There’s been a lot of love professed for Jen’s last Fantasy trilogy both elsewhere and here at SFFWorld – Rob liked The Copper Promise a lot, saying “The Copper Promise is an absolute blast of a novel.” The Ninth Rain is a new series, the first in a new unrelated trilogy and one I think will do very, very well.
Set on Sarn, in the decaying realm of Ebora, the world of the alien Ebora is dying. With the death of Ygseril, their tree-god, the domain that remains is a dangerous one. In addition, the once near-immortal Eborans are also dying and relegated to drinking human blood for sustenance, whilst also running the risk of contamination and death from the Crimson Flux – a death as horrible as the name suggests.
To this world we are introduced to a world of magic and near-mystical artefacts known as Behemoths.
At the beginning of the novel intrepid archaeologist, adventurer and explorer Lady Vincenza de Grazon (aka Vintage) sets off into Sarn on a quest for crashed Behemoths, which seem to be the metallic remnants of previous wars (the Carrion Wars) between the Eborans and the Jure’lia. The Eborans, though despised and treated with fear by humans today, have actually been responsible for protecting the planet from eight previous attacks by the Jure’lia.
The journey is hazardous because moon-metal fragments of these Behemoths, when uncovered, often lead to strange and deadly phenomena occurring, such as the creation of mysterious parasitic spirits who can kill humans on contact. To protect Vintage on her dangerous journey we therefore have Elric-like Tormalin (aka Tor), a young Eboran (well, 400 years old – young for an Eboran) mercenary who has left his family, including his sister Hestillion, for a life of adventure and all that it brings – women, wine, and often more wine.
On this journey they meet young Fell-Noon, a fell-witch escapee from the Winnowry, a prison for corrupt witches where the women are forced to produce a magic energy known as winnowfire. Now as a trio, together they fight an encroaching evil set to return to the land and also elude those determined to recapture Noon.
Though this is being touted as a Fantasy novel Jen manages to combine elements of SF into a Fantasy setting that was reminiscent to me a little of McCaffrey’s Pern, though admittedly that was a place that combined elements of Fantasy into a sf-nal setting. The elegiac sense of decay throughout made me think of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth or even Gene Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer in its world building, whilst the rather baroque manners of the Eborans brought to mind Mike Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time. Such a mixture is probably a good thing.
There are some particularly nasty things left behind by the Jure’lia – metallic robotic spider-like ‘mothers’ and organic ‘burrowers’ that, in truly horrendous fashion, tunnel into flesh and then eat their victim from the inside out, for example. There’s a Dune-like maggot that amongst other things buries victims in a green excreted impermeable goo known as varnish, preserved forever more, and even a touch of Alien in places (but to explain more might ruin a plot point).
What works most, though, are the characters that travel across this landscape. As the book progresses you develop a real sense that the characters are engagingly likeable and trustworthy, and learn to depend on each other as they encounter challenge after challenge. Vintage in particular is likeable, funny, engaging and knowledgeable, though this does not make her invincible. By comparison, Tor is initially annoyingly whingeing, snarky and immature. Admittedly some may find the idea of a sexy vampire elf rather alluring. It is to the writer’s credit that, as the book continues, this character becomes more endearing. Through his backstory we realise that there is more to him and the Eborans than we realise. As perhaps expected, Noon becomes something more than she seems at the beginning of the novel.
The main plot of the book is that amongst all of this setting there are signs – through the accelerated re-growth of the wilderness known as The Fall to the vividly nightmarish dreams characters experience – that the Ninth Wave is about to happen. The Jure’lia are coming back, and this time there’s few Eboran to fight back, which creates a nice frisson of tension as the plot continues. By the end there’s enough twists and turns to keep the pages turning.
The only issue for me was the ending, which does seem little more than a set-up for the next part of this tale. It is not a bad thing, but I suspect readers will be desperate to carry on reading, even after 500+ pages so far. As quibbles go, I suspect this is a relatively minor one!
The Ninth Rain is a mixture of science fiction and fantasy tropes merged together to create an engaging and exciting novel that readers will want more of. It respects the past but rewrites it into something for the 21st century. It should do very well.
The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams
Published by Headline, March 2017
536 pages
ISBN: 978 1 4722 35176
Review by Mark Yon
