Shadowfall: Book one of the Godslayer Chronicles
By James Clemens
First Printing July 2005
Humor (1) any functional fluid of an animal (2) one of the quadricals of greater bodily fluids (blood, sweat, masculine seed, feminine menses) or quintrangle of lesser bodily fluids (tears, saliva, phlegm, yellow and black bile) (3) the blessed fluids from which flow the nine Graces of Gods.
Near the very beginning of his book James Clemens begins to prepare his audience to enter into the fantasy world of Myrillia. Myrillia is cut from the same cloth that has provided a foundation for the entire High Fantasy genre. The subtitle promises another Sword and Sorcery epic. While it has a sketchy beginning this may develop into quite a sophisticated experience, judging from the developments at the end of this volume.
What first sets Myrillia apart from other works of High Fantasy is the mechanics of its magic. Magic is exclusively the domain of alchemy and alchemy is fueled not by a quest for limitless riches, but from the careful manipulation of the body fluids of semi-divine beings. That’s right, the sweat, blood and tears of the Gods allow the denizens of Myrillia to do miraculous things. The Gods of this land are almost the same flesh and blood as any normal human.
This fact is revealed slowly but this body-humor alchemy is the dominant underlying mechanism of almost every important event in the book.
The story presents its central protagonist early in a man named Tylar de Noche, a disgraced knight, stripped of his rank. It’s an average evening and all Tylar wants to do is get drunk. Unfortunately he picked the wrong bar and gets kicked out by some nasty bouncers and then gets knocked around a bit until a real man of the law shows up to rescue him. Wouldn’t you know it, not only it is an honest young knight, but it happens to be one of the knights who Tylar trained in his old life. That knight is on an important errand so he cannot tarry for long. Being seen in such a state by his former squire brings nothing but shame to Tylar, so he is more than happy to see him depart.
Things go from bad to worse later that evening when Tylar happens upon a surprise attack in another part of the city. He witnesses a brutal slaughter by a mysterious, shadowy, other-worldy creature that instantly decimates the cadre of knights. Worse still, that beast manages to slay the blessed being who the knights were protecting. Worst of all that being was one of Myrillia’s Gods.
With her last breath that dying Goddess places a special blessing on Tylar. Alas this may not even be enough. As the only remaining survivor of this horrible attack, and marked with a black handprint born from his blessing Tylar is instantly accused of being a Godslayer. The Gods have ruled like kings over their individual realms for thousands of years. (Sadly this potentially rich history is almost never explored in rest of this book. Nope, its pseudo-Medieval Europe all the way.)
The story shifts to introduce the second major plotline in this volume. Our second protagonist is a young girl named Dart. A lifelong misfit, she is an orphan, raised in a special kind of convent that trains young girls and boys as direct servants to the Gods. Out of the potential candidates only a few get chosen to serve as Haidmaidens or Handmen (gender neutral - Hands) to the Gods. These Hands are charged with the special task of collecting the various magically-empowered body humors from the Gods. Many of the potential Hands are the children of affluent humans being afforded a chance at great honor. Dart has no outside means of support and if she doesn’t get chosen as a Hand she will eventually have nowhere to go. Yet even her meager hopes come under a much more serious threat soon after her introduction.
Each of these characters must embark on a difficult journey to survive as many new challenges appear to threaten their lives. Eventually we find how the fate of these two is tied to the destiny of the entire world.
Richard Clemens struck me as a very good amateur, talented but undisciplined. He is no sociologist and no historian, the lack of any work in these areas is only compensated by falling back into High Fantasy cliché’s. The world is a product of dream that almost never acknowledges itself as a dream, but lacks any sense of the ordinary systems that make real civilization possible. The author seems to be a man who doesn’t even half-believe in the possibility of magic, so his characters seem to have no substatial belief for the world in which they live. The world feels like a stage setting, it is there to give the character a place to stand while they say their lines, and do their actions, but they couldn’t actually live there.
These deficiencies are mostly forgivable and as stated before the book does point towards greater promise in future volumes of the Chronicles of the Godslayer. This will be a fine book for any fan of the genre but lacks the power to entice a novice into the fold.
Overall: B-