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Witch Ember
by John Lawson
(PublishAmerica, 2003, £18.95, 489 pages, ISBN 1-59129-038-4.)
John Lawson lives in Silicon Valley and, perhaps because of the surfeit
of technology  around
him, he has written a fantasy novel set in an entirely familiar fantasy
world, with just a few twists to catch the eye of those who already
know their dungeons from their dragons. There's even a traditionally
Tolkien-esque map at the book's start for those who always like to know
where they are in a new world.
Esmeree (or Easy as she's sometimes more appropriately known) is an
orphan, growing up on the dangerous and uncaring streets of Cliffs Reach
in the magic-poor lands of the Seven Kingdoms. Esmeree also possess
a powerful 'ember', a piece of the Stone Of Power that was shattered
when Man was still young. All humans carry a remnant of the stone; most
have only a speck of it but some, like Esmeree, have a much larger piece
and can become powerful sorcerers. If they survive the mean streets
of Cliffs Reach, that is.
Most of Witch Ember follows Esmeree's growing pains as she graduates
from scavenging on the streets at age four or five to her ascension
into society and sorcery in young adulthood. It's a grim journey. Lawson,
very much to his credit, doesn't hold back with the horrors of an orphan's
life in an essentially medieval society (Harry Potter this isn't,
although oddly enough at a fundamental level the plot of the two follow
similar courses). He usually knows when to be graphic (which is fairly
often: bones snap, blood flows, bruises swell ... ) and when to be a
little coyer -- such as when the young Esmeree and her friends pragmatically
resort to prostitution, having no other choice to avoid starvation.
Although it is Esmeree's destiny to be a powerful sorcerer (powerful
enough to conjure up a sequel, me wonders?), Lawson writes cleverly
enough that this isn't immediately and obviously inevitable. Esmereee
spends most of Witch Ember barely surviving, scraping by with
the help, often unacknowledged, of her ember and other more sinister
forces higher up the social ladder in Cliffs Reach. These remain hidden
from the reader, as from Esmeree, despite an omniscient and unusual
third-person narrative style that functions perfectly adequately within
the story structure.
The path Esmeree's life follows never seems contrived, nor is information
outside her purview forced 'helpfully' upon us. At the beginning of
Witch Ember the narration of her world is entirely and short-sightedly
physical, as you'd expect of a child (and, perhaps, of a new reader
confronted with an unfamiliar world), but it grows wider -- only as
she grows and learns more about the world she lives in do such adult
concerns as political structures, religion and wider basic geography
become at all relevant both to her and the reader. Following a child's
education in the ways of the world is an excellent way to avoid blatant
infodumping -- I didn't notice it being done! Congratulations are due
to Mr Lawson on such a well thought out and executed development of
the narrative.
A couple of small bugbears, though: first, the legend behind the embers
granted to people, a trickster god who steals a Stone of Power and,
frightened of the theft being discovered by those less trickily inclined
of his superiors, grinds it up and hides the remains in the wet clay
of Man so that, as mentioned before, everyone carries a piece. It's
a nice metaphorical riff on creation myths that was completely spoilt
for me by being taken entirely too literally. Sorcerers are detectable
because they all have a piece of rock located somewhere under
their skin that is the source of all their magical power.
Secondly, imagine if you will that throughout this review I inexplicably
referred to collymongers and zvixl in place of, say, characters
and plot. Such is the use of language in Witch Ember, particularly
the uneven use of italicised supposedly foreign words
that often look and sound very similar to their English equivalents
but for some strange åçcénts.
It's a device that annoys rather than conveys the otherness of some
Cliffs Reach inhabitants. For example, the awful (in a very good way,
they're horrible!) rraakks come across as completely alien with
no italicisation and spangly accented letters at all, just some bizarre
speech patterns. It's a difficult trick conveying the unfamiliar in
familiar words, and simply having every other character mispronounce
basic, common words or replace perfectly good English ones in an otherwise
English sentence with nonsense that needs looking up in the glossary
doesn't help.
Am I being overly harsh? Perhaps, but over the course of nearly 500
pages these things begin to matter, and they stand out all the more
when the author is otherwise largely able to hold his own in terms of
description and story.
There isn't much to dislike about Witch Ember. There is also,
conversely, not much to really like either -- to get your teeth
sunk into and refuse to let go until the hot blood of a great story
runs down your chin. I don't mean that Witch Ember is a bad book
-- far from it -- it's just that the booklust never quite descended
upon me whilst I was reading it. Esmeree's surrounding world and the
terrible forces are insufficiently glimpsed or coloured to gain a toehold
in our imaginations, and the ultimate point of the book, Esmeree's eventual
maturation into a powerful sorceress and her triumph against some vicious
odds, seems rather flat by comparison to many of the earlier scenes.
Fortunately these problems are not major ones to overcome for a next
book. Lawson can write on the small, personal scale very well -- if
only he can learn to tackle the wider, epic stage as well.
Oh, and the illustrations are uneven and even the better ones aren't
particularly helpful. I think we can manage without them ...
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