THE BINDINGS OF WOE

A debut fantasy focuses on a pair of young people on a quest to save their world.

Jackson’s series opener is set on the world of Gaia, where a mixed population of races—humans, dwarves, and goblins—lives under the control of the Sovereign Empire. The empire was imposed on Gaia many years ago, when the mysterious, inhuman sovereigns saved the inhabitants of the land from the warring giant tartaruns and took control themselves. The sovereigns are enigmatic figures, imposing taxes and issuing laws prohibiting humans from using sorcery. They routinely abduct any human who shows an aptitude for sorcery, but since the talent usually manifests at puberty, the book’s teenage main characters, Carver and Helena, no longer worry about being taken by their distant masters. Instead, as the novel opens, the two young people are preoccupied with making the regular trading trip to a busy port city of their island home far on the edges of the empire. But when that city is attacked by a violent insurgent group called the Lost Seekers, Carver and Helena’s settled backwoods world is upended. According to one of the sovereigns, the rebels’ “assault was aided by the forbidden use of sorcery.” Carver and Helena soon find themselves hunted by strange forces and thrust, along with their village friends Sebastian and Nina and a handful of others, into a broader world full of dangers. This is all extremely recognizable material—a cloistered youth fulfills his destiny—and Jackson takes his time setting things in motion. But his characters, particularly Carver and Helena, snipe and squabble in refreshingly contemporary-sounding rhetoric. And Carver’s slow transformation from grumpy, oblivious boy to purposeful man eventually takes on a certain compelling drama. Even so, the book suffers from typical series opener woes: too much exposition and a sluggish pace. Fantasy fans will hope things pick up in the sequel.

A well-crafted but somewhat plodding first installment of an epic fantasy series.