The Killing God

I was a fan of Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series back in the day. So when I got the chance to read The Killing God, I jumped at it. (No, I hadn't read the first two in the trilogy. Y'all know how I am sometimes.)

Here we see two countries, Belleger and Amika, historical enemies united by the marriage of Bifalt and Estie, preparing for war against the Great God Rile. Rile and his forces are coming for the Last Repository and all the knowledge it holds. While Bifalt prepares for war, Estie rides for the Last Repository, hoping to learn more about the power she holds and how she might use it to defend her people.

The relationship between Bifalt and Estie is strained. They parted on less than loving terms. Bifalt hates magic and it pains him to know that his wife could become a Magister. Estie longs to reconcile with her husband, but is driven to know more about this power of hers. What power is it? What can it do? What price will it exact from her?

We've got some good fantasy elements here: good versus evil, a conflicted hero (and heroine), a seemingly insurmountable quest. Donaldson uses them to good advantage and writes a story that, once it sucks you in, is hard to put down.

The Magisters' powers were fascinating, and the price that each seemed to require the wielder to pay wasn't always what you'd expect. Rile's forces were also not the standard slash-and-burn soldiers. It was never a given that the good guys would win this one!

There wasn't a lot of character development on the side of evil – they were just the Big Bad and had to be stopped. But the Magisters, Bifalt's soldiers, Bifalt and Estie themselves, were all nicely written and made me care about what happened to them. Okay, some more than others. Some of the Magisters were just jerks and not terribly likeable, but I suppose wielding great power (and in some instances, carrying a very heavy burden for others) could make you that way.

The story does take a while to get rolling, and Rile's motivation for wanting to wipe out the Last Repository wasn't terribly clear to me. But that didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the book. I will go back and read the first two in the series, to see if Rile's actions make more sense to me after reading the story as a whole.

Four stars, and I recommend The Killing God and The Great God's War series to anyone who's a fan of high fantasy, with main characters that make you care about how things turn out for them. Stephen R. Donaldson doesn't give us a quick read, but he does give us a damn fine story here.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book from Berkley and Netgalley. All opinions here are mine, and I don't say nice things about books I don't actually like.

3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Belleger and Amika have finally found peace with each other. But war threatens from without, and it's a greater, more dangerous war than any of them could have envisioned.

Review
It pains me to admit that I have not [shudder] read the middle book of this trilogy. My impression is that I didn't miss that much in terms of plot.

This series is titled The Great God's War, and the martial aspect comes to fruition in this final volume, which is essentially one very long (600 page) collection of battle scenes. I found it wearing, especially because there's no map to help envision the various strategic moves. After a while, I found it hard to stay interested in tactical decisions that lacked context and tended to blur together. In part, that's because of the characters' histrionics.

Any fan of Donaldson knows that his characters will tend toward the selfish and dramatic, with a likelihood of freezing under pressure. He set that template in Lord Foul's Bane, and hasn't strayed far from it since (though a bit more so in his short fiction). It's become at least a trademark, if not a crutch. Here, he applies it in spades. Character after character is anguished by their need (and willingness) to sacrifice others, but taken aback by any suggestion that they pay a price themselves. And ‘anguish' is the operative word here; characters have the choice of two responses: flat stolidity or wailing, tooth-gnashing anguish. Never does anyone say, “Sure. That will be mildly difficult, but we'll give it a shot.”

At one point, Queen Etsie learns the nature of her undeveloped magic power, and the price for it. It's a power that's not terribly useful, and it's not really clear why she feels driven to explore it. At the same time, the price, while certainly life-changing, is small compared to the stakes and terms that are constantly thrown around. Yet, paying that price seems to drive her to extremes of depression, as if someone had asked her to torture her children one by one. It's on par with the generally overwrought feel of the book, and I found it really trying – especially as the Queen and King repeatedly ask others for the impossible, but cry their eyes out over paying any price themselves. That's a bit exaggerated, but then, so is the book.

I'd ordinarily think that – as I suggested in a review of the first book, Donaldson is in a bit of a rut or even decline, but I felt the Thomas Covenant series ended fairly well. I do think that this most recent trilogy is not a success. From the awkward naming (Bellegerin and Amika as warring nations) to the overdramatic characters to the endless battle scenes to the loose threads, there's a lot that could have been better.

A host of things unexplained in this concluding volume. The Final Decimate ends up underwhelming, and its nature unclear. The magic system as a whole begins to fall apart – or muddle together – at the end; what's a decimate and what isn't remains unclear, beyond the simple, formal designation. The nature and origin of the dreaded enemy? No attempt made to explain it at all. The motivations of the characters, beyond serving the plot? Well, they serve the plot, and, you know, this must be done, despite the vast, incalculable price. I guess.
The book is largely what I anticipated, based on the first in the trilogy, but longer and more angsty. I think that Donaldson is a talented writer, and I wish I could say that I'd loved this book or series, but I can't. In my view, he'd do better to try something really different – not just a new genre (as in the Gap or The Man Who series), but something a little more lighthearted and without quite so much drama.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.