TITLE: King’s Dragon (Crown of Stars 01)
AUTHOR: Kate Elliott
GENRE: High Fantasy
PUBLISHED: 01/02/1997
RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon
MOBILISM LINK: Mobilism
Review: Oh, boy, are my feelings about this novel complicated.
If you try and talk about Epic Fantasy as a sub/genre, generally speaking the same names are mentioned over and over again: George Martin. Tolkien. Robert Jordan. Those three are more or less the holy trinity of epic or high fantasy, although a quick Google search also offers Patrick Rothfuss and Brandon Sanderson as contenders for the roles. But one has to look pretty hard to find a list of Epic Fantasy recommendations that does not include any of these authors.
If you try and talk about female authors who write Epic Fantasy, you very often get blank looks. Several times I’ve heard fervent readers (both men and women) claim that ‘women don’t write that stuff’. If pressed, they may concede that Robin Hobb writes it, although they may be shocked to hear that she is a woman at all – after all, her publisher originally requested she take an ambiguous pen-name so as to not drive off readers who wouldn’t give female authors a chance.
What has this got to do with King’s Dragon? I’m getting there, I promise.
The fact is, however you define epic or high fantasy (and there are a lot of conflicting definitions), there are a tonne of women writing it. And frankly? Most of them are doing it much, much better than the literary superstars. I say this not as a crazy feminist, but as someone who for years never glanced at author names and was often unaware of who exactly was writing my favourite series: Robin Hobb is miles ahead of Robert Jordan. Tanith Lee can wipe the floor with Tolkien. I love George Martin, I do, but he can’t hold a candle to the queen that is Diane Duane. Freda Warrington. Patricia McKillip; Anne Bishop; Elizabeth Bear; NK Jemisin; Martha Wells; Glenda Larke; Beth Bernobich; Tanya Huff; Lois McMaster Bujold. And the empress of the genre: Jacqueline Carey.
Many of these women have done very original things with the concept of Epic Fantasy, putting their own unique spin on the very old archetypes and story arcs. It’s one reason I love them all so. But Kate Elliott, in her Crown of Stars series (seven books, completed in 2006 and averaging out at 650 pages per volume) has decided to take on tradition and beat the superstars at their own game.
I think she’s succeeded.
King’s Dragon is set in a Medieval Europe that at first glance is very like our own: we have a king, castles, peasants, nobility, etc, etc. It’s all very familiar.
Until suddenly it isn’t.
You see, the religion of Wendar and Varre (conjoined kingdoms ruled by one man but uneasy in their alliance) is that of the Unities, which at first looks very much like Christianity: we have priests and bishops and a holy saviour who preached the truth and was raised to Heaven. Lesser children of nobility and those who can’t be provided for in normal families are given to the Church. There is much talk of holy virtues and submitting to the hierarchy of the world. There are countless saints and martyrs. There’s even a pope, although this world doesn't use the word 'pope', calling it something else.
But.
If you look at the actual texts, the Judeo-Christian God is not male. In some instances the Hebrew word used is actually used in the plural form, suggesting that God is more than one being, but generally it’s accepted that God is either sexless or is both male and female. Elliott took this idea and ran with it: the word ‘God’ in her world is used as a plural (rather than ‘God has blessed you’, it’s ‘God have blessed you’) because in this world, God is both Lord and Lady.
Possibly this doesn’t seem like a big deal at first. In another book, it could very easily have been nothing but an interesting detail for a world-building nut like myself to notice. But Elliott has once again shown herself to be a truly excellent writer, because she has not missed a single one of the momentous implications this has for her world: namely, that the society of Wendar and Varre is equally balanced between the genders where it is not heavily matriarchal and matrilineal, which makes the world of King’s Dragon very different to the real-world Medieval period. For the most part, women are the ones who inherit property and learn the trades of their mothers, while sons are expected to marry into other families and, among the nobility, train for war. The holy texts of the Unities give women rulership of the home while men are expected to go out and fight, but this is interpreted in a wonderful way: rather than being slaves to their husbands, women are the ones who control the money and their estates and are viewed by all to be the greater sex, revered for the power of childbirth, among other things. (Not that women don’t fight. They do, but more rarely than men). And because this is Epic or High Fantasy – which by my definition is concerned with crowns and thrones and politics – this new spin on gender roles (new for this genre, at least) has ramifications for the story as well.
It’s actually quite difficult to try and sum up the plot of King’s Dragon, because there are so many threads. In the simplest possible terms, the book is more or less split between Liath – a dark-skinned young woman whose father has given her some little training in forbidden sorcery – and Alain, a young man promised to the Church even though all he wants is to travel and have adventures. There are several more POV characters (the book is written in third person) but I suppose you could call Liath and Alain the main ones. Liath’s father is murdered by sorcery and she is made slave to the horrific Father Hugh, while Alain is kept from taking the vows of the Church by no less than an apparition of the Lady of Battles, who makes it clear that she has her own plans for him. This all takes place alongside an invasion by the Eika, terrible dragon-humanoid creatures who are more complicated than they at first seem (no ravening orc hordes here, however much they appear to be mindless monsters at first), and a battle for succession between the two legitimate daughters of King Henry. The eldest daughter is a spoilt brat with no head for ruling, but the younger is cold and not well-liked – and all are aware that their father favours their illegitimate older brother over both of them.
Even though Sanglant, the illegitimate prince in question, has no interest in ruling anything but the King’s Dragons, the elite cavalry force of the kingdom.
Complicated? You have no idea. The succession laws of the kingdom state that no prince or princess can inherit until they have had their year’s Progress, during which they must either fall pregnant or sire a healthy child (very sensible, if you ask me – how many civil wars could have been prevented in history by ensuring only fertile men and women inherited their thrones?) King Henry inherited despite being the younger child because of Sanglant’s birth – but Henry’s older sister has since had children of her own, raising the prospect of civil war. Then there’s the fact that Sanglant’s mother was Aoi, an elvish-like people who left the world centuries ago – as Sanglant’s mother left, mere hours after her son’s birth. The prologue of King’s Dragon makes it clear that Sanglant is in some way very important – perhaps prophesied by the Aoi – but his mother viewed his conception as a chore and is eager to be gone the moment he’s born, which answers no questions at all. Nor does Sanglant seem like any kind of Chosen One; yes, he’s an excellent warrior, but that’s all – and generally one has to be considerably more than that to save the world, yes? Besides, King’s Dragon is concerned with far more mundane matters than Sanglant’s magical ancestry – like the aforementioned civil war and invasion.
King’s Dragon – in fact, the first few books of the series – are similar to the Song of Ice and Fire series in this way: although there are clear hints in the background that something much, much bigger is coming, for the most part, the main plot is much more grounded. Corrupt bishops are working dark magic, unearthly creatures are hunting for Liath and her father’s book, a goddess of war is watching over Alain, but the reasons behind these things are, as yet, unexplained. There’s a heavy sense of building tension; King’s Dragon and its sequel Prince of Dogs are leading up to something much greater than the squabbling of one little kingdom. Occasionally this made me impatient while reading King’s Dragon – I wanted the bigger picture and I wanted it now – but it’s actually much more believable this way. The characters are unaware of what’s coming because none of them have all the pieces that the reader does (and even the reader doesn’t have close to all the pieces) and because they’re all much more concerned with trying to stay alive. It makes the story feel much more real, that the characters are wrapped up in more immediate things – even as it makes it hard to breathe occasionally, when you think of the guillotine hanging just above their unaware heads.
So, that’s a simplified explanation of the actual story. But I would like to comment, again, on the fact that Elliot’s world is pretty matriarchal/feminist. I adored reading a story set in a time period that we are programmed to think of as male-dominated, where over half the characters were women. Elliot doesn’t fall into the trap of making all her women wonderful and all her men evil; far from it – most of the villains in King’s Dragon are women (as they should be, in a female-dominant society), and all of the characters are very human (except for those few who aren’t human at all, of course). No one is wholly good, and every character has their flaws, but I found myself caring for almost all of them. There are no cardboard cut-outs here: every character draws a reaction from the reader, even if only contempt or hatred. True, this is a very difficult book to read in a short sitting – it’s over 600 pages and is extremely heavy, not physically but in a mental, emotional sense – but it’s also unabashedly excellent. I’d long since given up on ‘traditional’ high fantasy, but even with six books in this series ahead of me, I’m determined to get to the end. I can’t wait to find the answers to all my questions and see where on earth (or off it) Elliott’s story is going.
Strongly recommended for all fans of epic/high fantasy.
A rider approached. Armed in bright mail, it guided its horse forward at a sedate walk, untroubled by the raging wind. Alain thought about running, but it was so brief a thought that it was ripped away on the air almost as quickly as it formed. Because he had to stare.
The horse was beautiful, as white as untouched snow, almost blinding, and the woman -
She smiled. She had a terrible beauty, seared by hardship and agony and the wild madness of battle. ‘Serve me,’ she said. ‘Serve me, Alain Henrisson, and I will spare the village.’
‘How can you?’ he gasped, remembering Brother Giles impaled, the monastery in flames, seeing the wild, savage creatures who charged up the strand toward the houses of his kin and neighbours.
‘Serve me,’ she said.
Alain collapsed to his knees. Was that the baby’s scream on the wind? ‘I swear it.’
‘Stand.’
He stood. The cold steel of her sword came to rest on his right shoulder, then his left, then, last, achingly cold, so that it seemed to suck all the heat from him and yet burn him at the same time, she rested the flat of the blade on his head.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered.
The sword, like death by pain, was lifted. Her reply rang out and yet was muted by the howl of the wind. ‘I am the Lady of Battles. Keep this, my token.’
And she was gone.
.