I had been seeing this book on the shelves at Borders for quite some time before I finally decided to buy it. On the front, it had a blurb classifying it as "modern urban fantasy," and I don't particularly like most of the modern urban fantasy I've looked at. On the back it had a blurb quoting praise bestowed upon the author's creativity by SF author David Weber, and my opinion of Weber's writing style is not such that I rush to spend money on anything he recommends. Recently, however, I managed to overcome those concerns and looked at the first couple of pages in the store, and decided her style did not fall flat as I might have feared, so I splurged and bought the silly thing in paperback.
I'm glad I did. She has not managed to make the list of authors whom I will actually spend money on to buy their next releases immediately even if they come out in hardback, but that's a very short list (four names) and frankly, it may get even shorter in the near future. She has managed to make my "definitely buy the next one when it comes out in paperback" list, which still puts her head and shoulders above most of the popular writers whose works clog the shelves of the SF/Fantasy section at Borders nowadays. Terry Goodkind, for example, is on my list of "Probably will want to borrow his next book from the public library when it's available there, so I can make sure he's still not worth spending money on." And Piers Anthony long ago qualified for my prestigious "Don't even bother reading his next book!" list. Actually, he's been on that list for so long that it's possible I ought to give him another chance someday soon and see if he's actually gaining in quality these days, after going into a slump many years ago and, as far as I could tell in the mid-90s, firmly staying there.
But back to the story. We start out seeing the title character's thoughts as he watches his family being slaughtered by some ranchers. To do the ranchers justice, from their point of view they are merely killing a den of pesky coyotes who have no civil rights. What they have no reason to realize is that the father of the group is the Changer, an eons-old shapeshifter who has spent most of the past fifty years living the simple life of a raven or coyote in the American Southwest. They have rifles and he isn't bulletproof, so when he returns to the vicinity of the den he sees they are already killing his family and waits for them to leave. After they go, he realizes that the runt of the litter is still alive, undetected down at the bottom of the burrow because she was so small and quiet. This forces him to postpone his plans to investigate the question of whether or not the killers knew what they were doing, because coyote pups have a claim on the protection of their parents for the first year of their lives. He'll just have to visit a cache where he keeps money and other items, get some clothes suitable for a human, change into human form, and make arrangements for his daughter to be kept safe by someone reliable while he pursues the question of the slaughter of his family. Logical, yes?
We gradually learn that the Changer is an "athanor." The athanor are scattered across the planet, both on dry land and underwater, and only seem to have one universally shared characteristic: they are immortal. Not impervious to violent injury, but physically ageless and with superior immune systems that can better resist disease and infection, as well as often being able to regenerate after a nonfatal injury occurs. Many athanor only have one shape and it appears perfectly normal - such as that of a dog, cat, horse, or human being. Others only have one shape, but it would appear quite abnormal if they made a public appearance in a human city: satyrs, sasquatch (we meet a pair of these in the fourth scene of the novel), unicorns, mermaids, and so forth. Some have true sorcerous potential, capable of learning a wide range of spells which can achieve many interesting results; others only have a few inherent magical abilities; others have no powers beyond the basic physical immortality. Several are capable of shapeshifting, but usually within a very limited selection. The Changer is exceptional in his ability to change into any type of creature he pleases, in the twinkling of an eye, without needing any spellcasting or other outside assistance. His only limitation seems to be that his shapes are always masculine.
In addition, athanor do not breed true. Some of them are sterile; some have a very low birth rate; others (including the Changer) can easily have children but those children nearly always are normal, mortal members of whatever species their parents happen to belong to at the time. This explains why we aren't knee-deep in unicorns, satyrs, and shapeshifting sorcerors after all these thousands of years they've been lurking in our midst.
Some of the human-form athanor (or athanor born to some other species but capable of taking human shape when the impulse arises) have been very prominent in human history. For example: Arthur Pendragon, ruler of Camelot, has also been Akhenaton of Egypt, Gilgamesh of ancient Sumeria, Frey of the Norse myths, and is now using the name Arthur Pendragon all over again on the grounds that people will merely assume his parents were overly romantic in naming their child. Arthur was elected (long before this novel commences) as "King" of the athanor, although in practice he now seems to be more of a public servant trying to help them all maintain cover identities than a powerful monarch whose every whim is universally worshipped as divine truth. The Changer normally pays very little attention to power politics (you might call him the first and greatest of the rugged individualists, he allegedly being older than any other living thing, with one possible exception), but he always pays his dues in the athanor organization and feels he has the right to demand King Arthur lend him a helping hand in a time of need.
The ethics of the situation are interesting. If the human ranchers who killed his coyote family thought they were just wiping out a den of predatory animals that might threaten local livestock, then the Changer is prepared to forgive and forget, because that's the natural way of things. Humans are always slaughtering pesky animals for their own convenience and he's had many thousands of years to get used to that. It doesn't represent a mortal sin. But if the ranchers, or someone else who hired them to do it, had reason to believe that one of the residents of that particular den was an athanor, i.e. an immortal with the same intelligence as any human being, then it becomes a deliberate challenge to a fellow sapient (if not attempted murder of one), and it will be necessary as a matter of principle for him to kill the people morally responsible for this attack. As soon as he interviews one of the ranchers while wearing a human shape, he loses interest in the thought of punishing the man. It appears that a mysterious blond woman offered a tidy sum in cash if he could kill the coyotes in a certain spot, and she'd pay him for each pelt he brought back. Simple business. A lesser writer might have had the Changer vengefully go ahead and kill the rancher on the spot as soon as he had the information he wanted, but Lindskold recognizes that a shapeshifter who has spent much of his immortal existence killing other animals himself should have acquired a code of ethics recognizing a distinction between killing a "dumb brute" and killing an "intelligent and civilized" being.
All this is only the first little bit of the novel. You didn't think I was going to ruin the plot of a story I actually recommend so strongly, did you? In case I didn't make it clear, it is set when it was written: in the 1990s, with e-mail and cell phones and other conveniences. The writing style is hard to classify: Lindskold is not as overtly poetic as Guy Gavriel Kay, for example, but she's not dull either. I enjoyed reading the whole thing without ever finding myself groaning at what felt like repetition of pet phrases, or lengthy philosophical discussions that resolved nothing within the plot. I always have trouble with stories that propose that large numbers of supernatural creatures (elves, werewolves, unicorns, and perhaps especially vampires - which don't seem to exist in this particular world, though) are still around in the modern hi-tech world we see around us, without modern science having ever uncovered any solid proof whatsoever. But, as with some of the other strange assumptions made in one genre or another of popular fiction, I can experience suspension of disbelief if the storytelling is deftly done. And in this case, it definitely was. (Likewise, I don't really believe that a man from another planet would be able to lift a hundred tons with one hand, or fly through the air, or radiate concentrated heat from his eyes, or move faster than a speeding bullet - but I enjoy Superman stories if they're engagingly told.)
One last comment: although it seems to be the start of a series, it is a true novel. A complete story all by itself, not just a vehicle for introducing the major characters of what will turn out to be a disgustingly long multi-volume story that all builds up to one grand finale to be released about twenty years hence.
Recommended:
