Simplified Series - Godserfs

Ch-ch-ch-changes! But seriously, these images all show roughly the same geographic spot. Obviously at different times and from different angles given the differences in the mountains in the background, and . . . I'm over-explaining.

My feverish pursuit of MOAR content brought forth this feature: Simplified Series. Here's the pitch: quick synopses (I'll try and keep them spoiler-free-ish, but, you know, most of these are past the statute of limitations on spoilers) of the entries in a series followed by the reasons you should or shouldn't read it. This week:

The Godserfs Trilogy by N.S. Dolkart

Since this series just finished publishing last year, I want to be clear, there are definitely SPOILERS ahead.

Background Info: So, this is a fantasy trilogy I've been reading for the last three years. Wait, that makes it sound like it's taken me three years to read it. It's a fantasy trilogy in which a book has been published and then read by me in each of the last three years. NAILED IT! Anyway, it's in what you might describe as a standard fantasy setting. There are dragons, agrarian city-states, wizards, pre-industrial technology, gods, baseless xenophobia, elves, eschatology, and world-trees. So, you know, normal stuff. It concerns five teenagers who leave home and end up working an unpaid internship with a wizard who wants nothing more than to hide herself from the Gods who, as it turns out, aren't so crazy about wizards running around and figuring out how the world works. Since there are five protagonists to deal with we'll break format to describe where they are at the start of the first volume:

NARKY - He's a farmer's son who has to flee his home on the island of Tarphae after he shoots and kills another boy with a crossbow. That's right, Narky is a liar, a thief, and a murderer. He's also a churl with a sharp mind and a sharp tongue, both of which only serve to get him into more trouble.

CRITON - He's the secret son of a secretive man. The man's secret: he's been beating his wife and son ever since he discovered that his wife is dragontouched (look, there are people called dragontouched who often have scales and claws and can fly and breath fire and also perform magic to look like regular humans). In any case, Criton's mother finally helps him escape from their home when he's a young man and tells him to get on the first boat away from Tarphae ASAP!

PHAEDRA - A wealthy merchant's daughter, Phaedra loves to read and wants more from life than marriage to some minor Tarphaean nobleman. She's persuaded her parents that they should allow her to undertake a pilgrimage to a monastery to Atel, the god of travellers, before she has to marry. They agree, so long as she takes her nurse as a chaperone.

HUNTER - The second son of a pretty important nobleman, Hunter aspires to nothing more or less than to be the champion of Tarphae! Maybe too much so? His father sends him away when an oracle informs him that the only way for Hunter to live a happy and fulfilling life is for him to GTFO of Tarphae.  

TWO-FOOT (later BANDU) - Two-foot is a feral child who lives in the woods of Tarphae with her wolf companion Four-foot. She has no problem communicating with Four-foot or even understanding other animals, though she speaks only broken . . . Tarphaean? (I do not remember if they ever mention the name of their language). In any case, something in the air tells her and Four-foot that it's time to skedaddle. But how is she going to sneak a wolf through a crowded port town on Festival day? Or get him onto a boat?

Silent Hall (2016): So, now that character introductions are out of the way, there's still like a whole bunch of stuff about the setting that I haven't mentioned. Like how the gods are real, but their influence on the world is limited by the number and fervor of their worshippers in a geographical area. Anyhow, our five protagonists meet up on a boat from Tarphae to the continent, unfortunately, a storm knocks Phaedra's nurse off of the boat and Four-foot is severely injured when a sailor discovers him. Also, while they were en route to Atuna, Tarphae was stricken by the goddess Karassa, leaving the island uninhabited (or maybe not?) anyhow, stranded on a strange continent where everyone is distrustful of five black teenagers, our heroes decide to travel together. But first Narky steals a pendant from a worshipper of Ravennis, the god of fate, and is beset by crows who peck the sigil of Ravennis into his chest. Eventually, they make their way to Silent Hall, where the wizard Psander is trying to hide herself away from the gods. She sends them on a series of fetch quests where their disfavor with various gods ends up pitting them against giant ants, teen angst, child-eating elves in living-tree castles, teen romance,  disgruntled mercenaries, and teen pregnancy. Will our plucky teen protagonists fulfill the prophecy of Salemis, the Dragon Knight? Will this involve an on-the-nose poem and a trip back to their homeland? Speaking of on-the-nose, is naming a character that can never hold in his snide comments "Narky" a little too on-the-nose?

Among the Fallen (2017): The good news is that after the climactic events of the previous novel, the continent is at peace again. The bad news is that with Psander, their quest-giver, now in another dimension, they don't really know what to do with themselves. Well, that's not true. Criton's found a new family with the dragontouched, and also with Bandu, who gave birth to their daughter, Goodweather, in the previous book; meanwhile Narky is pursuing his new calling as a priest of Ravennis who is now the God of the Underworld, or maybe has been this whole time, while simultaneously adjusting to married life after getting hitched to another follower of Ravennis; meanwhile Phaedra wants to learn magic, and a chivalrous youth like Hunter can't just let a young woman travel the world looking for a magic teacher alone with no help. If you think this sounds like it doesn't give Bandu, a semi-witch who learned how to do elf-magic and lived with a wolf for most of her childhood, with nothing much to do, Bandu would agree with you. Can her relationship with Criton survive the twin pressures of his new responsibilities and his short temper? Can Criton and Narky use their new positions of influence to prevent a war? Can Phaedra find a way track down Psander in the elves' world?

A Breach in the Heavens (2018): So, it's been ten years since the climactic events of the previous novel and everyone's pretty much used to the new status quo. That is to say that Narky is comfortable in his role as the head priest of Ravennis and as a father and husband, Criton is now many times over a husband and father (though Criton's newest wife is his own adopted daughter, which Narky is rightly squicked out about), Bandu lives happily with her wife Vella while raising Goodweather (and also dogs, turns out that spending your childhood with a wolf makes it easy to train dogs), Phaedra's been closing up the weak points in the mesh that separates the world of humans from the world of elves, hopefully that won't have any unforeseen consequences (hint, hint) while Hunter remains on the other side of the mesh pining away for her. Oh, and the sky has been violently shaking and everyone thinks that the world's about to end. So, yeah, maybe not such a comfortable status quo. Can Narky interpret a subversive and blasphemous tract that might just be a test of his own faith? Can Psander and Phaedra convince the elves to help avert the apocalypse? Does Bandu really have anything to do in this installment? I mean, sure there is something big from the last book that's putting a strain on her relationship with Vella, but I mean, after Among the Fallen her storyline seemed to have ended satisfactorily.

Why should you read Godserfs? N.S. Dolkart does an excellent job of bringing his worlds to life, populating them with memorable characters whether they be human, elf, god, dragon, or what have you. The books also explore themes of race, violence, sexuality, and religion in a way that keep them from becoming purely escapist (not that escapism is bad). There's also an excellent balance of tone, neither too bleak or too light. So yeah, I'd say that this series presents an interesting read for adults who want a little more from their fantasy than just adventures with magic or relenting grimdarkness.

Why shouldn't you read Godserfs? Hmm, well, Dolkart maybe did a little too well with character arcs in the first two books, leaving characters like Bandu and Hunter with little to do in the finale. It's also one of those books that switches POV characters every chapter, so you sometimes end up waiting a long time for a cliffhanger to resolve, which means sometimes the resolution feels a bit too pat. And, we'll talk a little bit more about that and other issues in the review of book 3 which I'll be posting on Monday. Until then, so long.

Links:

N.S. Dolkart's website, if you're into that kinda thing.

Oh, crap, I forgot to explain why the whole thing is called Godserfs. Okay, so the elves were created before humans, but they weren't down with the whole "worshipping gods" thing and so the gods banished them to another dimension and started over again. The elves have taken to calling human's "godserfs" because of humans' fealty to the gods. Okay, we're all caught up.