The fantasy debut of historian David B. Coe is a highly readable adventure with a freshness and appeal that too many modern fantasies lack. I found the tale enjoyably unpretentious, avoiding obvious Tolkienisms, with characterization superior to most of what is being sold and touted these days as the best of the best. Yet it is slightly flawed in that the plot, though impressively focused, is too languid in its pacing and loaded with predictable "surprises" that flatten suspense when it should be peaking. Thus its appeal is pretty much limited to readers already into VLFN's.
Coe's story roots itself in a popular mythic tradition: a youth of humble origin who is destined for greatness. The story is set on the peninsula of Tobyn-Ser, which is governed by a benevolent order of mages called the Children of Amarid. These mages generally keep a low profile but are known by their signature green cloaks, crystal-tipped staffs, and by the hawks or owls that are their familiars. (The Children of Amarid have a checkered history, stained by a vicious falling out between Amarid and his friend-turned-rival Theron, who laid a curse upon any mage who dies at a time he happens to lack a familiar.) Jaryd is the son of a blacksmith who discovers one night to his shock and chagrin that he has prescient dreams. He soon learns that his uncle Baden has been a Child of Amarid for years and that both his grandmother and great-grandmother were powerful, famous mages. So Jaryd finds himself journeying to the city of Amarid with Baden to be initiated into the order.
But there is strife in Tobyn-Ser. It appears that a group of renegade mages is, for reasons unknown, committing wanton murder, havoc, and destruction. The Children of Amarid are no longer trusted by many people, and the order is threatened. Baden believes that the violence is being perpetrated by no less than the restless spirit of Theron and the spirits of the dead mages who fell under his curse. Baden's suggestion that a delegation from the order should visit Theron's Grove, from which no human has emerged alive in hundreds of years, causes something of a controversy, to say the least. As does Baden's insistense that young Jaryd, who is still uninitiated, accompany the delegation. Jaryd is having his strange dreams again, this time of a mysterious hooded mage with an ominous black bird. Baden is convinced Jaryd is destined to become one of the most powerful mages ever; clearly, the boy possesses a link to current events no one else does.
But another possibility that cannot be ignored is that Theron has nothing to do with the attacks, and that there is a traitor within the order. With all these dark possibilities looming, Jaryd joins Baden, his fellow initiate (and love interest) Alayna, and several high-ranking mages on an uncertain journey.
The novel is pretty talky, but thankfully Coe has a good ear for dialogue and his characters' conversations are unstilted and often witty, both propelling the story and providing appealing insights into character. Jaryd is a likable hero as well as a convincing 18-year-old. He has a somewhat rebellious streak, dismayed by many of the staid and ineffectual traditions of the Children; he's hung up on girls to boot. Each of the other characters is extremely well-developed, beautifully humanized in a way that makes you relate to them as real people and not merely as rote figures on a character sheet. Coe also handles scenes of mayhem with appropriate visceral horror, and when he introduces us to the real perpetrators of the violence, he gets points for cleverness if not jaw-dropping originality. The interesting inclusion of SF elements also gives the story a leg up.
But throughout, the story's pace rarely shifts past second gear. The narrative and its characters, brought to life by Coe's elegant and pleasing-to-read prose, will carry die-hard fans of high fantasy through the tale's lulls, but casual readers might stamp their feet in impatience. Sometimes Coe disrupts his tale's momentum through some narrative backpedalling. An entire scene will be rehashed from the beginning simply to offer us another character's point of view.
And sadly, the suspense in the second half of the novel is hampered as Coe gets predictable in many of his double-crosses and reveals (though there is one doozy of a surprise near the end). The plot doesn't fail logically — in fact, I was most impressed by how Coe avoided the trap so many VLFN writers fall into, of overplotting and cluttering their novels so heavily that all is confusion. But most of the flaws in Children of Amarid are the kind of thing that one would expect to find in a first novel (such as two climaxes), and for which it is easy to give a fledgling writer a break. After all, when you consider how easy it is for the average VLFN to lapse into a pointless exercise in the regurgitation of clichés, Coe has really achieved quite a lot with this debut effort. Had it been about 400-450 pages instead of nearly 600 (and it could have been easily), I'd have admired it that much more.
Children of Amarid shows Coe at the onset of his career still developing his storytelling chops and obviously enjoying himself doing it. There are definite indications this trilogy will get much more intriguing as it progresses, so fantasy fans ought not let it pass them by. I will certainly read more David Coe in the future. Followed by The Outlanders.
