McDermott, J.M.: Last Dragon
Last Dragon (2008)
Written by: J.M. McDermott
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 390 (Trade Paperback)
So I've settled on a kind of method to get through my TBR pile. I started my "Books Bought" list in August 2008, and that list includes a column labeled "read?" I can't say for sure if there's more books on that list that've been read or not-read, but my plan is to attack this list from both sides (outside of challenges). How? I'm starting at the top of the 2008 list and going down the list, but in between those 2008 purchases, I'll be starting at the bottom of my 2009 list and moving up the list, so that I'll eventually meet in the middle of the two, if that makes sense. This way, you'll get to see the reviews of books I've featured in the Book Bag, but you'll also get reviews of books you never knew I owned, which will provide some variety to the reviews here, because let me tell you, I have some interesting titles waiting to be read. Once that list is finished, I'll add pre-August 2008 titles and post-2009 titles to the list (if I don't sprinkle 2010 titles in between). At any rate, that's my convoluted reading plan as of now. :)
The first book on the 2008 list was Jo Graham's Black Ships, and since I couldn't finish that, I moved to the next unread 2008 book, which was J.M. McDermott's Last Dragon. This was an interesting purchase for me. For starters, the cover caught my eye and never let go (but I'll talk about that later). And despite my (at the time) weariness of dragons in fantasy, I was intrigued by the fact that this book was 1) a debut and 2) the first offering from the Wizards of the Coast Discoveries line (which has since folded). Small presses don't always intrigue me, but when they do, I want to read as much from them as I can. So I gave in, bought the book, and let it sit on the shelf.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: An intricate web of stories weave together to tell a tale of revenge, justice, ambition, and power. Zhan has been sent to find her grandfather, a man accused of killing not only Zhan's family, but every man, woman, and child in their village. What she finds is a shell of a man, and a web of deceit that will test the very foundations of a world she thought she understood.
Review style: this is a difficult book to spoil, but I may give away details that some people might think is a spoiler, so consider this your warning. However, considering the nature of the narrative, the book spoils you as you go. At any rate, if you're still uncomfortable, skip to the "My Rating" section at the bottom of the review. Otherwise, read on! This book has a unique structure that I'm looking forward to discussing.
So, the structure: this isn't your typical linear fantasy story by any means. Instead, you get a series of letters, and not the kind of letters that start out "Dear John" and end with "Love, Sally" either, but rather each section (and there's sections within the chapters) is told to the unseen and never-met Esumi, the narrator Zhan's lover. Often she speaks directly to Esumi, asking him to respond, or sometimes telling him how difficult it might be for him to understand. You also learn that she's at the end of her life, suffering from some kind of illness, and as a result, the story she tells isn't from begining to end, but it's all over the place. She starts talking about one point in her history, then she skips ahead in the next section, and in the NEXT section, she might skip ahead even farther or she might go back to the original point. You don't know, and there's nothing like headings that'll prepare you or ground you in a specific time and place (nope, not even the ants that march across the page. Trust me, I spend maybe twenty minutes trying to find a pattern and tying the number of ants shown to the specific part of the story I got, but it didn't work), so you have to get your footing based on the text itself.
And what is the story Zhan is telling? She's the dying queen of an empire, and she's telling Esumi how she came to create this empire in which everyone now lives.
Despite the tale itself, this isn't a traditional fantasy. For starters, the structure alone forbids it from being traditional fantasy, and the prose mostly (not always) lacks the rich setting description we often come to expect from epic, fantasy tales. And I'm not saying this as a criticism so much as it is an observation, because again, you have to consider just how much the narrative style and the book's structure dictates what we see. Then again, if Zhan were a more poetic person, you could easily imagine going on and on about the places she's lived in, but she's not really a poetic person, so I can forgive the lack of setting detail, because I get enough to see what I need to. No, the setting isn't anything unique, but I feel McDermott makes up for it in the story's grime.
This book absolutely demands a reader's full attention. In some ways, it's like a mystery, because each section gives you a tiny piece of the story that you're comparing to a tiny piece of the story in the future that you're comparing to a tiny piece of the story in a distant past, etc. You have to stay awake and stay aware so that you can say, "Okay, this section is happening before THIS happens, and then this is AFTER and this is right BEFORE this happens and oh wait, this is new, and THIS is when..." Seriously, that's what your brain has to do to follow this book, and guess what? I enjoyed the hell out of it. It's a book that challenges the reader, and I enjoyed the hell out of the challenge.
And what about the story? Well, it's got some rough edges. Despite the premise listed above, I never really got the impression that Zhan's grandfather killed the WHOLE village, just Zhan's whole family. How could the man have killed the whole village if there was a boy who retrieved Zhan from the riders? How could the man have killed the whole village if Zhan's staying with a family IN THE VILLAGE? So I'm a little confused on that note, but that may be due to a discrepancy between the backcover blurb and what we get in the text. I also think that because when Zhan returns to the village, we learn that it was abandoned save for one, very simple-minded boy.
That aside, I'm still trying to piece the plot together: old man kills family in village and runs away. The remaining two members of the family are honor-bound to find and kill him in the name of justice, but once they reach the city of Proliux, Seth abandons Zhan and forces her to carry out the task on her own. She befriends a rich, mysterious woman named Adel, who's a paladin of the dragon (dragons are now extinct). Adel uses her resources to help Zhan find Seth, and then in turn helps them both find the old man, and from there, the motivations are a little unclear. Zhan kills her grandfather in the name of justice, but Seth uses his shaman magic to turn the old man into a golem because they need him to navigate the mountains to get home. In and of itself, I can understand wanting to go home, but there's a lot of talk of trying to get ahead of the Proliux army, which has me wondering what reasons the army had for wanting to take over the mountain villages (save for the obvious "We want to rule the world!" reasons). At any rate, once they make it back to the village, they discover it's abandoned and the group splits (Seth in one with his lover Korinyes, a mercenary named Fest, and the simpleminded boy named Partridge, and Zhan and Adel in the other) in order to warn the larger mountain cities, which have already been invaded. Adel means to destroy the mercanary armies from within, and from there, the purpose is muddled. And there's a reason for it: once the second of the two cities has its general destroyed and the mercanaries pitted against each other, all we know is that Zhan, with the help of the rescued Prince Tsui, take over and somehow turn the world into their own empire. And that's actually not the reason, the reason is that the end of the book is Zhan killing her uncle Seth and the battle within the city dying behind her.
So there's a leap of sorts between the end of the book and the empire we see at the beginning. Sure, there's commentary here and there that fills the gaps, and I'm sure on a second read I'd find more clues to piece the puzzle together, but I would've liked just a little bit more of a link between the taking of Tsuin and the empire it becomes. There's also the slightly selfish wish that the reader should see the meeting of Zhan and her lover Esumi (but why would Zhan write of that to the man who already knows that story?), and I also wish there was some clarification on what happened to Esumi (was he simply sent away, or was he killed?) and what happened to their daughter (I suspect she's dead, but part of me hopes she's been secreted away from her mother).
But those questions, though they make the book a wee bit weaker, are part of the charm. This is one of those rare books that you can read multiple times and get a bigger and bigger picture of the story at large, because you're better able to put the pieces together. However, I still think some questions will remain: what exactly was Adel's plan? To instigate a rebellion that would overthrow the country that killed her own country and the dragons she protected? There's so much betrayal in this book, and sometimes it's hard to follow (again, due to the narrative structure). And of course, due to the nature of the narrative (Zhan is quite the unreliable narrator), we'll never now for sure if Seth really did kill Baba, which would mean that Zhan's murder of him was justified and not just murder.
There is a particular little bump in the narrative: we get the impression that, if not lovers, Zhan and Fest were very close friends. So close that she makes HIS stories her own. So we're getting Fest from the "I" POV, and for a while, that throws subsequent sections into question, because even once we get re-established into Zhan's POV, sometimes we get sections we're not sure it really is Zhan's POV or not. Again because there's no headings or anything that gives the reader an immediate clue as to the who, what, when, and where.
That aside, it's simply a fascinating book. The truth behind Korinyes seems, on the surface, a little odd, but when I start thinking about it in terms of a larger metaphor, the whole ant thing makes sense. The armies aren't true armies, but mercanaries who fight for whoever will pay them the most. So when you kill the general that commands then, they're easy to manipulate, and the structure of war goes to hell. Fascinating metaphor, but a creepy way to show it.
My Rating
Must Have: if you want a book that defines the phrase "literary, adventure fantasy," then look no further, and I can't stress that enough. It's narrative structure is such that the book engages the reader on an intellectual level, and where the novel might lack in immersion into a secondary world, it makes up for the fact that it's really fun and something of a joy to piece the story together. McDermott's writing, while at times a little too declarative (a function of the narrator rather than a writing style issue, I believe), is both engaging and fast-paced, and the sections allow for quick, brisk reading without compromising its own literary style or characterization. To be honest, this book was an excellent surprise. Let's face it, there's an unfortunate assumption that if it's a debut writer getting published by a small press, then the book just won't be any good. That's an unfortunate and WRONG assumption, and this isn't the first book I've read that proves that assumption horribly, horribly wrong. It's truly a memorable book, the kind you want to go back and read again because once you get all of the pieces of the puzzle, you want to see if you can glean anything new to make the piece fit together in a new or better way. That's not to say the book isn't without its flaws, because it is. It's not perfect, but what promise! And truly, how memorable! I'm thoroughly impressed with this debut, and look forward to whatever offerings McDermott might provide in the future. Fans of fantasy who are looking for something unique and different from the traditional, epic fantasy quest need to look no further, because this is the book you need to get your hands on. Make no mistake, the book makes you think, it forces you to pay attention and put the story together on your own, but that's just part of the joy of reading this book. Definitely not a beach read, and definitely not a read for anyone who just wants to shut their brain off. The sad thing is, though, that this book is out of print, but you've got some options: used book stores (like the online abebooks.com), paperback swaps or you can get it as an eBook (which I praise Apex Publications for making it available). At any rate, this is a book that's not worth missing, especially if you're looking for something both different and intellectually engaging.
Cover Commentary: seriously, this cover makes me want to start at it. It's just compelling: I told my husband that I can't figure out if the head is a bronze statue or an actual head, but whatever it is, something's coming out of it, and it fascinates me. :)
Next up: Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog by Ysabeau S. Wilce