Hoffman, Erin: Sword of Fire and Sea
Sword of Fire and Sea (2011)
Written by: Erin Hoffman
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Pages: 277 (Trade Paperback)
Series: Book One (Chaos Knight)
Disclaimer: not only do I know the author personally (she was my roommate during the 2005 Odyssey Writer's Workshop), but she provided me this free copy of her book for review.
Why I Read It: If you haven't read the above disclaimer, then let me reiterate: I know the author. She was my roommate when I attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2005, which took up six weeks of my summer that year. So not to state the obvious, but yeah, I consider Erin to be a friend and I was ridiculously thrilled when I learned Pyr picked up her debut novel. She contacted me about reviewing the book and offered to send me a free copy: I told her she didn't have to, that I didn't want to cut into her sales, but after some discussion back and forth, I told her that if she wanted to send me a copy, I'd read it ASAP. If she'd rather I contribute to her sales, I'd buy my own copy, but it might wait a little while in the TBR. Needless to say, she sent me a free copy. :)
The premise: ganked from the publisher's website: Three generations ago Captain Vidarian Rulorat's great-grandfather gave up an imperial commission to commit social catastrophe by marrying a fire priestess. For love, he unwittingly doomed his family to generations of a rare genetic disease that follows families who cross elemental boundaries. Now Vidarian, the last surviving member of the Rulorat family, struggles to uphold his family legacy, and finds himself chained to a task as a result of the bride price his great-grandfather paid: the Breakwater Agreement, a seventy-year-old alliance between his family and the High Temple of Kara'zul, domain of the fire priestesses.
The priestess Endera has called upon Vidarian to fulfill his family's obligation by transporting a young fire priestess named Ariadel to a water temple far to the south, through dangerous pirate-controlled territory. A journey perilous in the best of conditions is made more so by their pursuers: rogue telepathic magic-users called the Vkortha who will stop at nothing to recover Ariadel, who has witnessed their forbidden rites.
Together, Vidarian and Ariadel will navigate more than treacherous waters: Imperial intrigue, a world that has been slowly losing its magic for generations, secrets that the priestesshoods have kept for longer, the indifference of their elemental goddesses, gryphons-once thought mythical-now returning to the world, and their own labyrinthine family legacies. Vidarian finds himself at the intersection not only of the world's most volatile elements, but of colliding universes, and the ancient and alien powers that lurk between them.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Do you know how hard it is to review a book written by not only someone you know, but someone you consider a friend and colleague? SO HARD. Calvani and Edwards would say I shouldn't do it to begin with, but forget that! Hoffman might be a friend, but our friendship developed out of our mutual love for the craft, which includes the critique of each other's work. In order to review this, I decided to break the review down into components: characters, plot, world-building, style, and nitpicks. I'll avoid spoilers, because this is a new book and I don't like spoiling new books, so read on with ease, but if you're paranoid anyway, skip to "My Rating."
I need to make something clear: when I keep mentioning I know the author, that we're friends, etc, it's not to brag: it's make sure YOU are fully aware of the biases I bring to my reading of the book. Fair? Fair. :)
Characters
If there's one thing most first-time novelists (not all) are guilty of (and I'm not excluded from this), it's that the secondary and minor characters are often more entertaining and interesting than the main heroes of the story. Why is this? Because with secondary and supporting characters, first-time novelists tend to think they have more freedom to let the characters act however they want. With our heroes and heroines, sometimes we try SO hard to make them likable that they can come off perfectly noble and fine, but bland.
In Sword of Fire and Sea, I'm not saying the leads are bland. I'm just saying I perked up more when reading Thalnarra's (the gryphon's) sections, or the scenes Ruby was in, or even the very brief but very entertaining scenes that Aldous easily stole. I think my favorite character was Aldous, for the very truly-spoken yet still entertaining line, "Be worthy of her, or I'll break your knees," on page 169. Oh, be still my beating heart! I love lines like this, especially the quiet humor of the delivery.
Again, that's not to say that Vidarian and Ariadel are boring. Vidarian faces increasingly tough decisions through-out the course of the book, especially regarding prophecy and his place in it. Ariadel was actually entertaining at first, especially regarding her attachment to a kitten, but by time the book ended, I wasn't really sure of her role, short of being a motivating factor for Vidarian to make a certain decision. I don't want to say more, because doing so would spoil the book, and also, I read it so fast that it's highly likely I just missed stuff, but right before climax, I can't say Ariadel had much purpose in the story, which meant that the relationship that formed between her and Vidarian felt chaste at best and non-existent at worst, meaning regardless of whatever kisses happened behind closed-doors, I was never really rooting for them as a couple because I wasn't emotionally attached. Ruby and Vidarian had far more chemistry together (a little antagonism goes a long way), and there was a point at the end I thought the book would end VERY DIFFERENTLY, and I'll be honest, I was VERY INTERESTED in where I thought it was ending. Hoffman surprised me though, and without getting into spoilers, I'll talk about that next.
Plot
Plot is an odd little beast in this book. And I've been giving this quite a bit of thought since reading, and the only thing I can do is make a comparison to figure out what works and what doesn't. If you've read The Lord of the Rings in its entirety (the whole trilogy) or at least seen the films, you know that where the story starts in The Fellowship of the Ring bears very little resemblance to the story we get in The Two Towers, let alone The Return of the King, wherein the story is more than just Frodo destroying the One Ring of Power, but it's also about Aragorn reclaiming the lost throne of Gondor (forgive me, btw, as I just finished watching the extended editions of the whole trilogy on BluRay, so it's really fresh on my mind). What connects the entire book/trilogy is that through every part, the stakes are clear: the Ring must be destroyed, or Middle Earth will be covered in darkness and Sauron, the dark lord, will destroy everything. Pretty simple, right? Even Aragorn's story is built slowly from the start, to the point where by the end, his resolution is just as important as the Ring's.
Now compare this to Hoffman's debut, which isn't even 300 pages (and also the first in a series/trilogy/something, so maybe this comparison is highly unfair). The book is divided into three parts, and each part has its own clear arc and its own climax of the arc. However, I found myself a little confuzzled while reading. Oh, there was nothing wrong, and events seemed to be leading into each other, but I realized there was very little that was really connecting the whole book together. Arc #1 happens, and then Arc #2 happens, and then Arc #3 happens, and the book ends. The arcs relate to each other, but when we start the book, we have no idea of the major story that's driving us toward the end. Indeed, for such a short book, it felt like a lot was packed in and I was being whisked along at quite the brisk pace, which meant at times, I wasn't seeing the connections very properly, or understanding why characters didn't react they way I think they should (Vidarian learning of the prophecy) or the way characters acted period (oh, Endera . . . if you weren't serving the whims of the story, you wouldn't exist at all). Again, I'll stress that I was reading this sucker at the speed of light, so it's very likely I just overlooked things. But that still doesn't excuse the fact that sometimes, the action was happening so fast I lost track of what was happening where, and at times, I could've sworn the author lost track too (a character might get out of a boat, and then a page later they were in the boat as if they'd never left at all, then they get out again). I could be wrong about this, I could've been reading too fast, but the action scenes got a bit messy. Hey, it happens, especially in first time novels!
I also found a certain lack of obstacles. While there's conflict, things seem to happen a little too smoothly, too easily, and the conflict that's there sometimes feels like it was inserted because there needed to be token resistance. This attributed to a lack of tension I felt through-out the novel, scenes where Vidarian knows he and his party is in danger, yet they still spend the night in the very city where the danger will strike? What's the point of the danger if a character isn't going to take it seriously and get out of there OR face serious consequences for not heeding the warning? Neither happens here, which is why I feel like all resistance is token and things are a little too easy.
But what really shines in the plot is how, at the very end, Hoffman brings things together and surprises the reader and really creates some consequences for her characters. While I'm still not sold on the sudden, convenient onset of the Blood Plague (that's not as spoilery as it sounds, trust me), I do love how it motivated Vidarian, how it made him realize what he really cared about (even if the emotional part of me was asleep), and most important of all, who ended up suffering as a consequence of Vidarian's actions. That was awesome. Even more awesome was learning that despite the consequences, it appears Vidarian made the right decision, and Hoffman gives us a happy tease about what the next book might look like in terms of conflict and world-building, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested.
World-Building
I think this book really shines in its world-building, namely the gryphons, which the author clearly loves. While I admit to some initial confusion as to why Vidarian couldn't just ride on the back of one (we find out why later in a rather excellent show-don't-tell scene) or why the gryphons just don't fly Vidarian directly where he needs to go (to the priestess temple, for example), I feel like the gryphons' culture is certainly in place, and I'm slowly uncovering it while reading. While I have questions about why certain things don't happen, I firmly believe the author knows, it's just coming across as clearly in translation from head to page. That or I'm reading to fast. :) At any rate, it's clear that much love has gone into the gryphons.
I, personally, adore the little details: the use of the sea witch, which oddly strikes me as familiar, so I'm not sure if this is a common myth or something Hoffman made up (maybe I read it in a previous draft/synopsis?), but I adored them to pieces. Ruby's tattoos also caught my attention, and I'd love to see an artist's rendition of them. Also? Spider-Kitten! That's all I'll say about that. :)
Then, of course, there's the magic system: fans of elemental magic should enjoy this, as elemental magic seems to be tied firmly to both elements and one's blood, which is rather fascinating, especially the Blood Plague (which pops up oddly in this book, but meh). I liked the little mention that in this world, men cannot wield the greater magics. That's a nice change from the usual "women can't do this" trope we see in fantasy and science fiction (before a certain woman blows said trope out of the water).
I also got the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Hoffman's deities may be influenced by Greek or Roman deities, especially in the way they treat mortals.
Style
I've read Hoffman before this book, and she has a lovely style. When she describes something, she really manages to evoke a great image, and I highlighted this particular sentence on page 161:
Most ships used it to bypass the horn if they could, an dthe reasons why were looming on the horizon: anvil-headed clouds, dark as a betrayer's heart, and a cold wind that drove them toward the knife-reefed coast.
Dark as a betrayer's heart. I just adore that description, and I want to steal it. :)
Hoffman has an interesting way of zeroing in on a detail and describing the hell out of it. In fact, even though I know this particular method of description is related to her world-building where jewels are an important part of the story, I was reminded while reading of a critic that mentioned that author Catherynne M. Valente had a jewel fetish, and one could almost accuse Hoffman of the same thing in this book, because jewels pop up often in her descriptions of things. :)
Despite my admiration of Hoffman's descriptive detail, sometimes I found myself completely unable to picture the setting, or sometimes the mechanics of how something worked. I pondered this, and I think it's because Hoffman sometimes focuses on micro-detail: a particular shift of an eye, the fall of cloth, the weave of a basket, the glint of light, and at times, her macro detail sometimes suffers. I might know what the dinner table spread looks like, but what kind of room the characters are in sometimes, not always, is lost to me, which is a problem when it's time to block an action scene, because I have no idea where a character is and how said character's actions are effecting the spatial area around him/her. As I said before, action scenes are hard, and often, I had a hard time visualizing the action properly.
But there were stylistic decisions that jarred me: the VOICE in Vidarian's head likes using modern colloquialisms far too much, and unless that voice is from our world? Boo!!!! Sure, it's an easy way to distinguish this particular character from everyone else in the world, but it's more jarring than Peter Beagle's taco comment in The Last Unicorn and even less amusing, and I didn't find the taco comment amusing. It boils down to the fact that I don't want to be taken out of the book, and there's ways to make a character sound different and flippant without resorting to modern-speech in a novel that's devoid of it.
On the whole, though, I think Hoffman's style is strong and promising. There's certainly room for improvement in terms of visually blocking a scene, and really, these are things that I think are a result of this being Hoffman's first novel, as I've read short stories of hers that don't have these issues. And when her writing is good, it is good.
Nitpicks
The font was too tiny, and since I wasn't reading this on my Kindle, I couldn't make the font bigger. Sadness. But seriously, I know if the font had been larger, the book would've probably broken the 300 page mark, and let's face it, there's something really appealing about an EPIC FANTASY being under 300 pages, isn't there? It's an oxymoron, but a lovely one. Still, the tiny font did not make my eyes happy, and I'm personally hoping I don't need to change my prescription for my glasses.
Also, the title puts me to sleep. Not only does it make me think of Tor.com's posts about generic fantasy titles (I wish I could find that post!), but especially given HBO's recent airing of Game of Thrones, I can't get the series title of A Song of Ice and Fire out of my brain, and I swear: I can't write Sword of Fire and Sea without hesitating and making sure I'm typing the right thing, damn it. The rhythm of the two is pretty much identical, they both include the word "fire" and the words "song" and "sword" are not that far from each other when it comes to the ear either.
On one hand, given the world-building, I suspect the other titles in the series will relate to the elements, so continuity is a nice thing. Also, Vidarian's sword does, somehow, relate to fire and sea magic, even if I don't understand how it all works and why it's important (it's pretty to read about, but . . . ). And I do understand that such a title speaks to the target audience. One can't look at that title and think it's anything BUT fantasy, you know? Yet I really wish the powers-that-be could've come up with a title a little more eye-and-ear-catching, because let's face it, if you have the title independent of the cover, is it really going to make you wonder what the story is about? If so, you're a less jaded reader than I am.
My Rating: Worth Reading, with Reservations
I should note: the main reservation for this rating is that I know the author and am therefore not the best objective judge for the content. Because what I love I wildly love, but what bugs me just irks me to pieces, because at one time, we were crit partners. :) So please take that reservation into account and as with any book, grab yourself a sample and see how you like it.
There's a heckuva lot of story packed into these 277 pages, so much story, in fact, that you'll be surprised you're not reading a longer book. There's some issues, but most of those issues are symptomatic with being a debut, and such issues will iron themselves out as the author pens more and more novels. And I think the length is a great thing that recommends this book to readers who want to lose themselves in a fantasy but don't want to give themselves carpal tunnel in the process. The book's length is quite admirable, and fans of elemental magic will have fun discovering how Hoffman's world works. The gryphons are delightful as well, and Hoffman ends the book on such a note that I hope she gets to publish the second in this series (trilogy?) so that we can see what happens next. No, this book DOES NOT end on a cliffhanger, but it does end in such a way that you know there's at least one more story to be told, and I know I'm looking forward to seeing what that story is. And not just because the author is a friend of mine.
Cover Commentary: I appreciate the art. It's quite colorful and eye-catching, conveying the fantasy elements quite nicely without looking like a standard, generic fantasy cover. However, it's not my kind of art. It's pretty, but not my thing. That said, the color alone would probably catch my eye in the store if the book were facing out, and it's fun to see a gryphon!
Next up: Fire by Kristin Cashore