Elizabeth Bear’s Shattered Pillars is the second installment of her Eternal Sky Trilogy, a richly imagined and wonderfully wrought Silk Road Fantasy. Action/plot picks up shortly after the events of Range of Ghosts, specifically here, the Wizard Samarkar and Temur are on a quest to find and rescue Edene who is imprisoned at the enemy fortress Ala-Din, The problem is, Edene is forging a path both physically and spiritually that may be quite challenging to follow; Edene has escaped and acquired a ring of power, but Temur and Samarkar are unaware of this new development. Here Edene takes power for herself, not waiting for Temur to save her. This blurring of gender roles continues with Temur and Samarkar, for Samarkar (the one-time Princess and now Wizard of her own choice) is more often than not saving Temur. The other major conflict is that not only is Temur hoping to rescue Edene, he is also trying to cement himself as the ruling Khagan, a role his uncle has usurped.
A subplot that provides additional tension is a plague that has begun to infest the city of Tsarepheth. Unfortunately, between the mages (Hong-la and Tsering-la), doctors and scientist, not much agreement can be found regarding a potential cure. When hope does show its head, it may be too late for some of the most ill people. The plague itself is quite ingenious and proves to be a horrifying infestation of demons on an individual personal level, but with potentially far-ranging consequences. I thought Bear’s depiction of the plague itself to be rendered very creepy, providing just the right amount of dread and grotesquerie.
What Elizabeth Bear does in Shattered Pillars is broaden the global canvas of her world, adding depth to a world that already had a rich and authentic feel. Not only does Bear expand on the gods and world, she introduces new concepts of divinity and power foreign even to the characters we’ve already met. In part, Shattered Pillars can be seen as a travelogue through this beautifully created world. In other words, the world is a fully realized character in and of itself.
To say that Shattered Pillars is a “middle book” is both missing the point and true at the same time. Rather, this second book would be more fairly viewed as the middle act of a three act story. Readers entering Shattered Pillars without having read Range of Ghosts will likely be a bit lost as will those hoping for resolution by the time they close the cover on this novel. This, of course, is not uncommon in trilogies, but Bear does manage to avoid many of the pitfalls associated with middle books. In these two books, Bear has crafted an incredible resonant, plausible myth cycle.
But…and I hate adding buts into these things, but I must. For all of the splendor on the pages of Shattered Pillars, I found myself not connecting with the narrative or the characters as much as I would have liked. I felt a distance between me as the reader and the story on the pages. Perhaps because it was just over two years since I read Range of Ghosts, perhaps something else. I recognize what a solid piece of fiction Shattered Pillars is, but I had my problems staying intimately invested in the novel.
What else can be said, then, about the second book of a trilogy? My own problems aside, I really do think readers unsure of whether to plunge into Bear’s beautiful Epic Fantasy should take a step back and get their hands on Range of Ghosts. I would suggest that since all three books are now published, readers invest the time into reading the trilogy back-to-back-to-back. Readers who immersed themselves in Range of Ghosts, will no doubt wish to continue the journey on which Elizabeth Bear is placing Temur, Edene, and Samarkar, because Shattered Pillars is an ample serving of what was so enjoyable in the first installment.
Recommended
© 2014 Rob H. Bedford
The Eternal Sky Trilogy Book 2
Tor, 336 pgs
Hardcover, ISBN 978 0 7653 2755 0
http://www.elizabethbear.com/
Excerpt: http://us.macmillan.com/excerpt?isbn=9780765327550
Hardcover review copy courtesy of the Publisher, Tor
