Greg Keyes has been actively publishing in Science Fiction and Fantasy for just over twenty years, with the majority of the last half dozen years spent churning out well-received media tie-in novels in worlds like the Elder Scrolls video game and the recently rebooted Planet of the Apes cinematic milieu. With The Reign of the Departed, the first novel of his new series entitled The High and the Far Away, Greg Keyes returns to fantasy in a setting of his own creation, something fans of his Age of Unreason and Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone saga have been hoping to see.
Errol Greyson hadn’t intended to commit suicide. Or so he told himself. But waking up after his “cry for help” in the body of a wood-and-metal construct magically animated by Aster—the strange girl from school—was not a result he could have imagined.
Aster’s wild explanations of a quest to find the water of health that would cure her father seemed as unreal as her description of Errol’s own half-dead existence, his consciousness stuck in an enchanted automaton while his real body was in a coma from which it might never wake. And of course, they would need to recruit a girl—a virgin, no less—who had –––been dead for thirty years, to lead them through something called the Pale, beyond which a bunch of magical kingdoms existed. Plus, the threat that Aster could turn him off like a light switch, sending him into a hellish oblivion, was a convincing incentive to cooperate.
It all seemed quite mad: either Aster was nuts or Errol was hallucinating. But if it meant a new chance at life, he reckoned it was worth playing along.
The novel starts from a pretty dark place – the suicide of a young man, and it doesn’t quite raise its head from there. Although Errol attempted to take his own life, his soul has been placed in a wooden automaton by a classmate, Aster Kostyena, who is much more than he remembered her being. Not only is Errol in the body of what is essentially a man-sized puppet, he’s no longer in Mississippi, but a world parallel to our own with monsters, shapeshifters, and magic.
Aster is assembling a group of people to go on a quest to gather healing water for her ailing father and the next member of the party they find happens to be a girl who has been missing in Errol’s (our) world for decades. Aster essentially resurrects the girl and they are now a trio. From there, they encounter a strange family, a mysterious stranger who bears some resemblance to Aster, and a “Sheriff” who is hunting Aster because of things her father did before he fled this fantastical to hide on Earth.
I liked a lot of what Keyes was doing in the novel, in terms of the story itself, the characters, and laying the groundwork for a multi-book narrative. The world where Errol awakens in his new body has a lived-in feel, a world with history and mythology of its own. Some of that mythology may be familiar or possess familiar elements to some readers, but on the whole, the High and the Faraway does have a feel of its own.
Keyes does a good job of building up empathy in Errol, he’s a kid with family issues that become even more sad as we learn more about him. In and from Aster, Errol doesn’t get much explanation and neither do we as the reader. She’s clearly driven to save her father no matter the cost, whether it is alienating people or potentially disposing of them once she feels she has no more use for them.
There’s more to many of the characters (and the world) than readers initially are introduced to at the outset. One seemingly innocuous character turns out to be a truly despicable creature by the end of the novel, while another grows from being selfish and unlikeable to almost upbeat and willing to help.
Despite many of the strong elements of the novel, I found some elements lacking. There was a continual withholding of information, partially on Errol’s part, but most predominantly on Aster’s part. It isn’t quite like the mentor withholding information from the young character who must learn something themselves rather than being told, it seemed to simply be a withholding to lengthen the plot. Whatever it was, that sense of holding back from the characters held me back from enjoying the novel completely. I also felt there were gaps in the plot and some transitions were uneven; or that things happen without a strong enough connective scene. If I’m being honest, this all points to the fact that maybe the novel could (or should) have gone through a tighter developmental edit. I will also say the book has a really eye-catching cover by Micah Epstein that is only more impressive when you examine it more closely.
At times the story reminded me of Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars, others I felt resonance between this novel and the two novels of Edward Lazellari, Guardians of Andor.
As it stands, The Reign of the Departed feels like it is a little short of what I’d come to expect from Greg Keyes, especially since I really enjoyed his Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone four book series. There are enough strong elements around some of the characters and particularly the world (or worlds) Keyes hints at in this novel that the inevitable second novel is indeed welcome. Admittedly, this could be in part due to nostalgia’s sake and how much I enjoyed many of Keyes’s previously published novels.
© 2018 Rob H. Bedford
Trade Paperback, May 2018
The High and Faraway, Book One
Review copy courtesy of the publisher Night Shade Books
