This Fantasy novel is the latest debut here in the UK that is being highly promoted. It has a lot that you may recognise, at least at the start.
Annev de Breth is a child with a destiny, who begins this novel as a crippled baby. This is important to the plot as this is a world where any physical deformation is seen as a result of being a ‘Son of Keos’ and the person is killed. Using magic is seen also as the result of being allied to Keos, and so magicians are hunted down and executed. Any magic artefact found is either stored in the Vault of Damnation at the Academy in Chaenbalu or destroyed by Avatars of Judgement whose purpose is to travel the world locating and destroying such objects.
Annev is hidden away until he is a teenager. The first part of the novel shows him as a trainee Avatar of Judgement at the Academy and raised by Sodan, a strict elderly mentor who promised to look after the boy when his parents died. As is usual in such matters, Annev is well-liked by some students, who are unaware of his disability, but bullied by others, as they go through a series of challenges in preparation for the Test of Judgement, which lead to one student a year being chosen to be an Avatar.
As the beginning of a novel which is the first part of a series, a lot of this part of the book is setting up the scenario, the world and introducing the characters. It’s done pretty well, and you do work things out fairly easily, as it is all based on characteristics that are easy to recognise. Annev is engaging, likeable and often has honourable intentions, his mentor Sodan is strict but good-hearted. Tosan, the Headmaster of the Academy, is stern and hostile, although this may be partly due to Annev holding a flame for his daughter, the beautiful and alluring fellow student Myjun.
This may be just what the reader requires at the start of a novel. However the downside of this is that you can’t help feeling that you’ve read it all before. It also doesn’t really help that the first part of the book seems to portend a great deal – THIS IS IMPORTANT, FOR IMPORTANT THINGS TO COME – whilst fairly mundane things are happening (school, chores, bullying).
It also may not surprise the well-read genre reader that Annev makes it through, though not entirely without individual sacrifice. Much of the story is about the often-opposing struggles between what is right and wrong, and making choices. Sometimes, as in life, the choices made are not the best and much of the book is spent showing the consequences of dealing with such actions.
At this point there is a plot-convenience, when Annev’s success in the Test of Judgement leads to him becoming fast-tracked through the social system. He becomes not an Avatar of Judgement, but a Master Avatar. He is then immediately sent on a dangerous mission to kill someone who has stumbled across the hidden village. There is a reason given, but it does seem rather forced and all too convenient. (Surely you would help a new staff-member to settle in and acclimatise themselves to their new position before sending them off the same day on a dangerous mission?) Whilst I guess that such actions can be seen as an attempt to make Annev fail, it felt more like the resolution of a plot point rather than something that was logical. It is not the only such example in the book.
And it was at this point that I struggled to keep reading. However, it is then that the book became more interesting, as the story started to engage my attention once more.
The last part of the novel makes up for the stodgy first part. There are revelations, not all of which are expected. Friendships are made, tested and lost and there are discoveries that have serious consequences for those involved. The lengthy battle scenes, once begun, are well written and, unlike the training sequences at the beginning of the novel, feel less superfluous. There is an Epilogue which shows that the story has not ended here.
In the hands of another writer such a story could be written as an uplifting one – how a teenager overcomes his challenges to be a better person and create a better world. However, in the end, this takes a different path. To borrow from another famous example, what we read here is not the story of Luke Skywalker but that of Anakin (or perhaps even Rey.) What we are really reading here is not the story of a hero but instead that of an anti-hero.
Master of Sorrows is a solid debut, told with some skill that suggests that this writer has more to offer. Whilst it is clearly a debut novel, there are parts that keep the pages turning, after a humdrum start. In these times when there are many, many genre books treading similar paths, it is difficult to tell a unique story that follows a different path. Master of Sorrows is a good attempt to be distinct, although its ambition leads to things being a little overstretched in places.
Master of Sorrows by Justin Call
Published by Gollancz, February 2019
ISBN: 978 1473 222 861
580 pages
Review by Mark Yon
