Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.
This debut novel, the first of a projected trilogy, blends science fiction, fantasy, gothic chiller, and classic house-party mystery.
Gideon Nav, a foundling of mysterious antecedents, was not so much adopted as indentured by the Ninth House, a nearly extinct noble necromantic house. Trained to fight, she wants nothing more than to leave the place where everyone despises her and join the Cohort, the imperial military. But after her most recent escape attempt fails, she finally gets the opportunity to depart the planet. The heir and secret ruler of the Ninth House, the ruthless and prodigiously talented bone adept Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chooses Gideon to serve her as cavalier primary, a sworn bodyguard and aide de camp, when the undying Emperor summons Harrow to compete for a position as a Lyctor, an elite, near-immortal adviser. The decaying Canaan House on the planet of the absent Emperor holds dark secrets and deadly puzzles as well as a cheerfully enigmatic priest who provides only scant details about the nature of the competition...and at least one person dedicated to brutally slaughtering the competitors. Unsure of how to mix with the necromancers and cavaliers from the other Houses, Gideon must decide whom among them she can trust—and her doubts include her own necromancer, Harrow, whom she’s loathed since childhood. This intriguing genre stew works surprisingly well. The limited locations and narrow focus mean that the author doesn’t really have to explain how people not directly attached to a necromantic House or the military actually conduct daily life in the Empire; hopefully future installments will open up the author’s creative universe a bit more. The most interesting aspect of the novel turns out to be the prickly but intimate relationship between Gideon and Harrow, bound together by what appears at first to be simple hatred. But the challenges of Canaan House expose other layers, beginning with a peculiar but compelling mutual loyalty and continuing on to other, more complex feelings, ties, and shared fraught experiences.
Suspenseful and snarky with surprising emotional depths.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31319-5
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Modesitt switches back to science fiction after his fantasy trilogy about the kingdom of Recluce (The Magic Engineer, p. 103, etc.), introducing an initially intriguing alternate world that is comparable in development to ours but has a substantially different history—and where ghosts are real. Northeast Columbia (America), with its deep Dutch roots, is the quiet, hard-working, chocolate- drinking region to which former government agent Johan Eschbach has retired to teach environmental economics. But then one of his colleagues, Miranda Miller, is mysteriously murdered—and Johan beholds her ghost at the moment of its formation. Gradually, he realizes that he has become the pivot in a power struggle between President Armstrong, Speaker Hartpence, and various foreign powers for control of new ``Babbage engine'' (computer) technology that can banish ghosts (usually they hang around) or create them to order, leaving behind a still-living and compliant zombie. So, to protect himself, Johan is forced to investigate the murder while fending off the attentions of the Spazi (secret police) and probing the affairs of his beautiful but untrustworthy lover, the singer Llysette, a spy for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It's all marvelously inventive. But the scenario has two major flaws: the ghosts, which don't fit and are never convincingly explained; and the lack of specific historical divergence points from which Modesitt's alternate history might reasonably flow. A fairly typical performance, then, alluring yet ultimately unsatisfying.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-312-85720-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
Rawn (Skybowl, 1993, etc.) makes a strong bid to establish herself as the Rube Goldberg of fantasy as she embellishes her account of revolution on the planet Lenfell with an excess of explication, minor characters, and details (some explored in an ``index'' too spotty to be useful) that ensure the plot mechanism never gets out of first gear. Glenin Ferian, Sarra Liewellan, and Cailet Rille are the daughters of Auvrey Ferian, who serves at Ryka Court as the powerful right-hand man of First Councillor Avira Anniyas. Glenin, who surpasses her father in ambition and magic, inches toward succeeding Avira as ruler. Meanwhile Sarra and Cailet, who were raised separately, are drawn into ``the Rising,'' an effort by Mage Guardians and their allies to topple Ryka Court and its magic-wielding Lords of Malerris. Sarra, who has the makings of a tactician, shrewdly deduces what horrors could come from the defeat of Mage Guardians, but it is Cailet, still a teenager, who is thrust into the eye of this storm. As the sisters clash in projected subsequent volumes, the most interesting question will be whether they can eradicate the blatant sexism that Rawn, as a heavy-handed joke, has built into her woman-dominated society. Unfortunately, she does a better job of reinscribing sexism than undermining it. A story packed with Mages and devoid of magic.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-88677-619-8
Page Count: 688
Publisher: DAW/Berkley
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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