The Fall of the Dagger by Glenda Larke

The Fall of the Dagger by Glenda Larke is the final book in the Forsaken Lands trilogy. I have previously read and reviewed the first two books, The Lascar's Dagger and The Dagger's Path. I should warn you, the very blurb for The Fall of the Dagger contains spoilers for the earlier two books, as will my review.

A king corrupted, a sorcerer on the throne, a land in peril…

Excommunicated cleric Saker returns from exile in the Spice Islands to find his homeland in chaos.

A dark sorcerer controls the ear of the King, turning him against his own son and heir, while a corrupted army gathers in the shadows.

With the illusionist Sorrel and islander Ardhi, armed with magic from Ardhi’s homeland, Saker now must stand between his city and the corruption that threatens to cripple it, before it is too late . . .

I have always enjoyed Glenda Larke's work and The Forsaken Lands trilogy has been no exception. I definitely see myself rereading it at some point, especially since I expect the trilogy will be even more enjoyable if read in quick succession, rather than with a year-long gap in between books.

Nevertheless, picking up The Fall of the Dagger a year after the previous instalment was not difficult to get back into. The three main characters, Saker, Sorrel and Ardhi, return to the Va-cherished hemisphere with some idea of how to defeat the evil sorcery that has taken over the land. Saving the world, however, is never easy and the three of them can't do it alone.

I quite liked that it actually took a lot of people working together to win the day, and not just the chosen three, so to speak. Also, I enjoyed the post-climax action. Usually, the world is saved and that's the end of it, but Larke bothered to show that it's not quite that clean and easy to resolve everything when the bad stuff has been building up for several years. And I think that's as much as I can say without spoilers, really.

I really enjoyed this series and highly recommend it to all fans of BFF (big fat fantasy) books, especially anyone looking for worlds beyond the standard medieval Europe setting. This is also not the kind of series where you can pick up the later books without having read the earlier books, so I definitely recommend starting with the multi-award-winning The Lascar's Dagger if you are new to this series. If you've already read the earlier books, why wouldn't you pick up this one? Go on— don't you want to see how it all ends?

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: April 2016, Orbit
Series: Book 3 of 3 of The Forsaken Lands trilogy
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Google Play
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

The Dagger's Path by Glenda Larke

The Dagger's Path by Glenda Larke is the sequel to The Lascar's Dagger, and book two in the trilogy. I enjoyed the first book a lot and was not disappointed by this continuation. Note that this isn't the kind of series that you can read out of order; if you haven't read book one, start there.

It should have been easy -- return the stolen feather and restore Ardhi back to his rightful place. But when Saker, Ardhi, Sorrel, and Piper arrive to find the island in chaos, returning just the one feather will not help -- not when the other three have mysteriously disappeared as well.

As Saker and Ardhi work to mend the distrust caused by Ardhi's betrayal and attempt to retrieve the other feathers, they slowly find a sort of peace with the islanders. That is, until Saker realizes they unintentionally led the Spice traders straight to the sacred island they were hoping to protect. Now Saker must fight with both the Va witchery and Chenderawasi magic to defend everything that Ardhi holds dear. But Saker's powers are very new, and their enemies have them surrounded.

Obviously, The Dagger's Path continues the story started in The Lascar's Dagger, following Saker, Sorrel and Ardhi on their journey to the Va-forsaken hemisphere (not a spoiler because did any of us really think the magic would let Sorrel do anything other than keep travelling with the other protagonists?). In the first half of the book, however, we are also introduced to two new characters who I also rather liked.

The new characters are a lawyer working for the clergy and a young boy who crosses her path. I was surprised at how much of the early part of the book focused on them, but I also really enjoyed it. As well as letting us know what's happening "back home" (though there are also the royal points of view there) they have their own part to play in the whole "saving the world" narrative. The stakes for which, by the way, are significantly higher than it seemed in the first book.

Where in the first book a lot of the focus was on Ardhi's quest, in The Dagger's Path it starts to take a back seat to greater goings-on (although obviously it's still very important to Ardhi). We learn more about the Horned Death plague and why the bad guy is so dangerous and evil. As always, Larke presents a compelling world, all the more so now that we get to see more of it. The Va-forsaken hemisphere is partly what we expected from the first book, but also Ardhi's home country was more surprising than expected. So that was cool. And I like how the quest segued into the set up for the last volume of the series.

I really love all of Glenda Larke's books, and this latest instalment in her latest series is absolutely no exception. If you enjoyed The Lascar's Dagger, why haven't you read it yet? And if you haven't, then go pick it up and start this wonderful series. Especially if you want something other than yet another medieval European-set fantasy in your life. Larke's fantasy worlds are some of the best I've come across.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: January 2015, Orbit
Series: Yes. The Forsaken Lands book 2 of 3
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Google Play
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

Interview with Glenda Larke

Today I have an interview with the inimitable Glenda Larke, author of The Lascar's Dagger which I recently reviewed. It's an excellent read (I gave it five stars) and if my review didn't convince you to read it, hopefully this interview will.

In the world (well, the Va-cherished hemisphere of the world) that you've created in The Lascar's Dagger, it struck me that there's more gender equality in the clergy than the nobility. This is somewhat at odds with the real world. Can you tell us a bit about that choice?

Religion and society don’t always match up very well, even after centuries of interaction and parallel development. Looking at our modern world, the mismatch is sometimes striking. For example, in both the West and East, you often find a large segment of society is more progressive and liberal than the more religious communities and their leadership. Religious communities can be far more adamantly anti-gay, anti-contraception, anti-female than the more secular segments of society, possibly because  religions often have a vested interest in maintaining the staus quo. If they allow change, then it hints that their original God-inspired basis had errors, i.e. God was wrong.

I decided to make the religious institution more inclusive, and more progressive, especially when it came to gender equality, from the beginning. In other words, it is the culture that should change to catch up (I like being contrary!) It was an easy reversal to make, because I think that Va-Faith with their basis very strongly rooted in the natural world rather than in a single patriarchal type god had a better chance of being an equal-opportunity employer.

Where did the idea for the character of Saker, clergy spy, come from? It's not a very common combination.

I don’t know why it’s not more common! Clergy in centuries past were often heavily involved in politics. I can only imagine that Cardinal Richelieu of France, for example, who was also the French king’s principle minister and immersed in French politics and wars, must have had a widespread network of spies. In all probability, many might have been clergy.

Historically, many religions — in the interests of keeping the homogeneity of the beliefs in their flock — spied unmercifully on their own, killing, maiming, torturing and burning those who were in any way rebellious or nonconformist. The State religion of various cutures in our history has also often been defended by their own armies. When you go to war, having spies is part of the deal.

The religion of Va and oak and water shrines is an interesting mix of monotheism and nature-worship. How did that come together for you?

Going from a nature-based faith to a monotheistic one is a common progression, I just tweaked it a bit. Instead of just having bits of old beliefs (kneeling before statues, winter solstice celebrations, etc) incorporated into the new faith, I kept the dominance of the nature-base. Va (God) became a unifying force, bringing the water-based and the tree-based elements together as they had once been anyway, but the idea of Va never really captured the hearts and minds of the rural folk. Administratively, Va worship works because the Va-faith leadership has always stressed tolerance. However, as always, there are those who would change everything if they could…

After reading The Lascar's Dagger, I am very excited to get my hands on books two and three. Do you have release dates and titles for those yet?

Book 2 is slated for January 2015.  Book 3 is not written yet, but should be published a year later.

I take it we'll be seeing more of the Spice Islands in subsequent books. Can you tell us a bit more about them?

The Spice Islands and the Chenderawasi Archipelago of my story are based on the Spice Islands in our own world. They were called that by Europeans, not Asians, and are to be found in eastern Indonesia, perhaps better known to us today as the Moluccas (or Maluku in Indonesian). They were the place to go to obtain nutmeg, mace and cloves and other spices. Subsequently they suffered because of the value of those spices, even to having their populations decimated or forced into economic slavery to feed the greed of European traders.

The Chenderawasi Islands of my trilogy are visually a tropical paradise, but they are in the same precarious position as the Moluccas were in the 18th century. The difference is that the people have magic…

Four of the main characters of The Lascar’s Dagger visit Chenderawasi in Book 2. And there are pirates and a huge reveal about the nature of Chenderawasi magic...

Thanks, Glenda, for taking the time to answer my questions!

Thank you!

~

You can find out more about Glenda on her website or her blog (which often has lovely nature photographs), or by following her on Twitter. 

The Lascar's Dagger by Glenda Larke

The Lascar's Dagger by Glenda Larke is the author's most recent release, and the start of a new trilogy. Glenda Larke has long been on my auto-buy list, so it comes as no surprise that this book was excellent. The blurb is short and sweet but only gives a small hint of what's inside. (Oh, and the handle and guard of the knife on the cover are totally not as described in the book.)

A theft in a faraway land — with repercussions that reach around the world...
The world thinks of Saker Rampion as a priest, a gentle man preaching peace. The truth is, he's a spy for the head of his faith, posted in the court of King Edwayn.

It's a time of fear — as a mysterious and monstrous disease sweeps the country — but also opportunity — lucrative trade is opening up overseas, and what's grown on the Spice Islands is rumored to cure the demonic plague.

However when the king uses his own daughter as a pawn in trade deals, Saker cannot help but get involved. And for his trouble, he may just end up excommunicated, or even dead...

I enjoyed The Lascar's Dagger a lot. It reminded me that, proportionally, I don't read as many complex BFF (big fat fantasy) books as I used to. (This is partially because since becoming a book blogger the increase in my book consumption has been in other genres and partially because I've already read the backlists of the authors I like who write that type of book. Now it's a matter of waiting for them to write more books.) And that I missed them.

The main character is Saker, a clergy spy and not a lascar, which I was expecting. The title is well chosen though, since the lascar's dagger is, in fact, on the page more frequently than the lascar. I was expecting more of this book to be set in the Spice Islands but I think that's coming in the sequel. Most of The Lascar's Dagger was set in the two more "Western" countries. That said, the title is well chosen since the somewhat magic dagger is quite vital as a driver of the plot. And although it wasn't entirely apparent, at first, how all the characters' paths were going to cross, it all came together quite nicely.

The Lascar's Dagger subverts many tropes and expectations. The most obvious one is that the clergy — well, the (western) religious order generally — has more gender equality than general society, especially the nobility. Men and women can both go study at university and the head of the religious order, the Pontifect, is female. That last fact isn't revealed until chapter four, when we meet her in person, despite Saker thinking about "the Pontifect" earlier. I admit I was quite pleased when I found out. It was also nicely juxtaposed later when an unpalatable character said something about women being inferior (some people laughed, some probably agreed).

The most awesome character, in my opinion, was Sorrel. I was delighted when her fate became entwined with Princess Mathilda's and I am very much looking forward to following her story in the second book. Mathilda was also a very interesting character. She reminded me of Marla from the Hythrun Chronicles by Jennifer Fallon, in that both the characters are smart, young noble women forced into marriage at a young age and powerless to control their own lives. Unlikely Marla, however, Mathilda doesn't have a wily adviser helping her out and her plans do not always work out how she wants them to. Where stories about intelligent and scheming girls (and boys) are fun to read, what Larke has created here is more realistic and just as enjoyable (albeit occasionally frustrating). I can imagine people not warming to Mathilda, especially since some of her actions are questionable, but I thought she was a great character.

Larke has written an excellent book that I highly recommend to all fantasy fans, especially those who like their fantasy serious, long, and with complex characters and motivations. I am very keen to read the next book in the series and I hope it's not too long a wait. For readers who have not read any Glenda Larke books before, this is a good a place to start as any book one.

5 / 5 stars

First published: March 2014, Orbit Books
Series: Yes. The Forsaken Lands book 1 of 3
Format read: eBook
Source: Purchased from iBooks
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

Guest Review of Havenstar by Glenda Larke

I read Havenstar by Glenda Larke several years ago, after having acquired a second hand copy of the out of print paperback version. Recently, Larke re-released an ebook edition of Havenstar, but to the excitement of fans (there were some copies of the second hand paperback being sold for ridiculously high prices on Amazon — money which sadly the author never saw). I purchased the ebook so that my husband could read it as my paper copy is currently in another country. And so, since I don't know when I'll get the chance to re-read it, I also asked him to review it. Behold, a review of Havenstar by Mr Tsana!

Havenstar, the first book published by Glenda Larke in 1999 and now re-released as an ebook, is a story about order, freedom and maps. The world of Havenstar is consists of two parts, the terribly unpredictable Unstable, where the footprints don't linger and the terrain can change at all times, and the human communities eked out in the Stabilities, places protected from the chaos by the strict rules of the religious Chantry. Slowly the Unstable is encroaching on more and more of the stabilities as the evil Chaos Lord Carasmas spreads his influence.

Keris Kaylen is the gifted daughter of a mapmaker who is not allowed by the Chantry to succeed him in his store due to her gender. Circumstances conspire to force her out of the Stability and into a journey through the chaos with a motley group of travellers on a quest to prevent the eventual destruction of the Stablities.

The world-building was fascinating. In the Stabilities, the Chantry forces everything to stay the same. No new gardens, no new houses, even mining and wood harvesting is kept to a minimum. Changes are only made at the discretion of the Chantry. In the Unstable, the only human settlements are on small patches of land that have proven resistant to the chaos, and even then they only last for so long before the Unstable reasserts itself. Anyone crossing the Unstable is also at the mercy of ley-lines, rivers of magic that can turn people into twisted mutants who are banned from the Stabilities.

While the basic structure of the book's plot was very classic fantasy (motley group, journey across the land, evil Lord to defeat) the issues explored in the book are very modern. It illustrates the cruelty of enforced gender roles and the danger of blindly following tradition. It lacks a little subtlety, considering that pretty much all the characters seem designed to investigate some issue, but the characters are given enough depth for it to not be too off-putting. I did read Glenda Larke's later books first, which I feel are more nuanced with their exploration of issues, so it's possible that I only felt Havenstar wasn't subtle because of a comparison with her later books.

I'd also like to say that it's nice to see a fantasy book that actually involves a mapmaker, considering how many books have a map at the start. In Havenstar, mapmakers straddle the boundaries between the Unstable and the Stable. They must venture out in order to map the ever-changing Unstable, but in drawing the map they impose some semblance of order on it.

I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who wants a little bit of social criticism in their fantasy or wants to see mapmakers get just a little bit of credit for all the maps in fantasy books.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 1999 as a paperback from Virgin, a publisher which folded shortly after publication. Ebook (cover shown above) released in late 2012 and a new paperback version will be coming out in May 2013 from Ticonderoga Publications.
Series: nope.
Format read: ebook
Source: Purchased from Smashwords
Disclaimer: Review by Tsana's husband
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge