Summer comes, and with it the chance to spend a little time on those things left to one side during the academic year. This is a holiday of reading and relaxing; playing and practising; training and, perhaps, testifying.
Despite this, there's little to report on a writing front. It's been a while since I put pen to paper. We've been away for a few days - Cornwall is very nice at this time of year - but in that time my pad of paper has remained in my bag, untouched. Instead, time has been spent exploring worlds both real and imaginary. Untouched sands have given way to lost gardens and ancient coastlines in warm days that have drifted together until all track of time and date has been lost. Between excursions, time has been spent with a sequence of excellent books, the pages turning and helping to lose all sense of the outer world.
Jen Williams is still a relative newcomer to the publishing world. Her debut, The Copper Promise, was released in 2014. Her second trilogy, The Winnowing Flame, began in 2017. Bearing in mind how fresh to the field she is, in a publishing sense at least, it's been refreshing to come across a trilogy as accomplished and polished as The Winnowing Flame. More experienced and better-known writers will be reading it and cursing themselves; as for me, it's been a long time since I read a fantasy trilogy of such high quality from someone still so early in their career.
What marks The Winnowing Flame out from other fantasy at present is its creative verve. Yes, it uses some old tropes - ancient bloodsuckers and witches on bats to name two - but it uses them in fresh ways. Yes, it's a ragtag bunch of heroes up against an apparently all-powerful enemy who cannot seemingly be defeated. But that ragtag bunch of heroes exist in a fantasy world that feels genuinely fresh. The last time I read a fantasy novel set in a world this fresh, it will have been one of China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels.
Sarn is an ancient world with an ascendant human race. The Eborans, an ancient rival race, have long been in decline after the guardian tree seemingly died after a race of insectoid alien invaders, the Jure'lia, were defeated after a series of wars in which the tree birthed powerful war beasts for the Eborans to bond with and fight the Jure'lia. Each of these wars was known as a 'rain', and there were eight of these rains before the Jure'lia disappeared, leaving only tainted parts of the world of Sarn, where their remains corrupted other life, and the Corpse Moon, the remains of a raiding Behemoth which once would have rained terror on the people of Sarn. The Eborans have long been reviled by the humans after the Carrion Wars, where the Eborans turned to humans for food after the life-giving sap of Ygseril, the guardian tree, ceased to flow, and Eborans are generally shunned in human society.
Also shunned are fell witches, women who have the power of winnowfire. To produce this, they must sap the life of others and are considered dangerous. When a girl is born with the power of the winnowfire, they are taken away by the Winnowry, which imprisons such women and tries to train some to do its bidding, all in the name of protecting the women - and the citizens of Sarn.
Such is the situation at the beginning of The Ninth Rain, the first volume of the trilogy, when we meet Vintage, a travelling noblewoman obsessed with the history of Sarn; Tormalin the Oathless, an Eboran exile travelling with Vintage as her protector; Hestillion, his sister in Ebora itself, determined to resurrect Ygseril from what she is certain is a slumber and not death; and Noon, a fell witch imprisoned in the Winnowry. Another strength of Williams is her characters. Much like Connie Willis, she has the knack of making you care very quickly about her characters. They're very human from the word go, each with their own distinct personality and flaws which make them all the more compelling. Take Tormalin for instance: he's prone to being incredibly shallow, self-obsessed and to withdrawing when the going gets tough. But that doesn't define his character, it's just an element of it. He, like all the other characters, is well-rounded and multi-faceted. Throughout the trilogy, the characterisation holds up. There's no single one-dimensional character, and even the characters who are briefly introduced always have a well-rounded feel to them. As a result, the relationships between characters have an organic feel to them.
These characters inhabit a world that has been lovingly created. Like the best fantasy, this is an imaginary world that feels real. It's a world of detail and history; this isn't some casual creation. It's fleshed out expertly, with the kind of care and style you'd expect from a seasoned master of fantasy. Like other fantasies, it borrows heavily from western history for its sensibilities - in this case, there's a distinctly Victorian feel to the technology and the geography - but unlike others it doesn't lean on real-world considerations to make it believable. The characters' interactions and the depth of the history make it believable.
There's also a smattering of myth and legend that is used sparingly but well. Ygseril is clearly based on the Norse myth of Ygdrasil. The war beasts of legend are based on a range of legends from around the world. But what makes The Winnowing Flame outstanding is the creativity these myths and legends are used with. This isn't a tired writer re-telling old tales; this is a fresh voice using familiar ideas to help tell a story that is fresh and new, with superb characters. Before long, you'll be sucked into the world of Sarn.
In the best possible way, this is a trilogy that feels completely different. It's identifiably fantasy, but it bucks the modern trends. In some ways, it's closest to sword and sorcery - occasionally feeling like a 2D JRPG like Final Fantasy VI in its storytelling - but there's something more rounded to it than that. It takes the best elements of modern movements like grimdark and uses them to good effect in something that always feels fresh and thoroughly enjoyable. I could not recommend it more.
