Campbell, Barbara: Foxfire
Foxfire (Trickster's Game #3) (2009)
Written by: Barbara Campbell
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Pages: 628 (Mass Market Paperback)
I might have been late reading Bloodstone, but considering the third and final volume in the Tickster's Game trilogy was just released this year, I feel like I'm on top of things! Finishing this trilogy is just another baby-step in my personal goal of catching up on and completing the serials I've got on my shelves. One down. SO MANY MORE to go.
The premise: taken from the author's website, because I'm evil like that: On the bleak northern moors, Darak and his family begin a new life, free from the prejudices of their tribe and the looming threat of the Zherosi. But their past continues to haunt them, and choices made years ago threaten their future as surely as the armies that raze their forests.
As rebellion spreads and the tribes fight for survival, a new force enters the game--Rigat, the youngest son of Darak and Griane. Gifted with magic far greater than Keirith’s, Rigat is the only one who might be able to save his people. Aided by the Trickster, he embarks on a dangerous game of deception that will determine the future of the children of the Oak and Holly--and the fate of the gods they worship.
Review style: if I'd reviewed this book sooner (sorry folks, I've been distracted), you would've gotten far more in-depth. Instead, you're gonna get something stream-of-conscious that has the POTENTIAL of going in-depth, but may or may not get there. Spoilers? Yes, because it's the end of the trilogy and I want to talk about how that makes me feel. :)
One thing I've noticed is that each book of Campbell's trilogy focuses on a different character: Heartwood was Darak's story. Bloodstone was Keirith's. And now Foxfire is Rigat's. But there's one problem I have with this set-up: in each subsequent book, we still get bits and pieces of the previous story woven in. And I don't mean plot necessarily, though that's part of it. But that's a natural part. I'm talking character. Foxfire is meant to be Rigat's story, but it begins and ends with Keirith's POV. It completes Darak's TOTAL arc in terms of characterization and growth and, well, his death.
I point this out because this, while adding more layers and depth to the characters we've already grown to know and love, became a weakness of the book, and I daresay the trilogy. I'll admit I have a growing preference for really tight books: minimal points of view especially. That doesn't mean I can't read and enjoy books with MULTIPLE points of view either. I did just fine with George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. But what happened here was that rather that focusing on one character's struggle and story (and honestly, I'm glad it just wasn't Rigat for reasons I'll explain later), the story and struggle of OTHER characters was dragged out. I was so tired of Keirith in this book that I didn't care if he lived or died, and that's not really a good thing to feel about a character you're supposed to be rooting for. Thankfully, this wasn't just the reader's problem: Keirith's family was well aware of his funk and sulk, and there are several times in the narrative where people call him out on it. I just wish, for my own selfish reasons, that the Keirith we left in Bloodstone wasn't the same Keirith we had to deal with for Foxfire, which takes place fifteen years later.
Darak's involvement really didn't bother me all that much, but I felt sorry for him as a fixture in the narrative. Let's face it: this is the final book of a trilogy, with a character who keeps getting older and going through various forms of hell with each passing book. Was I surprised by his death? Hell no. I was expecting it. Campbell did handle it well. I didn't expect it to read as emotional as it did, but I was still expecting it the whole time. Same with Griane, because really, what else was left for her? Not because Darak died, but from a narrative point of view. There's nothing, but ending her life with the Trickster in her arms was a very lovely touch. I don't know how Campbell pulled that little "triangle" off between Griane, Darak, and the Trickster, but she did it without making me hate any of the parties involved, and that's an impressive feat.
But let's focus on Rigat. The whole time, his characterization bugged me. We'd go back and forth between a character I wanted to care about and one I wanted to slap silly, which is appropriate given his age, his abilities, and his need to please. But it wasn't until I was almost done with the book that I realized that Rigat? He's Anakin Skywalker. You know, the guy who goes all Darth Vader in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith? The characters are SO similar: two boys gifted with extraordinary power, always seeking to please a father who can't be pleased, who takes it upon themselves to save a struggling world, who turns to the wrong mentor (in Rigat's case, the queen, not Fellgair), and ends up hurting the people they love the most.
Classic. Yet frustrating. Frustrating because so much of the plot, if you poked at it, fell apart at the seams.
First, I loved the idea of Rigat taking on the mantle of the Son of Zhe. That was great, and really lent weight to Rigat's remark earlier in the book to Keirith, how it'd take two brothers working together to accomplish something great. But we got away from that, but not even focusing on the Son of Zhe aspect, let's look at the overall conflict.
The Zherosi are essentially taking over the land and colonizing/enslaving its people. Okay, fine. Rigat wants to change all that, but for reasons that are never really clear (to me) or compelling, the queen makes sure her orders for a truce are delayed so she gets what she wants. And what, exactly does she want? I understand the commerce side of it, but I never got a solid argument from her POV that convinced me that delaying the truce was truly necessary. And then there's Geriv. This is what truly unraveled the plot for me, because so much of his actions, and truly the queen's as well, were ALL based on misunderstanding or misinformation. The queen believed that Keirith murdered Malaq in Bloodstone and subsequently murdered Xehvan. So does Geriv, even though he was there for most of the truth, if not all of it. Okay, so maybe it's really hard for him to believe that Xehvan was the actual murderer and his death was a direct result of that, but damn it. I know the truth. So do all of the other readers. Why do the main points of conflict rest on such misunderstanding? It was frustrating to read, and I can't think of an similar instance where this happened and didn't frustrate me. I don't like being smarter than the characters, even the villains. If anything, I want the opportunity to embrace both sides, so the tension is that much greater. Instead, I knew Geriv was wrong all along, and I just knew (because it was the last book in the trilogy) that characters I've been rooting for all along were going to suffer because Geriv wouldn't face the facts.
I don't know. There was a lot about the conflict that just frustrated me, and to be honest, I can pinpoint if it's just me as a reader, or Campbell's handling of the subject matter, or a little bit of both. It may just be that I'm not fond of conflict based on misunderstanding, and there was a lot of that in this book. Worse, I really wasn't rooting for anyone. At one point, I though Geriv's actions might lead to something truly game-changing for all the people of the Oak and Holly: I wanted him to go after the One Tree. It'd make sense, wouldn't it, since the Zherosi were loggers? Talk about a symbolic if Darak and his people had to defend the one thing that defined their people. But we never got that, but rather personal vendettas carried out man-to-man. It really wasn't satisfying to see Rigat go after the people he did, even if they deserved it. That may have been the point, but still. Even the killing of Faelia didn't faze me. Part of that was due to Faelia's character. I never could sympathize with her, mostly because of her selfish choice of forcing her father to join the rebellion to begin with. I never felt she was right, so I never rooted for her through-out the novel, and therefore never grieved. It would've been more satisfying if it'd been Griane who'd taken that arrow (wasn't she leaping in front of it?) instead. Rigat would've been forced to save her there and then, but that would've ended things too quickly, wouldn't it?
I'm sorry: I keep talking about the things that frustrated me, like conflict hinged on misunderstanding or willful ignorance, like characters who ended up as nothing more than victims (even Fellgair), but more disappointing was the fact that the end really didn't feel like an end at all. While the people escaped to the First Forest, no one really won, did they? Nothing was resolved. Perhaps that's more indicative of real life, but for something like this, I wanted a little more. A small portion of the people of the Oak and Holly escaped, but the Zherosi still claim that land, and despite Keirith's efforts to make sure people know the tales, there's a cynical side of me that's certain it won't matter in the end. Also, the queen's story was never truly resolved either. Sure, she ended up with another husband she could manipulate through the use of drugs, but how disappointing is that? We never saw Rigat claim his own against her, nor did we get her reaction to his death. Plus, I was never convinced that his being in her kingdom was necessary for its survival. But that's me.
See? I can't stop picking at the stuff that bugged me. That said, I did like many things in this book. It's just there's a lot of pages full of a lot of stuff that really doesn't leave ANYONE better or worse off than when the book began. Oh sure, people are now dead, but has anything in the land truly changed? No. And that's what disappointed me the most. It also took 600 pages to get Keirith off his mopey ass too, so there's that. There's just a lot in this book that I wish was different, and because of the way it ended, I wouldn't be surprised if I saw some kind of follow-up to the trilogy. It just didn't feel . . . resolved. Even Keirith's relationship with Hircha is a big fat question mark, so really, what did this book end me with? The end of the Darak's, Griane's, and Fellgair's stories, but not a resolution to what those stories unleashed into the world.
And just what exactly was the Trickster's Game anyway? Sure, we know that Fellgair had high hopes for Rigat, and I don't mind seeing those hopes dashed really, but we never really got to see how the game connected from book to book. We never saw the godlike bigger picture. Instead, we got Fellgair's meddling in events that were pretty much already underway. Sure, he sired Rigat on Griane, and that was very intentional, but Rigat wasn't, story-wise, the missing piece of the puzzle that made everything click. There were times I thought it might, but Rigat was far too human, and too young to not fall prey to those older and stronger and more manipulative. And tell me, while I'm still nitpicking: when Rigat saved his mom (for the time-being), why'd he pick the fight with Keirith instead of going out and TELLING THE ZHEROSI TROUPS TO STOP!?!?!? Sure, he wanted to die, but he could die AFTER he stopped the bloody attack, couldn't he? They didn't have to know he was drained of power. They thought he was the Son of Zhe, and they'd listen.
Stuff like that: when reading, I don't want to think of alternatives, and it kept happening and even when it didn't, I kept trying to come up with them.
Oh well. It was Campbell's first trilogy, and as such, it's not surprising it has its flaws. Certainly, there's something to enjoy, otherwise I wouldn't have finished. After all, the characters were believable. And the world-building was EXCELLENT, as was Campbell's descriptive passages. I could learn a lot from just reading her prose (description is my weakness, yo), so I'm glad I've read it. However, I'm very much looking forward to something different from her in the future. :)
My Rating
Give It Away: which is a hard rating for me to give. Because I sort of know the author, and I really, really, REALLY like the author. And I'll be honest: I couldn't have written something like this, so I applaud that she was able to write an epic fantasy trilogy with such detail and description and well-realized characters. It's her "first" effort, and as a writer, it's not a stretch at all to say that Campbell's got potential, and I'm really, really, REALLY looking forward to her future books. I want to see what else she's capable of, and based on what I've read so far, I think she's capable of a lot.
That said, the trilogy's final installment didn't satisfy me the way I'd hoped, but I think that's in part due to my own personal bias when it comes to reading fiction. And an important note: Heartwood, the first book, is essentially a stand-alone. You can read the second book, Bloodstone, without reading Heartwood (though you'll miss important character-building stuff), but you cannot, absolutely CANNOT, read the third and final installment, Foxfire, without having read at least Bloodstone.
Should you give the trilogy a shot? Heartwood remains my favorite of the trilogy. I love Campbell's focus on tribal people, as that's not something I've seen often in epic fantasy unless it's to vilify them. And the latter conflict between the tribal people and the Mediterranean-like peoples is also compelling--again, it's something I haven't personally seen all that often in fantasy, so I was happy for something different. And again, Campbell does a great job with setting and world-building. It's just that the trilogy didn't resolve on the emotional note that I wished, and I'm happy to acknowledge that may be more my fault than the author's. If you're interested, I'd say you should start with Heartwood, especially since it can be read as a stand-alone.
Cover Commentary: in terms of design? I think this is my favorite cover. First off, it LOOKS like the type of fantasy novel it is. Something magical, something in which reality may not be what it appears to be. And it features the Trickster! Yay for Fellgair! My only complaint about the cover is the font choice and style for Campbell's name. It looks too PhotoShop-y with the glowing letters. And I am sorry that they changed the overall design, because now the covers don't match at all. However, I still stand by my assessment that Bloodstone looked too sword-and-sorcery, and Heartwood, while my favorite from an artistic standpoint, looked too much like a romance novel. But that's me. :) This cover is green, and green makes me happy. :)