The Element of Fire
The Ile-Rien series, Book 1
Martha Wells
Tantor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It has been many years since the peace of the kingdom of Ile-Rien was tested, but when Urbaine Grandier - a dark mage convicted of heresy by the realm's fanatical neighboring nation Bisran, said to have been driven insane by their inquisitors - abducts a sorcerer from the college of magical sciences, the first spark flies of what might explode into a cataclysm. Worse, the exiled princess Kade, half-fae sister of King Roland, has turned up again at the royal castle for her own inscrutable reasons. With the crown already resting precariously enough on Roland's brow, the weak-willed young man having fallen under the influence of a conniving cousin, and tensions between him and the aging Dowager Queen Ravenna high, it falls to Captain Thomas Boniface of the Queen's Guard to track down Grandier, deal with Kade, and prevent the collapse of the monarchy... little suspecting the greater threat hanging over everyone, a treachery that makes mere war with Bisran seem insignificant.
REVIEW: I had another epic fantasy itch, and this audiobook was available via Libby, so it seemed worth a try. The Element of Fire offers magic, treachery, wonder, darkness, and a touch of swashbuckling action... in short, about everything I wanted in an epic fantasy, even if it lacked some of the depth and grander scale I've come to associate with the best of the subgenre.
Starting with Thomas's dangerous mission to retrieve the abducted sorcerer Durell from Grandier's clutches, it immerses the reader in a world thick with magic and intrigue. The names and politics can be a bit heavy, particularly early on, but it mostly sorts itself out as the tale unfolds. Thomas's position at the court is precarious; as captain of Ravenna's guard (and one-time lover; especially among nobility, Ile-Rien has a somewhat casual attitude toward extramarital affairs and sex in general), there's friction with King Roland's retinue and the followers of Danzil, the cousin who got his hooks into the immature regent long ago and holds him almost completely in thrall. He's reaching an age where such courtly politicking is more exhausting than thrilling, the meager and transitory rewards hardly worth the costs, but he still feels loyal enough to Ravenna and the overall stability of Ile-Rien to remain; without Ravenna's manipulations and people like Thomas, the nation would be in utter shambles. Thomas isn't always the most intelligent of investigators, with a blunder or two obvious enough even I was gritting my teeth at them, but he manages to come through when it counts. Kade, meanwhile, has returned in a belated attempt to confront the past: she and her half-brother were terrorized by an abusive father. Despite herself, she ends up pulled into Thomas's efforts to root out Grandier and stop the dark plot the foreign mage has set in motion... a plot that involves the Unseelie court of dark fae, making the matter personal to Kade; her fae mother was of the Seelie court, recently a victim of Unseelie treachery, and for all that Kade and her mother were not particularly close, she cannot let them get away with that. Thomas and Kade make a more or less decent duo, confronting escalating threats as events quickly spiral out of control, and the story generally clips along at a decent pace. There were a few elements that felt subtly unsatisfactory by the end - this was one of Wells's earliest published works, which may explain some unevenness, how certain elements felt awkwardly spliced in, and some worldbuilding "rules" felt vague - but I found it an entertaining enough tale to overlook the odd bump.
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