The Slaves of Uzrehan'be, by S. Craig Zahler ***3/8

I read an as-yet unpublished version of this book, so the final draft will presumably rank even higher. A couple minor problems keep it from being closer to perfect, but it's still a very, very good novel - bordering on excellent. Besides these minor quibbles, this is about as good as highly readable, plot/character fiction can get. The characters are extraordinarily rich and complex, a couple of them ranking as all-time classic fantasy characters, the plots are exciting and unpredictable but well-drawn and realistic despite their utter uniqueness, and the consistent prose reads easily while never approaching dull or tepid.

Zahler draws influence from the works of Guy Gavriel Kay and Raymond E. Fiest in their readability and the setting and the rich characters, but he also shows a fondness for the work of the weird fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Arthur Machen. Anything is possible in Slaves..., as characters actually grow and learn and evolve, leading them to unforeseeable but appropriate places and decisions. They are forced to deal with difficult situations and react as real people might, in varied ways that define who they are so distinctly. Among modern novelists, Zahler seems most aligned with China Meiville and the new weird than anyone else, though he's better than any I've read thus far (I just finished Perdido Street Station, and expect to read more of Meiville's work going forward, along with works by M. John Harrison and others in this promising new group of writers if only because of their interest in the great works of yesteryear).

I couldn't really come close to synopsizing the book, but here's the basics - it's a dense 750-page single fantasy set in a distant land in a troubled time, with some royalty and slaves and secret societies and bizarre mages and alien races and even more alien races in weirder places. And all of these characters from these different groups are well-drawn and realistic and complicated - much more than simple alien or slave or royalty or magical or whatever. My complaints are few - in a couple of places the characters didn't act as I thought they should have, and I don't mean in an "I don't like them" sort of way, but in a "that was an inconsistency in the character as written" sort of way. Also - the first 200 pages aren't paced as well as the last 550 - they're just too regular as Zahler oscillates between the separate stories each chapter. A few changes in the form would make the first section as exciting as the rest of the book. But overall, it was a great month reading it, and I look forward to more of Zahler's writing in the future.

[disclaimer: Zahler is one of my very closest friends, though I don't know if this has made me easier or tougher on him in my review of the book. I actually think it could rank higher than the number I gave, but I read this with a red pen while making editorial comments on the side and circling mistaken commas.]
(Summer 2005)


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