Lucas Blogs About Brightfall

It's that not hard being green.

So, you actually stopped playing Hades long enough to write a blog post, eh?

Yes, Hypothetical Reader, I was able to exert a modicum of self-control and sit down to write about this lousy book.

Poisoning the well, aren't we?

Maybe a bit, but we've got another inductee into the "books-that-I-didn't-finish" club. I struggled mightily to complete this book and gave up two-thirds of the way through.

Dude! You were in the home stretch!

I know, but each time I put the book down it got harder and harder to find the motivation to pick it back up. According to my book-mark, I even stopped in the middle of a chapter. Anyway, I just realized that I haven't even mentioned the title or author yet.

You're slipping. Sure you wouldn't rather talk about Hades?

Well, that's certainly done a better job of holding my attention of late, but no. I'll blog about Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer.

So, what's its deal?

Well, it's about Maid Marian, but it takes place about a decade or so after the Robin Hood stories that people are familiar with. You know, Robin et al. stealing from the rich to give to the poor, thwarting the plans of such rapacious noblemen as the Sheriff of Nottingham, Guy of Gisbourne, or Prince John, splitting an arrow in twain, all of that.

Like many people in the anglophone world, I do have a passing familiarity with Robin Hood, yes.

Just making sure. All right, so time passes, and the Merry Men have had a falling out. Mostly to do with the fact that Robin, for reasons he refuses to explain to anyone, has annulled his marriage to Marian. So, now the new status quo is Marian raising their children with the help of her new beau Will Scarlet, while Robin spends his days in the monastery of Abbot Tuck. One day a messenger from Tuck arrives to tell Marian that Will has died mysteriously while traveling. Even worse it appears as if he was killed by magic, because he was physically unharmed. In fact, it seems like someone is determined to bump off the Merry Men in toto, because Alan-a-Dale, and the recently married Midge, and Little John's son, Ethan, were all found dead under similar circumstances over the last few months. Tuck wants her to investigate because in this version of the story, she's a witch. Oh, also the fae exist and they do the kinds of things that fae usually do, like abduct mortals to faerie and that kind of thing. Anyway, Tuck sends Robin with her, ostensibly because it's dangerous on the road, but presumably because he's a busybody. In any case, that's more or less what gets things going. So let's break it down.

Okay, what works?

We're not gonna start with what doesn't?

C'mon, Lucas, you can be charitable for at least a paragraph can't you?

I guess so. Okay, so it's clear that Moyer is imaginative. I think any of the premises of this book would make for an interesting spin on Robin Hood. I'm not opposed to deconstructing old stories and looking at them from new perspectives. So I like the way that she's handled the character of Robin here, making him into an insufferable religious fanatic and a bit of an upper-class twit. After all, he may have spent several years living as an outlaw and then a monk, but he still grew up the son of an earl. Likewise, she does a good job of portraying the fae—

You can call them fairies, you know.

I'm going to call them the fae. In any case, Moyer's fae are aloof and have a different morality than mortals, but also clearly behave in a way that is rational to themselves. The real standout is the fae who joins Robin and Marian on the road, in the guise of Marian's "Uncle Bert." And there are things that work, Moyer actually does a good job of conveying character relationships through dialogue. Marian's interactions with Tuck and Little John, for example, both have the easy quality of old friendship.  That said, the problem isn't necessarily with any one element of the novel.

Do tell.

On their own any of the premises of this novel could be compelling, but none of them really work together. For example, it becomes clear early on that the deaths of the Merry Men are connected to the fae in some manner or another, but then the mystery becomes less interesting because it's clear that none of their former enemies are involved. 

You mean from the Robin Hood stories?

Yeah.

So you're complaining because it didn't meet your expectations for what a Robin Hood murder mystery would be?

No. . . . Maybe a little.

That sounds like a you problem.

Fair enough. The other problem is in the writing. Moyer's writing is readable enough, but there's more than a little handholding. Marian narrates the story, and at every turn, Moyer has her tell the reader exactly how each development makes her feel.

Oh, so there's like absolutely no subtext, Marian just announces how she feels.

Yes, and like the Robot Devil, that lack of subtlety makes me feel angry!

So why did you finally give up?

The same reason I usually abandon a novel: terminal boredom. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that you don't give a shit about a book and move on. For me, Brightfall had become a chore pretty early on, but kept with it for nearly two hundred pages before I realized that I didn't care about any of it. Also, I'm pretty sure I cracked the mystery.

You probably just fell for a red herring.

Maybe, but even if I did, I don't care enough to find out. So yeah, Brightfall is not the book for me.

Hold up! You said that the novel is narrated by Marian, and aside from the lack of subtlety in said narration you didn't say anything about her as a character.

False! I also said that she is a witch and that she gets along well with Friar Tuck and Little John.

I mean, do you have anything else to say about the central character.

Well, once again, there's no problem with departing from traditional depictions of characters from folklore, so I like the idea of a Marian who is rightly pissed off with a Robin Hood who runs away to a monastery, leaving her to raise two children on her own. But they're both super pig-headed about it and spend most of the book being sullen and uncommunicative. It's just not that interesting to read about. And I didn't even get into the cardboard cutout that is Midge's brother-in-law who joins them along the way. Anyway, I'm tired of talking about Brightfall.

So . . . . do you wanna talk about Hades?

Sure, it's a lot of fun. Not just for the gameplay, but the story elements are also really cool. Like why didn't anyone tell me that there was a video game where Hypnos (the incarnation of sleep) would ask me to get an autograph from the Minotaur? Or where I could befriend Sisyphus and his boulder, Bouldy? Or pet Cerberus on one of his heads? Anyway, Hades is one of those "get good" games, but where getting good actually feels like it has an in game reward beyond just getting farther in the game.

 

Cool.

Brightfall by Jaime Lee Moyer, Jo Fletcher Books trade paperback edition, 2021 (originally published in hardcover in 2019), 308 pages (I only read 198), pairs poorly with attempts to read in the break room at work

Links:

Here's the author's website, if you're into that kinda thing.