Raif Sevrance and Ash March battle an unknown evil seeking to devour the world in J.V. Jones's A Cavern of Black Ice, book one in the Sword of Shadows series. This series is nominally connected to Jones's Book of Words trilogy (The Baker's Boy, A Man Betrayed, and Master and Fool). The world is the same, but Raif and Ash live in the clanholds and cities far to the North. Mention is made of the "soft" lands to the South and the Knights living there who brand themselves, but the Book of Words trilogy is not required reading for understanding any of the events in this book. Readers who have read the previous series, though, will find a tasty treat awaiting them in A Cavern of Black Ice . . . or perhaps a chill to freeze their spines.
The Story
Raif Sevrance of Clan Blackhail carries the raven lore. He learns just what it means to be "Watcher of the Dead" when he and his older brother, Drey, return to their camp to find the men slaughtered by something that creates gaping wounds but spills no blood. After properly honoring the dead, the brothers head for the clanhold to raise the alarm. They find Mace Blackhail, adopted son of the now-deceased chief, has arrived ahead of them with the news. Mace has a sharp tongue, and though his version of events doesn't quite match up with the evidence Raif discovered at the camp, Mace is a yearman - one who has sworn oaths in defense of the clan - and Raif is a sixteen-year-old boy who has just looked upon the face of his dead father.
Blame for the deaths is laid at the feet of Clan Bludd. Vaylo Bludd has ruled Clan Bludd as the Dog Lord for over three decades. He is determined to conquer the rest of the clans; knowing Dhoone and Blackhail are his only true opponents (as the rest of the clans are smaller and war-sworn to one of the three main clans), he breaches Dhoone's borders and scatters its people, claiming the Dhoone clanhold for himself. It's only a matter of time before Bludd and Blackhail clash.
South of the clans, in Spire Vanis, Ash March lives her life in fear of her adopted father, Penthero Iss. Discovered as a foundling baby left in the snow outside the Vaingate, Ash was claimed by Iss as his "almost-daughter" and raised inside the walls of Mask Fortress. Iss holds the title "surlord" of Spire Vanis, which is not quite a king, and not quite good enough for the base-born farmer's son. He wants to claim all of the northern lands as his own, from the slopes of Mount Slain in the south to the clanholds of the north. By his side is his trusty Knife, Marafice Eye, a man dedicated to his brothers in the Rive Watch and with a taste for vengeance. Sixteen-year-old Ash has yet to reach menarche, something that disappoints her adopted father and his unwholesome interest in her. When Ash shows signs of growing a spine, Iss sets Marafice Eye to watch over her. Tormented by dark nightmares, voices that beg her to free them, and the Knife's fearsome attention, Ash hatches a plan to escape Mask Fortress.
Among the seal trappers of the far North, the Listener watches the sky and reads the signs. Something is coming. Messages are sent by raven, one across the Great Want to the mysterious Sull in the Racklands of the East and one to a homestead just outside Ille Glaive where a man named Angus Lok kisses his wife and three daughters good-bye and sets out north to visit his nephew, whom he'll take with him on a trip to Spire Vanis.
Commentary
A Cavern of Black Ice follows Raif and Ash through serious upheavals in their lives. The first third of the book (300 pages out of 932) is spent detailing their lives at home. This may seem like a slow start, but in fact it is packed with tension that actually exceeds the suspenseful push of the sagging middle section. Clan politics dominate Raif's chapters. Mace Blackhail is a smooth villain; Effie, Raif's little sister, is charming and slightly odd; Raina Blackhail, the former chief's widow and Mace's foster-mother, is a strong voice in such a male-dominated society; Shor Gormalin is the voice of reason among men whose minds are clouded with thoughts of blood and vengeance. As Raif's relationship with his brother becomes more and more strained, he must make hard choices about what it means to be a member of Clan Blackhail, and the road his raven lore has dictated for him. Ash's chapters focus on her attempts to evade Penthero Iss and Marafice Eye and to discover their plans for her. Sheltered as she has been, Ash finds it difficult to assert herself, but shows some definite sparks.
I had hoped that those sparks would lead her to find a firmer backbone, but for the majority of the middle of the novel Ash is a passive victim - a little girl for her companions to coddle. This made it difficult to sympathize with her at times because she seems like an empty shell. Once free from Spire Vanis, Ash has only three real moments of spirit - two when facing Marafice Eye and one when facing the Dog Lord. Although Ash is the female lead in the story, I found more to interest me in Raina Blackhail (who unfortunately becomes little more than background after the first third of the novel), Effie Sevrance (who takes on a larger role later in the novel), and Magdalena Crouch (who appears in the last third of the novel).
J.V. Jones has a deft hand with her secondary characters. While Raif's devotion to a girl he barely knows seemed a bit excessive at times (not entirely out of character, but too often remarked upon - too much time spent telling readers that Raif has a deep sense of responsibility and loyalty instead of letting his actions speak for themselves) and Ash's passivity was often annoying, the remaining characters enchanted and disgusted me, thus keeping my rapt attention. Vaylo Bludd is actually one of the best drawn characters in the book and highly sympathetic despite his semi-villainous status. A moment of avarice on his part is repaid tenfold in blood, an unkindness that nearly had me weeping. Small details really bring all of the secondary characters to life, good and bad alike.
The major weakness of this novel, and the reason I give it three stars instead of four, is that the characters spend much of the middle 300 pages chasing their own tails. Though the pace picks up again at the end, the middle drags with traveling and tracking and laying trails and running hither and yon, first south, then north, then south again, then whoops! back to the north. The author could have cut a good 200 pages out of this section without losing the important details, and the result would have kept the tension level high. There are only so many times the author can mention the dangers of frostbite before I simply don't care any longer. Frostbite is dangerous, got it. I don't need to hear it every time people wake up, or stop to bed down, or are riding along in the cold, snowy, frozen taiga and tundra of northern climes. Granted, the characters no doubt think about such problems constantly, but mentioning it on every page lessens the tension for readers. By the time frostbite really became a danger, my only response was "way to go, moron, you've thought about it on every other page, so why forget now?" The details were wonderful the first time the author broached the subject, but they got old after 400 pages or so.
Squeamish readers might want to pick up something else. Though the descriptions aren't particularly graphic, A Cavern of Black Ice does have several battles, one massacre, two extended torture scenes, and two rape scenes.
Readers who enjoy Robin Hobb's books [the Farseer trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin's Quest) and the Liveship Traders trilogy (Ship of Magic, Mad Ship, and Ship of Destiny)] will likely enjoy this book and J.V. Jones's other works. Both authors have set their series in different sections of a given world and have a gift for characters combined with a difficulty in pacing and foreshadowing just a little too much - tipping their hands early in some cases and drawing out the wrong story threads in others. But they seem to have great potential, and in this case it's enough to overcome the length and the slow sections.
I plan to read book two of Storm of Shadows, A Fortress of Grey Ice, whenever it becomes available, though I'm not likely to spend money on a hardbound copy. The nine page excerpt at the back of A Cavern of Black Ice has whetted my appetite, as does the promise of seeing more of my favorite secondary characters.
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Paperback (tissue-thin paper), 932 pages
ISBN: 0-446-60817-3
List Price: $6.99
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