Banewreaker and Godslayer: Review
Jacqueline Carey's The Sundering challenges ideas of good and evil
If all that's good considers you evil, are you? Jacqueline Carey's Sundering duology poses the question... and leaves a reader with only the most ambiguous of answers.
Jacqueline Carey’s The Sundering may be one of the most puzzling sagas of contemporary fantasy fiction. Banewreaker and Godslayer, the two volumes in the relatively short but dense epic, tell a story of the same breadth and with obvious similarities to Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, but with a depth, insight, and creativity of spirit that is all Carey’s own.
Imagine a Middle Earth in which Sauron is not a monster but a god expelled from heaven for giving too generously to humankind, wishing only to be left alone but drawn inevitably into war against the forces of light. Imagine a Lord of the Rings in which Arwen is the key to a prophecy of Sauron's downfall – and she is captured and held within Mount Doom itself, where she begins to find sympathy and sometimes liking for her captors. Consider a world in which the good are not always good and the evil are rarely as evil as they appear.
Jacqueline Carey appeared on the fantasy scene in 2001 with her first lush, lyrically written novel, Kushiel’s Dart. The Sundering is just as beautifully written, if not as sensual as the tale in the Kushiel books.
The Sundering seems to be, in essence, a tribute to The Lord of the Rings told from evil’s side – with all the fundamentals of the world changed. The story itself bears little resemblance to Tolkein’s, but many of the characters and their relationships seem like twisted rewritings of familiar friends from Middle Earth, eerily given new meaning.
In the Fjeltroll, for instance, Carey has created a depth of loyalty and heart that few could have imagined in Tolkein’s Orcs. Lilias and the dragon Calandor are villains to rival Saruman – if they are villains at all. Yet Counsellor Malthus (a shadow Gandalf), Borderguard Blaise Caveros (Aragorn), and Ellylon Peldras (a more insightful and compassionate Legolas) are disarmingly persuasive, and lose none of their intensity, brightness or appeal in being written as the “other side.”
However, it is the novel aspects of The Sundering which are most appealing. The novels are filled with some of the most intriguing and ambiguous characters ever to people the side of right or wrong.
Lord Satoris, the “Sauron” of this world, is no conquest-hungry tyrant but a desperate, half-mad god who was banished by his siblings, the other gods, when he would not obey his eldest brother and erase his gift to the human race. Satoris is a savage Prometheus who always honors his promises – as his “good” elder brother, Haomane, may not.
Satoris draws to his side wounded heroes who become villains only because the “lighter” peoples of a brutal world threw them away – and only the rogue god showed them love. Over the centuries, Satoris has created three immortal champions who are hated and feared by the races of light: the unpredictable Dreamer, the vicious Warrior, and the self-interested Glutton.
It is the Warrior, Tanaros Blacksword, who is the most compelling hero/villain of the story. Over a thousand years ago, when his beloved wife cuckolded him with the king he served, Tanaros killed them both. His mournful rage and pain at the betrayal of the two he loved the most continue to shape all that he does in the service of Lord Satoris across the ensuing centuries. By the end of the saga, the reader, surprisingly, cares enough about each of the Three, as well as Satoris himself, that the ending is enjoyable only for the beauty and mastery of Carey’s writing and the way she weaves a tale.
Throughout, The Sundering is a fascinating tapestry of many meanings, unique magics, and troubled passions – and at times, a very uncomfortable read. You’ll never look at Lord of the Rings the same way again.
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Excerpted from Godslayer by Jacqueline Carey, 2005, pp. 142-143:
‘My Lord?’ Ushahin found his voice. ‘…each of your brethen, they Shaped Children after their own desires, yet you did not. Why is it so?’
Lord Satoris, Satoris Third-Born, who was once called the Sower, smiled and opened his arms. In his ravaged visage… there lay the bright shadow of what he had been when the world was young. Of what he had been when he had walked upon it and ventured into the deep places his brethen feared, and he had spoken with dragons and given his Gift to many. ‘Did I not?’ he asked softly. ‘Hear me, Dreamspinner, and remember. All of you are my children; all that live and walk upon the face of Urulat, thinking thoughts and wondering at them….’
