to rely on and I think there were a few missed tricks there, particularly with the priests and chieftains.
All in all though, Consorts of Heaven is a very worthwhile read. Jaine Fenn clearly knows how to write a story and she does it in an entertaining and interesting way meshing together fantasy and science fiction very successfully proving beyond doubt that her next book – Guardians of Paradise – is very definitely one to look forward to.
Consorts of Heaven is published by Gollancz and is available from Play.com, Blackwell and all good book stores.
Jaine Fenn’s Occasional Blog can be found at www.jainefenn.com.