Winterbirth [Mass Market Paperback]

Brian Ruckley's Winterbirth is a good standard adventure fantasy. What it lacks in innovation, it makes up for in able storytelling. The heroes are likable and the villains are formidable. Although it starts sloooow, the pace accelerates by page 150. At times, the chase scenes are memorably breathless. I would compare the novel to David Durham's Acacia because both novels feature two cultures--one revenging past treatment, the other defending its border--battling for the same territory. (Acacia is probably the better novel.)

I think that the author wants to eschew a clear-cut good versus evil story; however Kanin and Wain are too grim for the Bloods of the Black Road to seem like anything other than bad guys. Ruckley does a better job of humanizing Aeglyss; although he is a cliché, I suspect he will be the most interesting character of the series.

The premise of a godless world is intriguing, but it does not impact the world in a significant way. I think that the absence of the gods should be felt more in the story. The author tries to personalize his world by calling elves "Kyrinin" and magic "The Shared," but his efforts at distinction are mostly weak. Despite the author's debt to Tolkien (Inurian could be Gandalf's long-lost twin), thankfully nothing resembling Orcs make an appearance. Ruckley provides a lot of history and background, some of it unnecessary. For example, if Whreinin and Saolin are not in the story, why mention them?

I applaud the author on his treatment of Anyara. Some authors seem to revel in depravity, especially when women are targets (Robert Newcomb's The Fifth Sorceress comes to mind), but Ruckley exhibits commendable restraint. In general, he avoids gore and gratuity, which bodes well for the series.

While Ruckley won't write George R.R. Martin out of a job, he's a good enough writer. I'll read what he writes next.

It would be easy to characterize Winterbirth as akin to historical fiction, but really it reads more like a novelization of history, ala 1776, rather than just a novel. Fantasy setting aside, like a historical novel, the book is one of events more than characters. The cover states, "It is a World of Ice, It is a World of Blood, It is a Godless World." That's pretty much what the book is about - the world.

The first many pages are dedicated entirely to background - we witness a variety of events that take place in the long ago, but that have shaped in a significant way the `present' in which most of the book takes place. These sections provide context for the events that come later, and in this way make the world seem more realized than is typical for a fantasy genre story. Give author Brian Ruckley credit, he knows his world and its history.

However, like one often finds in an academic's attempt to make history interesting, you find two things missing: One, a focus on a specific dramatic tension, and two, the gritty details. A variety of moving pieces play out their parts in Winterbirth, none really taking primacy. To be sure, each constituency represented in the book has its own demons, its own goals, its own agendas. However, to paraphrase the characters in `The Incredibles', when everyone is special, nobody is. Winterbirth _is_ like real life that way - but frankly, there's a reason more people read novels than histories. When I mention details, I don't merely mean the details of the events taking place, but detail of the characters, detail of the environment. Human beings sense smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound. Each of these senses should be engaged by the author to bring the reader into the tale, but Mr. Ruckley rarely engages more than three of these. As a result, I often felt as though I were looking down on a series of events - almost like a chessboard - rather than looking through the eyes of the characters.

This is, in fact, where Winterbirth fails to live up to the example set by the likes of George RR Martin's works - `real' seeming series of events, multiple characters of moral complexity - but in GRRM you truly sit behind the eyeballs of each character and so become very invested in what happens to them. Mr. Ruckley never quite achieves that intimacy.

Add to these challenges a significant number of pages dedicated to events with no apparent bearing on the current story, and what might have been an exciting read at times becomes a total slog. Meaning, "It was tough to slog through some of those pages."

Assuming Mr. Ruckley continues his series in the vein of Winterbirth, it would be a neat trick someday to see someone write a `historical fiction' treatment of what, as I said, comes across more like a novelization of history. If one were to pair down about 3/5 of what is here, and then expanded with brutal and gory detail what is left, I think you'd have a 5 star tale. The world and its events presented here are certainly exciting, it's just a pity they're not written that way.

There are many things worse than Winterbirth on the fantasy genre bookshelves. I'll buy the second book in the series - but I will do so with a certain amount of trepidation. If I feel the same way about that one I do this one, I'll stop there.

If you haven't read Winterbirth, I would wait until some reviews of the second are posted and make your decision to purchase at that time.

I'm struggling to separate my astonishment at some of the reviews with my true feelings towards the novel. Brian Ruckley's Winterbirth is at BEST a promising novel. I understand the difficulties in breaking into a well established genre, and applaud Ruckley for (seemingly) being able to do so successfully. However, as much as the publishers and authors would like it to be, not every debut fantasy can be suddenly catapulted into the all time hall of fame. As my title suggests, almost everything about Winterbirth is decent; Story, Characters, Misc.

The story is... decent, but it takes awhile to get to that point. I don't agree with some of the extreme arguments about the beginning. Ruckley does a fair job, setting the world and backdrop that influences the rest of the book. While the story may be gritty in some parts, it's not done so as to be entirely original, nor does it greatly improve the use of realism. When someone writes a story with historical overtones, set in a genre called "dark fantasy," it's kind of a given that it needs to be realistic. Anyway, the story drags a bit until the last quarter where it, and strangely the quality of writing, picks up and finishes with more of a whimper than a bang. Moreover, while the last quarter saves my desire to read a sequel, it doesn't instill in me a great need to buy it in hardback.

The characters take awhile to get interested in. They're written in such a way as to seem less important than the world they live in, the context of events, and the even the scenery. As mentioned before, it really isn't until the last quarter of the book that the author seemingly puts a little more importance in the characters than everything else. They are dry, sometimes uninteresting. Although others may put great importance on Ruckley's use of morally ambiguous character types, it isn't something incredibly well fleshed out, highly original, or as deeply refreshing as other might have you believe. It's...decent.

The misc. in a fantasy novel can make it or break it for me. These are the things that are common, sometimes necessary, in todays market. Examples would be the names, the maps, the extra information that might fill in the whole when your creating a complex world. Winterbirth's names were frustrating for half the book. Any author should realize that when you have major/minor characters that have similar names, it can be frustrating. It should be Fantasy 101. Everything about a world is in the authors head and no where else. When introducing that world to others, similar names confuse us until we get used to it and have enough info to differentiate. Neither should they be nearly impossible to pronounce, and if they are, the majority should not be nearly impossible to pronounce. I also understand the need to outsource the drawling of your map but as a fan, details are important. It doesn't have to be precise, but major geographical regions (epic woods, epic mountains) should have more than just names. There really shouldn't be great blank spots, unless within the world those spots aren't known. The time line in the back of the book is nice, but the history of the world in Winterbirth is not delved into so much that it's really needed.

As I said in the beginning, it was frustrating separating my feelings of the reviews and of the book. It was not "Heroic fantasy splashed with 300-style gore." There was not nearly enough detail in the battle scenes to even be in the same house as 300. It also certainly does not put the "epic back in epic fantasy." Epic implies greater reaches in story and character development than this first novel does. Maybe that will change, but in no way does Winterbirth set the stage for EPIC...prologue foreshadowing notwithstanding. Winterbirth is not a "tour-de-force." It is not a rival to Martin, and it won't chill your bones with the idea of a godless world of blood and ice. All in all...decent.