Long ago, in a forgotten age between the ancient and the medieval, there were the Elder Isles -- places of enchantment and mystery, of war and politics.
And it doesn't take long to be dragged into the magical, silvery spiderweb of "Suldrun's Garden," the first novel in Jack Vance's classic Lyonesse trilogy. Like an Arthurian story minus King Arthur and his knights, Vance spins up a fairy-tale-like fantasy story set in an age that never actually happened (it's supposedly in the fifth century, but has jousting, fairies and countries that didn't actually exist), with luscious prose and an intriguing heroine.
Princess Suldrun spent most of her childhood ignored by her cruel father and indolent mother, and sporadically educated by a string of rather indifferent servants. Beautiful but stubborn, she spent most of her time in a ruined garden near the sea... until she became old enough to peddle off in marriage. When she refused to marry the man her father had chosen, he imprisoned her in her garden all by herself... until a handsome young man washes up, half-drowned. He is Prince Aillas, and of course they fall in love as Suldrun nurses him back to health.
But their love is threatened by her brutal father Casmir, who yearns to be the kind of all the Elder Isles -- and before long, tragedy strikes the couple and tears them apart forever. Their baby son Dhrun is snatched away by the fairy folk and raised in a world of magic, and when he ventures back out into the mortal world, he must deal with a variety of strange new foes, troubles and dangers. Meanwhile, Aillas embarks on a tireless quest for his son, and finds the road just as difficult.
Jack Vance wrote the Lyonesse trilogy in the style of old Arthurian tales -- lots of medieval anachronisms and fantastical elements in an almost ancient setting, from the isle of Ys to the presence of jousting. As a result, the world of "Suldrun's Garden" feels like a mass of half-forgotten legends and fairy-tales, with capricious fairies, carved faces that speak, body-swapping witches, cruel kings, bittersweet love, magic mirrors, and reclusive sorcerers. In a word, enchanted.
And a great deal of that comes from Vance's writing, which is lush with moonlight, trees, winding palaces and the glimmer of fairy magic. He writes in a style that is distinctly old-timey in fashion, with some hauntingly beautiful dialogue ("I am Suldrun, yet I am not Suldrun. I ache with a chill all your warmth could never melt..."). But it's not all about fantastical stuff -- he weaves an incredibly complex web of politics between (and within) the different kingdoms of the Elder Isles, with plenty of power grabs, murders, exiles and schemes.
But he knows how to inject a sense of fun into his story despite all the tragedy and hardship (""You have mentioned sore knees, which I have in abundance, to the number of two"). One scene involves Aillas speaking to a wacky mad king obsessed with birds, which exists just to be funny.
Vance also conjures up a wide and varied cast of characters, with three important ones at its heart -- the tragic and otherworldly Suldrun, the clever and determined Aillas, and their puckish young son Dhrun. But there are a variety of others, including the cruel and shallow King Casmir, magically ambitious bisexual duke Carfilhiot, the resourceful Glyneth who was rescued from an ogre, the mysterious fairy king who helped raise Dhrun, and the adventurous lovelorn sorcerer "avatar" Shimrod.
"Suldrun's Garden" is an entrancing beginning to a classic fantasy trilogy, which showed that Jack Vance was as skilled with the magical as he was with science fiction. But the story of Lyonesse is far from over.
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