Freeman, Pamela: Blood Ties
Blood Ties: Book One of the Castings Trilogy (2008)
Written by: Pamela Freeman
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Pages: 471
I'll be honest: it was the cover that attracted me to this book. The blurb sounded interesting enough to indulge my curiosity, so I bought it. But a funny thing happened when I started reading, back in March. I liked it, but I ended up putting it down and not picking it up again for another three months. I think what happened, looking back, was my anti-reading phase had kicked in, and my brain refused to be engaged by a book that was nearly 500 pages, even though before I put it down, I went to the store and bought the second book in the trilogy, Deep Water. Weird, I tell ya. Weird. But I picked it back up, finished reading (finally!) and now, I bring you the review.
The premise: Thousands of years ago, the Eleven Domains were invaded and its natives were pushed onto the road, to be known as Travelers. Now the Eleven Domains are governed by Warlords, but the natives haven't all forgotten the betrayals of the past, and some seek to right the wrongs done to their people. There's Saker, an enchanter who'll do anything to return the land back to the natives; Ash, a safeguarder who has a talent that feels like a curse; and Bamble, a wild, carefree girl who is forced to the road when she kills a Warlord's man. This book, the first in a trilogy, braids these character's stories together while giving the reader a rich world and its history, and it sets up for a battle that's yet to come.
Review style: this one will be a little different. Each character has his or her own story, and unlike more familiar books, like George R.R. Martin, the characters don't meet up (some not at all) until the very end, so we have three stories braided together to form the book, which is more set-up than anything, but very good and enjoyable set-up. So, for the sake of the review, I will be talking spoilers, and I'll divide the review into four sections: one for the three main characters, and one extra that discusses what Freeman does that's a little special in terms of world-building.
Bamble
Of all the characters, I think Bamble's story is the richest, though perhaps that's biased on my part, because of the three main characters, Bamble is the only female. But I found her story to be both familiar but different and all the time heartening. The back of the book is misleading, because it states she's forced to flee for a crime she didn't commit. Make no mistake: she kills the Warlord's man, even though it was an accident. She steals his horse, teaches herself how to ride, and discovers she has a talent, maybe somewhat horse-whispery in nature, with horses that allows her to train the animal with ease. Normally, such a thing would have me rolling my eyes and flinging the book across the room (when you grow up with horses, you get a little tired of "magical relationships" that pop up over and over in fantasy), but Freeman handles Bamble's talent with an ease that makes the whole horse-connection plausible. It straddles the line between a magical ability and what we call in the real world "horse whispering" and I think that's why it works, for its basis in reality.
At any rate, Bamble is of Traveler blood and longs to be on the Road. Killing the Warlord's man just gives her an excuse (and I don't mean that as flippantly as I make it sound), and that action leads to some really interesting elements to her story. The first, when the roan (she doesn't name the Warlord's horse, because she believes that naming him is claiming him, and he belongs to himself) leaps a cliff and makes it, and in doing so, shrugs her back on his shoulder when she starts to slip. What's fascinating is that this was meant to be her death, but the horse intervened, and for half of the book from that point, Bamble goes through life in a state of shadow. She feels nothing, her senses are dulled, her spirit is separated from her and is struggling to catch back up. I loved this, because I hadn't quite seen anything like this done before. I also like how she's in tune with her animal, and knows to stop when he gives her the clue, which is what leads her to Gorham the horse-trainer, where she spends many years working with him and helping him train animals. This is where she discovers the chases, something very much like horse-racing, and wins the race that makes her the Kill Reborn, which is a very auspicious thing to be, as she's believed to be blessed by the gods. When she wins, her spirit catches up with her, and from this point on, her story's focus narrows.
One would think that all of this is random and unimportant, but not so: Freeman's use of the gods is actually very nicely incorporated into the world, and I love how Bamble, at times, can literally feel the gods with her. It's important because a certain Warlord, Thegan, is starting a campaign to unite the Eleven Domains, to become Warlord over all, and Bamble's win is a sign to him and his people that the gods favor this campaign. But when he tries to force Bamble to join him (to train his horses and warm his bed) she defies him and takes to the Road once more, which brings her to the Lake Dwellers (which I suspect figures prominently in the second book) and later, to the character Ash.
Oh, and her romance with Leof, how bittersweet and wonderful. I hate how blindsighted she is to his character, but I love how his feelings for her influence him and allow her to escape, how his feelings protect her. I hope we see them together again, not necessarily in a romantic way, but in a way where Leof has to make a bigger choice than that he's already made, where he'll betray the Warlord Thegan.
Ash
Of all the POVs, Ash's was the one I had the most trouble with. It's not that he's an unlikable character by any means. The problem is he's so likable that you fear for his story and his future, as he's at the mercy of his employer, Doronit, who clearly has plans for him that are clearly NOT GOOD. So you worry for him. A lot. His attraction to Doronit makes his especially susceptible to her machinations, so I was thrilled to see how that story came to an end with the character of Martine, a stonecaster who Ash befriends while on a job, and in the end, choses her (an older lady, I might add) over Doronit. It's especially fulfilling because Ash finally recognizes that the only way to get what he wants, Doronit, is to become the killer he's not meant to be, so he chooses Martine and flees with her.
There's not much I have to say with Ash's story, other than the fact that we learn a lot about how ghosts figure into this world (we learned some of it in Bamble's section too), and I simply love what Freeman does with the quickening, with the ghost's voices, and I love how Ash has the voice of the dead that compels the ghosts to speak. It's fantastic, and I can't wait to see how his talent plays out over the course of the trilogy. He's a strong, capable character who's vulnerable in a very likable way, and I was glad when his and Martine's path finally crosses Bamble's. There's a part of me that wonders--ah, the silly romantic in me--if Ash and Bamble might become an item, but this book isn't a romantic fantasy, and it would be a mistake to hope for that, because that's not the point of the book. It'd be icing though, so we'll see.
Saker
Saker's story is the short and most parsed out through-out the entire book. We learn he's an enchanter, that he bears a grudge for Acton's people and their ancestors who've taken this land from the natives, and he's using both his magic and grudge to give life to the dead. Not in a zombie sort of way, but rather in a ghost-made-physical way, so that the ghosts of the dead can take their revenge and kill the living. Saker isn't exactly a villain in my eyes: I understand where he's coming from, and he becomes sympathetic and likable when he's traveling with--coincidentally enough--Ash's parents to learn the old songs (in order to learn where battles took place, so he can find the dead, though they don't know that's why he wants to learn), and also when we get his flashback and we learn why he's so determined to get revenge. I know, intellectually, that Saker is most likely the villain to be defeated in the trilogy, but right now, I'm kind of rooting for him, because I'm so fascinated with HOW he's accomplishing his goal that I don't care if it's right or wrong. Sue me. But I can't wait to see where this is going.
Other POVs
One thing that threw me at first, but became something I grew to enjoy, is how we'd get one-shot POVs of different characters that one of the main three interact with. More often than not, these one-shots do nothing but deepen our knowledge of how this world works and why the people act the way they do within the world, but it's all fascinating, and also fascinating is how Freeman weaves from first to third person depending on whose head she's in and whose story she's telling. Doronit's was fantastic, even though it's a rape-that-leads-to-pregnancy story (forgiven because we've already seen how brutal the Warlord's men can be, and also because Doronit is not, as of yet, a consequential character in the story that's being told). I loved it because it makes Doronit incredibly sympathetic, but it teaches us why she's the woman she is and why she's doing what she does. These sections might annoy other readers, but once you realize you don't get them until the POV character in the previous section has interacted with this minor character, and that minor character's story is a one-time thing, it's not so bad. They enhance the world in a lovely way, so I don't begrudge them at all. Some of the stories were heartbreaking, such as that of Osyth. The stories reminded me a wee bit of those found in Catherynne Valente's The Orphan's Tales, and I don't know what else to say about them other than two thumbs up. :)
My Rating
Worth the Cash: I can't say it's a must-have, not yet (but it's very close!), because it's only the first book in a trilogy and the point of ending frustrated me a bit. It's cliffhanger, and it really doesn't resolve anything other than to raise more questions and make the reader wish Freeman had ended in either a more resolved section of the story or a much bigger cliffhanger, if that makes sense. It's not the kind of cliffhanger that had me reaching for the second book right away, but it's enough of one that'll frustrate readers because it just kind of, well, stops. But don't let that knowledge detract from an otherwise fine, beautifully wrought world and story. Yes, the book is set-up, but the format and style of it reminds me of a cross between George R.R. Martin and Ursula K. LeGuin, as does the story itself. It's not political fantasy, but it's not sword-and-sorcery either. Epic is probably the best way to describe it, but the attention to certain issues, like displacement of the Travelers and what becomes of the land in the hands of invaders, has a certain ring to it that keeps you turning the pages. The world-building is fantastic, I can't stress that enough. The use of ghosts, the incorporation of gods, just the simple details are wonderful, so if you're a fantasy reader that craves this kind of thing, you simply have to pick this up. The characterization is also finely-tuned and fantastic, as well it should be, given how many pages are spent focusing on each of the POV characters. That I was able to take a three-month break between readings and pick the book back up with no trouble also speaks well to the craftsmanship of the book. The only real flaws are the way that the POV will head-hop a wee bit, and this is distracting (while done well) because each chapter is marked with the POV character's name, so when we're in someone else's head, it's disconcerting for a bit. But no matter, I've got the second book on my shelf, waiting patiently, and the third and final book of the trilogy comes out late this fall. There's no doubt I'll continue reading, and I'm glad that for once, I could judge a book by its cover. :)
Cover Commentary: the cover got my attention for its design. I love the amulet at the top, and the coloring is rich and begs for the attention of potential readers. It's just a lovely, well-designed cover, and the rest of the trilogy matches the simple beauty, which makes me quite happy. :)
Next up: Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi