Different perspectives
Just finished a very good book, Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. It’s got the whole package: compelling plot, well-drawn characters, good writing, humor. It’s just good stuff. And it’s also interesting because it’s a fantasy based on the medieval Middle East and not Europe.
Saladin Ahmed is a second generation Arab American and a practicing Muslim, which means he’s not coming at his story with a background in Middle Eastern history that only extends as far as the Arabian Nights. So his book is not just a collection of terrible salaam-and-good-evening clichés. There is some of that-for example, one of the main characters and his friend call each other “Buzzard Beak” and “Six Teeth”-but the characters are real people who live within a real depiction of civilization with a deep and profound culture.
His handling of the Islam-analogue religion is masterly. Religion is a central facet in the lives of every character-as it should be in a medieval novel. After all, these are the days of the khalifate (and in Europe of the all-seeing Roman Church). But they relate to their religion in so many different ways, from the confident old demon hunter to the troubled dervish to the terrible fanaticism others show. It’s something like what Kay achieved in The Lions of al-Rassan, but more impressive since Kay had multiple religions to work with while Ahmed is showing the subtle shadings of one, and one that usually gets short shrift in our culture.
Anyway, great author, great book, and it stands alone, so even if you’re not excited about potential sequels, you can enjoy Book One and then put the story aside.
Saladin Ahmed is a second generation Arab American and a practicing Muslim, which means he’s not coming at his story with a background in Middle Eastern history that only extends as far as the Arabian Nights. So his book is not just a collection of terrible salaam-and-good-evening clichés. There is some of that-for example, one of the main characters and his friend call each other “Buzzard Beak” and “Six Teeth”-but the characters are real people who live within a real depiction of civilization with a deep and profound culture.
His handling of the Islam-analogue religion is masterly. Religion is a central facet in the lives of every character-as it should be in a medieval novel. After all, these are the days of the khalifate (and in Europe of the all-seeing Roman Church). But they relate to their religion in so many different ways, from the confident old demon hunter to the troubled dervish to the terrible fanaticism others show. It’s something like what Kay achieved in The Lions of al-Rassan, but more impressive since Kay had multiple religions to work with while Ahmed is showing the subtle shadings of one, and one that usually gets short shrift in our culture.
Anyway, great author, great book, and it stands alone, so even if you’re not excited about potential sequels, you can enjoy Book One and then put the story aside.