TITLE: The Pillars of the World
AUTHOR: Anne Bishop
GENRE: Fantasy
PUBLISHED: 01/10/2001
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon
MOBILISM LINK: Mobilism
Review: The Pillars of the World is the first in Bishop’s Tir Alainn trilogy. In the land of Sylvalan, witches live on the edge of the community, working elemental magics and acting as guardians for the Old Places. The Fae live in Tir Alainn, a small dimension of peace and plenty tied to the real world by the shining roads.
But now those roads are closing, the Fae lost when they close lost forever.
The book opens with Dianna, the female leader of the Fae, pondering what is causing the roads to close. By the end of the novel we, and everyone else, know what is causing the destruction of Tir Alainn, but it’s clear that knowing is only a fraction of the battle. And it will be a battle, before the end.
All of Bishop’s books have an addictive quality; they’re fun even when they deal with dark topics, light and readable even when rich and complicated. Don’t ask me how she does it, but it makes her one of my very favourite authors.
However, The Pillars of the World is not my favourite of her works. It’s too light, too simple. Enjoyable, like all of her books, but really nothing special. The plot is too clearly pulled from the historical witch trials; the Head Inquisitor even calls himself the Hammer of the Witches, a direct reference to the Malleus Maleficarum. I didn’t feel that the introduction of the Fae and their difficulties was enough to make the story feel original, especially since Bishop has not tried to put any kind of unique spin on the witches or their powers (despite the lukewarm revelation of the witches’ origins that comes near the end of the book), pulling much of their culture from traditional Wicca. Nor is the Hammer of the Witches all that interesting of a villain. Crafting villains is where Bishop often falls down; her bad guys are usually one-dimensional with no redeeming qualities and no real complexity. This is never clearer than in Pillars, with Master Adolfo, the aforementioned Head Inquisitor; he, and all the other Inquisitors, are unremittingly evil in the most stereotypical fashion. I kept expecting Adolfo to start twirling his moustaches.
*Trigger warning for violence*
He would pull her from that horse and htrow her on the cobblestones. He would smash her head against the stones, smash her face against them…Then he would find a quiet room, a dark room where he could work with her. He would break her fingers, break her feet…
And so on.
All of Bishop’s books have some kind of message or moral woven throughout the story. Usually, this is done quietly and skilfully, so that it can be absorbed while enjoying the book, but Pillars is just preachy. There’s a lot of moralising about love, for example, since the Fae regularly have sex with human women but don’t believe in love – especially not monogamous love:
He kept thinking about the version of “The Lover’s Lament” that Ari had sung on the Solstice… A song like that was more than folly; it was cruel. Yes, cruel, since it filled a young woman’s head with dreamy-eyed, unreasonable expectations. That wasn’t the way of the world. That wasn’t the way of men.
You can also read Pillars as a commentary on feminism, since all the villains believe women need to be kept down and made submissive, and everyone we’re supposed to like disagrees vehemently. Bishop usually has some kind of matriarchy or feminist commentary going on in her novels, but it’s far more heavy-handed here in Pillars than in her Black Jewels or Ephemera series, to the point where even I, with my insistence on all kinds of equality in my fiction, thought it was far too much. Maybe if it had been more complex it could have been enjoyable, but as it was, I skimmed over all Adolfo’s internal (or external) monologues on the evils of womankind.
Like this disgusting conversation, where they discuss the scold’s bridle (a real thing that was really used – isn’t history awesome?)...
“The scold’s bridle is a good man’s tool,” Adolfo said. “A caring husband and father does not allow his females to stray into unseemly behavior, nor does he allow his females to create discord at home. And it is well known that a woman’s sharp words can blight a man’s rod and weaken his seed until all he can fill her with are girl babes instead of strong sons.”
I realise that these attitudes really existed – and still exist, in parts of the world. But I’m sure there could have been some way of writing it into the story without making the whole thing sound ridiculous instead of properly terrifying.
The characters aren’t much better. Ari, a witch and the main character, was lovely and the most believable; I liked that she had some snap to her when she was annoyed or people around her were being stupid. Neal, Ahern, and Morag are all great characters with facets to their personalities; I especially liked the revelation about Ahern’s backstory with the local witches, and Morag is one of the only Fae to have any sense. But everyone else was pretty one-dimensional: the people in Ari’s village are all horrible. The Fae, almost to a man, are insanely selfish and pretty stupid in the bargain (although I did like how their powers worked). Even when Lucian, the male leader of the Fae, finally lashes out against the Inquisitors, he burns down the town before making sure that the human woman he (claims that he) loves is safely out of reach of the flames. I mean, really?
The Pillars of the World has the spark that makes all of Bishop’s books so readable, despite its faults. I enjoyed reading it. It is, despite its themes and the violence of the Inquisitors, a fluff read, good for when you want to read something uncomplicated. It’s a solid three stars, but honestly, I strongly suggest you read Bishop’s other books long before you pick up this trilogy. The Black Jewels series is utterly amazing, and it would be better to start there rather than with this one – it would be a tragedy if anyone was so discouraged by Pillars that they didn’t reach Bishop’s other books.