Carol Berg: Breath and Bone
Breath and Bone
Author: Carol Berg
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 449
Final Thoughts: Another stunning story from Carol.
This is the sequel to Flesh and Spirit, which really ought to be read first.
I chose this as one of my required books this term for one entirely selfish reason. Carol is one of my very favorite authors and I knew this book was coming out at the beginning of the term and I wanted to be sure I had time to read it. What better way to do that than to incorporate it into my curriculum?!
But in all honesty, there are several elements of Carol's writing that I can only hope to achieve in my own work. The first is a powerful first-person voice; the second is the knack for developing full and entirely believable worlds without inundating the reader with unnecessary information; the third is an unparalleled ability to totally fleece me (and other readers, from conversations with fellow fans) and turn things upside down just when I think I know what's going on. All of this both contributes to and is held together by the intricate weaving of so many threads one begins to lose count. To call this writing a masterwork tapestry of words would not be an exaggeration.
This is the second of two books; it was originally meant to be a single stand-alone story, but it grew and had to be split before publication. And because I am both moderately lazy and don't feel that I'm all that good at on-the-spot synopsis writing, I'll send you to Carol's website and its basic info on the Lighthouse Duo books to get the stage: Look! Non-spoilery set-up!
I already mentioned that Carol has a knack for throwing me for loops, and in true form, she handed out the first axis-tilting shock within the first 50 pages of Breath and Bone. I had to suppress the urge to drop this book and go back to the first one just to re-read it with this new knowledge, and it still just flattens me when I stop to think about it.
It's hard to order all my thoughts, because they bounce around too much to grab anything and type it out.
The Danae are a fascinating culture and people, half-faerie and half-mythological nymphs, dyads, and other nature protectors. Each is connected to a natural location, whether a spring, meadow, mountain, seashore, or something else entirely, and their magical connection with it in their own realm also fosters its health in the mortal realm, which overlays the Danae realm. The idea of gards - in Carol's words, "a cohesive design of magical light on a Danae's body" - and their progressive appearance after the four formal stages of development was a particularly deft twist on the manifestation and use of magical power.
Valen's struggle with his dual heritage, both Danae and human, provides plenty of personal conflict for him, even as he must decide whether to trust his liege lord, Prince Osriel, who Valen has seen perform unspeakably evil magics. That's when he's not fighting his old drug addiction, chasing the traitor who kidnapped a young boy, or escaping the clutches of the crazed Sila Diaglou, who is determined to obliterate all civilization to appease an ancient god.
It's worth mentioning that Carol also always does a wonderful job of making her "fantasy coincidences", which we all expect (Oh! This secondary character just happens to have crucial information at exactly the right time!), seem not just unobtrusive but inevitable. Everything is so solidly connected that it couldn't have been anyone else who supplied that piece of information. It gives her work an extra feeling of tightness and cohesion that many epic fantasies lack.
And I love the ending - the perfect balance, fulfillment for Valen, work still to do and boundless hope for the future. Everything a fantasy is meant to be.
I'm sure that if I gave myself a day to write about everything, I could put many more thoughts into words, but I don't think that's necessary. I'm planning to go through F&S and B&B sometime this summer with a more thorough analysis of the pacing and tracing all the threads through the entire story.
Suffice to say that I highly recommend both Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone to anyone who wants a compelling epic fantasy worth every minute of reading.
Book #4