Review: Shadow of the Smoking Mountain by Howard Andrew Jones

Hanuvar’s story continues as he meets new allies, enemies, and challenges

This, third in the series, is not the place to really start with his story (that would be Lord of a Shattered Land). Shadow of the Smoking Mountain continues the story of Hanuvar, Volani General trying to survive and help his scattered and enslaved people in the wake of the Dervan invasion. The Dervans are expy Romans, the Volani are the Carthaginians, and Hanuvar is the terror himself, Hannibal. The story of his life after Carthage fell in our timeline doesn’t get much interest except for real enthusiasts of the period, and it is not a happy one. Jones, in his secondary world, has given him a different, and so far happier, path. But not an easier one.

The book continues its structure of being a series of short stories about Hanuvar’s adventures and efforts to free the enslaved surviving Volani. In doing that, he gets tied up and wrapped up in all sorts of local situations. This world is a sword-and-sorcery reflection of our own, so gods, demons, strange beings, and dark magics are all real, and to be feared. Hanuvar knows about magic, and at points in the book poses as a worker of magic, but in the end he is a general, tactician and warrior. He knows of magic as a tool, and struggles against it, but he is no spell-slinging wizard.

The title will give you a clue as to the culmination of where the book and its characters are headed. Indeed, Hanuvar is going to find himself on the slopes of a mountain ready to go boom, but in classic sword-and-sorcery fashion, it’s going to be even worse than a simple catastrophic eruption. The story of Hanuvar finding that out, and who the real enemy is, and the struggle against them, are the meta-plots of the novel, overarching individual episodes. Another overarching plot is one he’s had since the first book: what happened to his daughter? As much as he is working to free all of the Volani, he is especially interested, passionate, about his daughter and her fate.

That is an advantage to the Hanuvar novels that counters the view that a number of people have about sword and sorcery as a genre. The idea that Conan is just a muscle-bound idiot hewing through life idiotically with no overall sense of connection to anyone or anything, or other sword-and-sorcery heroes having few or no ties, is a misperception that Hanuvar seems tailor-made to counter. Hanuvar wants to free his people, abstract but concrete, but he is also looking for his daughter, and sometimes makes a bad decision or three in order to further that goal. There is a slow-burn romance for Hanuvar in the novel as well. One of the stories breaks away from Hanuvar altogether and makes Antires (his biographer) the main character in a very fun change of pace, as we get to see what makes him really tick.

My favorite character, however, is the “Catwoman” of the book, and that is Aleria. We met her in a previous volume, but she really swoops into the narrative here on multiple occasions, and her dynamic with Hanuvar is some of the best character bits in the book. The classic “heroine of her own story” with her own goals and motivations, but she wouldn’t mind having Hanuvar as a partner, far from it. One wonders, given Jones’ erudition, if Aleria isn’t meant to invoke Valeria from the Conan story “Red Nails”. (and yes, the Conan the Barbarian movie, but that Valeria is quite different than the original character). Aleria is the kind of character that could be spun off on her own adventures in stories and novels, easily.

And that brings me to a topic that, as of the writing of this review, has been in the air again,and that is worldbuilding. The worldbuilding in the Hanuvar novels, including this one, try to walk the line between infodumping and having the reader sink or swim. Some of the footnotes in the text also do help in this regard, but some of those are as much about the interpretation of the text as anything. They are not Vancean/Pratchettian in their design and intent.¹ Jones works heavily on the expy model to get readers halfway to their understanding of their world, and leans into some simplifications to make things easier. As you know, Jane, the Romans defeated Carthage once and for all over a century before they became an Empire. They fought three wars against Carthage. But for simplification for the worldbuilding, the Dervans are already in the Principate, they fought only two wars against Volanus, et cetera. But the smoking Mountain of the title, Esuvia, is most definitely meant to be Vesuvius under another name. The Herrenes are most definitely the expy of the Greeks. A lot of the names Jones uses, as you can see, are close enough to rhyme with the real world particulars to help get the reader there.

For me, worldbuilding is best when it provides the imagination a space that seems larger than the events in the book itself. It feels grounded and complete enough that you can imagine, afterwards. This doesn’t mean I need or want an RPG manual “The GM’s Guide to Derva” but when I am reading, I am putting myself into the world and into the characters. I want to be able to feel the road beneath my feet, and imagine, what if Hanvuar took a left here, rather than a right, and plausibly have enough of the world to imagine it. I don’t need to know what the other side of the globe is like (although I wouldn’t mind) but for the purposes of the work, there is a trompe l’oeil that there is much more to the world than the road Hanuvar walks.

Shadow of a Smoking Mountain accomplishes all this for me, and so for me, is successful at worldbuilding.

¹Like previous books in the series, there are footnotes in the text. The book is presented as a reinterpretation of a previous text, the Hanuvid, with commentary. Jones is having his cake and eating it too basically presenting the story in this frame.

Highlights:

• World continues to be rich and engaging.
• Good use of characters both as point of view and secondary, to provide a tapestry of interaction
• Strong sword and sorcery writing

Reference: Jones, Howard Andrew. Shadow of the Smoking Mountain [Baen, 2024].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Microreview: The City of Marble and Blood by Howard Andrew Jones

Continuing the story of Hanuvar in his struggle against the empire that destroyed his home and enslaved his people.

In Howard Andrew Jones' Lord of a Shattered Land, we were introduced to Haunvar, an old, surviving general of a city state that resembles our own Carthage, that was squashed by an empire that resembles Rome. This makes, for the historically astute, Hanuvar an expy of Hannibal. However, this is not the Hannibal you probably know, when he was leading armies with elephants over the Alps, but his later, lesser known career. After the defeat of Carthage, Hannibal went around the Mediterranean like a Cassandra, warning all and sundry that the Romans were coming. Turns out, he was right.

The older Hanuvar in this world is a more active character than that, and has dedicated himself to freeing his people and opposing the empire's plans and he makes a start on that in the first book.

The City of Marble and Blood picks up Hanuvar's story.

Like the first book, this is an episodic book progressing through Hanuvar's plans and attempts to free the people of lost Volanus out of their bondage in the Deruvan empire. However, this is not quite a "more of the exact same" sort of book to the first volume. Jones changes up the formula in a couple of different ways.

First, early on in the book, and perhaps the story most resembling the first volume in tone and style, he has a magical accident that deages Hanuvar, making him look like a young man. With decades off of his appearance, Hanuvar is given a freedom of action that he did not have in the first book, especially since the empire is now half convinced he is back from the dead to wreak vengeance (recall that he was supposed to be dead at the end of the War). Young Hanuvar has the abilty to move somewhat more freely as a result. But it is clear, he learns, that this "blessing" really is a deadly curse, and dealing with it is a plotline that runs through the book.

But it must be said that, aside from that plotline, and an unusual episode where we get Hanuvar to be the general he once was, this book has a markedly different scope and tone. The first book had our Voluscan hero ranging all through the Empire and beyond, looking for survivors, building up connections. In The City of Marble and Blood, as you might guess from the title, the action is far more limited. A lot of the action takes place in the Deruvan capital itself and its nearby environs. 

In keeping with that limited locale, the focus also changes to a less sword and sorcery and a more straight up intrigue and political machinations and deadly rivalry sort of affair. Instead of Hanuvar dealing with lots of magicians and monsters, his foes this time are conspirators, plotters and foreign agents. Hanuvar, for all of his attempts to avoid doing so, has gotten himself mixed up in the fate of the empire, for good or ill. He'd rather not get involved, but it comes clear to Hanuvar that if he doesn't, the small gains he has made so far in freeing members of his people are going to be wiped off the board.  It's a good dynamic tension, but it is definitely a change from the first book.

What doesn't change, and something I did not mention in my first review, but should mention here, is the extremely interesting literary conceit of both the prior book and this one. There must be a strain of readers who don't care much about the context and framing and metafictional aspects of a story, but there is a richness to writing and thinking about the concepts of "Who is telling this story?", "What is their point of view?", "What can be leveraged from using the point of view not just of the characters, but the entire narrative itself?".  The best example where you will immediately see this is the novel Dune, which you will doubtlessly recall is full of epigrams and quotations from Irulan, and clearly the whole book has been edited by her. 

Jones doesn't disappoint in this regard. Both the prior volume and this one are subtitled "Freely adapted from The Hanuvid of Antires Sosilos (The Elder) with the commentary of Silenus, by Andronikos Sosilos The Younger". This allows Jones to do some clever and interesting things. The main text we are reading is written by Sosilos the Younger. The adventures in the two volumes to date (and I am looking forward to the third) is "his" work. We are reading his adaptation of the Elder's work. But in this text, Jones also has passages, often at the beginning of the episodic stories, but sometimes at the end, that are direct quotations from the Elder himself, rather than the Younger's rewriting of it. And then there are Silenus' footnotes (aka the commentary) where he discusses the text as a historical artifact, and will talk about this adaptation in the context of the original story. 

Now, Jones is not quite as fully literary minded as, say, Ada Palmer, or Mary Gentle, and so this commentary and point of view of readers and storytellers doesn't quite run rampant and deeply change the narrative. Jones, I think, at heart, wants to be a straight up storyteller in the mold of Harold Lamb. But even so, given that he is transmitting a story of a classical historical biography through the ages, he could not (and rightly so), resist using the framing devices to provide additional depth. 

And it's completely in period for this sort of story. As it so happens, I've been recently reading a couple of books about aspects of classical history. The diligence of the writers involved mean they are always commentating on what sources they have, which ones they don't, and sometimes we get a particular story as a summary by author x, who read a work by author y that is now lost. So it is a bit of a game of telephone, and while in our world, it frustrates historians who want to know the "real story", in a fantasy novel, it adds an air of mystery and ambiguity to the tales. 

One could even say that these books are showing the evolution of Hanuvar from a straight up historical figure into something somewhat more mythic in his scope (there is a whole tradition of fantastic tales, for instance, of Alexander the Great).  I would not start with this second volume, even given the change in tone for the most part as outlined above. If you like the first book, this second book does change the focus but keeps the strength of what makes these books fascinating and compulsively readable for me.

--

The Math

Highlights:

• Strong central character
• New focus and changes to Hanuvar keep his story fresh
• Engaging meta-narrative

Reference: Jones, Howard Andrew, The City of Marble and Blood, [Baen, 2023]

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Review: Lord of a Shattered Land by Howard Andrew Jones

A story that uses the story of a famous general in history and fuses it with sword and sorcery landscape, worldbuilding, and writing style.

Hannibal. 

You know the name, even if you don't know much about Roman history. Hannibal, the Carthaginian. Hannibal, the terrible foe of Rome. Hannibal, the guy who brought elephants over the Alps!  

Hannibal's story is one of ultimate failure, however. He could not beat Rome, for reasons that are complex and debated to this day. It is his afterlife that is far less known. You know that Hannibal and the rest of Carthage were beaten. And then? Probably if you are not a history nerd, you haven't thought much about it. But Hannibal had a 20 year tragic afterlife after his final defeat, one that marked him working with Rome's enemies, wandering the Mediterranean, and ultimately drinking poison to avoid capture by the Romans.

Howard Andrew Jones uses the story of his Hannibal-like figure, Hanuvar, and what happens to him after the fall of his Carthage, here Volanus, in Lord of a Shattered Land. Jones uses the afterlife of Hannibal and imagines it going very differently, in a Classical-era type Mediterranean world that is clearly inspired by ours (as given by the map).

Jones tells Hanuvar's story in an episodic format, picking up his survival of the fall of Volanus, and having a series of adventures across the land. The chapters, especially in the early portion of the volume, feel like a "fix-up" of previously published short stories. Each of the early chapters is a self contained story in a progression, that refer to previous stories and adventures, but very much are stand alone units. I imagine Jones could read from any of the early chapters in a reading at a con successfully as a result. And having this episodic feel gives the early chapters of the book the same feel as a set of Conan stories, or stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser

This goes to the sword and sorcery mode of this book. What Jones has done is create a Classical-era Mediterranean environment as a sword and sorcery world, dropped a Rome and Carthage into it, and made the fallen Hannibal into his hero.  

The world itself. Sure the Dervans are Rome, Volanus was Carthage, there are indications of cognates of the Celts, and Egypt, and the map supports all this. But there are differences here. Jones is most definitely not doing a beat-for-beat look at the history of Rome and Carthage. 

First up, this Rome is not a Republic, but rather it is an Empire with an Emperor. We never go anyway near the heart of the Empire, never meet the Emperor, but it is clear that this is not the Republic of the Punic Wars, although the transition is said to have been relatively recent. In addition, there were just two wars against Carthage in this timeline, not three. 

I can see why he did all this. Consider this history nugget from our own timeline: After Hannibal was defeated and Carthage lost, Carthage was NOT destroyed. In fact, it lasted a good 70 years or so longer, until a Roman senator started the famous "Carthage must be destroyed" war drum, and it was then, against a weak Carthage that stood no chance, that Carthage was finally conquered and destroyed. 

So I am okay with the "changes" (sic) that Jones has made to Roman history. He is going by what makes for a world that makes for the kind of story he wants to tell, but I am curious as to how his alt-Rome got this way and why it went on this "accelerated" path toward an autocratic Empire. 

But let's go deeper. This is definitely a sword and sorcery world rather than just a reskinned alternate Classical-era Mediterranean.  And it is not a high magic world like, for example, Cass Morris' Aven. Magic is relatively rare, not well understood, and always dangerous. There are genii loci, local powers, dark magicians, and dread creatures. It's a world where such creatures and powers are in the out of way places, the mysterious islands, the isolated valleys, the hidden locales of the world. Given Hanuvar and his quest and where it leads him, it is understandable he would wind up in such places, frequently. Lord of a Shattered Land is a novel where the vignettes, the stories often have that sorcery along with the sword, make up much of his adventures. 

The choice of hero finally really should be highlighted here and on a couple of levels. Hanuvar is a character that is relatively uncommon in sword and sorcery. Hanuvar is a fallen hero, an older man, one with a daughter, one that, for a while anyway, his enemies think is very safely dead. He is a father, and would be a father to his shattered and enslaved nation, and this is the throughline that runs through the book. Hanuvar seeks freedom for his people. Moving Hanuvar to the time of the destruction of his Carthage and the killing of many and the enslavement of the remainder gives Hanuvar a clear story and a clear goal. And it is a personal story. He had left his city for many years, did not get to see his daughter, and the fate of his daughter - dead, captured, something else, is a throughline in the book for him. He is a very upright and moral character. He is not a man seeking to topple the Deruvan Empire. He is not seeking to kill every Deruvan he comes across. He is seeking to free the remnants of his people, find his daughter, and lead them to freedom. This gives our hero a moral core, makes him a clear protagonist, and leads us to root for him.

In real ways this is refreshing. Hanuvar can be bloody minded and ruthless in his methods, but he is a very moral and upright person. With a fair chunk of the realms of fantasy under the seemingly permanent penumbra of Grimdark, Hanuvar stands out in very stark, and very welcome, relief.

And the stories within the novel are brisk, energetic, aerobic and are ultimately page turners. It is sword and sorcery in the classic style, so the worldbuilding is teased out here and there, the action described strongly (and sometimes rather viscerally). It is an exemplar of a mode of fantasy that, again, is a bit out of fashion in much writing today. Even as this is the first book in a series, this is not, as much as I love it, big phat epic fantasy where walls of words and worlds are the rule of the day. As the novel progresses, the events of previous stories do build up an edifice of a narrative, but there is overall a pleasing leanness to the way that Jones has written Hanuvar's story. 

Needless to say, given the size and enormity of Hanuvar's quest, he does not succeed in his quest by the end of the book. But this is where the episodic nature of the book really works in its favor. You can read this book and get a good single volume, multiple short story look at the life of a strong and well defined character.  I suspect though that, like me, if you have followed Hanuvar to the end of this book, you might be very interested in the continuance of his adventures and his quest.

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The Math

Highlights:

• delenda est? Hanuvar has no time for rest!
• Sword and sorcery really works in an alt-Mediterranean environment

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Reference: Jones, Howard Andrew Jones, Lord of a Shattered Land, [Baen, 2023]

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

6 Books with Howard Andrew Jones

Howard Andrew Jones lives in a lonely tower by the Sea of Monsters with a wicked and beautiful enchantress. He’s the author of the Hanuvar novels through Baen Books, and the Ring-Sworn trilogy and historical Arabian fantasy novels from St. Martin's. He has also authored four Pathfinder novels and dozens of published short stories. He was the driving force behind the rebirth of interest in Harold Lamb’s historical fiction, and assembled and edited 8 collections of Lamb’s work for the University of Nebraska Press. He is the editor for the sword-and-sorcery magazine Tales From the Magician’s Skull and served as Managing Editor of Black Gate magazine.

Today he tells us about his Six Books.

 1. What book are you currently reading?

I’m finally reading The Count of Monte Cristo. I usually prefer physical books, but I had a flight to and from Europe and didn’t want to haul a text this size around with me. It’s a good thing I had a kindle app on my phone as well, for once on the plane my wife suddenly decided she wanted to re-read Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga and requested the Kindle!

I’m about a third of the way in and am rather enjoying it. Apart from certain scenes I won’t spoil in the first quarter of the book, I’m unaware of how it will all unfold, so I’m curious to see what will happen next. I’d be further along, but I’m in the midst of a big book revision and that’s eaten into my evening reading time. Plus I’ve been watching my wife play the new Zelda game…

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

Does Martha Wells’ Witch King still count? It’s pretty recent, and I’m looking forward to reading it. I’m a fan of Wells from way back. I’m especially curious about this one, because the thumbnail description sounds an awful lot like a series idea I’d scribbled down a few notes about. It sounds like she beat me there, and I’m curious to see what she’s done with the concept. 

Of course I must confess I’m even more excited to read the next Murderbot, and since that’s not out yet, maybe that’s the proper answer.

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to read again?

I’ve been thinking for a while about Vance’s Demon Princes books. I recall especially enjoying the first three, and I drank them down so quickly the details are a little vague now. I’d like to slow down and savor them a bit more.

4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about – either positively or negatively?

Richard Stark (really Donald Westlake) wrote a series of novels about a master criminal, Parker. My friend Chris Hocking sent me the first of these, The Hunter, while I was laid up in pain after a knee surgery, and it was so very different from anything I’d been reading that I didn’t know what to make of it. The lead character wasn’t a nice guy, the prose was lean and spare, and there were no fantastic elements nor was there any swashbuckling. 

I wasn’t sure I much cared for it, but had recognized that there was something interesting happening because I couldn’t put it down. Being tired and in pain and with more time than usual, I tried some more of the Parker books and soon came to understand that under the deceptively simple package was a whole lot of masterful prose. These short books look like simple vehicles but they’re fantastically well tuned, like an ordinary car that’s had its engine replaced with one from a sports car. I soon revised my opinion and realized I actually loved that book and this series. I’ve returned to read most of the Parker books twice and some of them three times. I revisit the openings, and even use them when I teach creative writing courses. Talk about hooks. How about this for an opening couple of paragraphs, from Backflash:

When the car stopped rolling, Parker kicked out the rest of the windshield and crawled through onto the wrinkled hood, Glock first. He slid to the left, around the tree that had made the Seville finally jolt to a stop, and listened. The siren receded, far upslope. These woods held a shocked silence, after the crash; every animal ear in a hundred yards was as alert as Parker’s.

Nobody came down the hill, following the scar through the trees. There was just the one car in pursuit up there, federal agents of some kind, probably trying right now to make radio contact with the rest of their crew, and still chasing the truck with the rockets, figuring they’d come back to the wrecked car later.

It would be hard to stop reading after that. If that didn’t work for you, try this single opening sentence, from Firebreak: “When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.”

Reading Stark is always entertaining and if you’re a writer yourself it’s like taking a master class. I keep finding new things to marvel over no matter how many times I read the text.

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

Paul, you especially might think that would be Nine Princes in Amber, and that’s certainly up there as a huge influence, but I think Harold Lamb’s biography of Hannibal of Carthage (it was titled, wait for it, Hannibal) was even more important. I checked it out from the public library when I was 15 or 16 and it simply thrilled me. I read and re-read the story of this brilliant man doomed to failure, revisiting it the way a lot of fantasy fans re-read The Lord of the Rings. I loved it so much I tried reading some more books by Lamb and discovered his wonderful interlinked swashbuckling historicals of heroic 16th century Cossacks that it turned out were hugely influential upon the foundation of sword-and-sorcery. Later I discovered a bunch of those tales had never been reprinted. Worse, the series had never been fully collected in proper order. I thought that was such a travesty that after I tracked them down I approached a publisher about getting them into print and the next thing I knew I was editing a line of Lamb’s Cossack books for The University of Nebraska Press. 

I’ve continued reading about Hannibal and the Second Punic War and have a small library of books on him and related subjects. My fascination with him and with the sequential storytelling of Lamb’s Cossack saga fed directly into my newest series. All of this dates back to me pulling that one book down from the shelf in high school. Was I actively looking for a book on Hannibal, or was I just wandering through the ancient history section and thought it looked cool? I don’t have a clear recollection now.

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome? 

The newest arrived in hardback from Baen on August 1st, it’s titled Lord of a Shattered Land, and the main character is inspired by the aforementioned Hannibal while the story structure is inspired by those interlinked Cossack adventures stories, so I owe Lamb doubly. 

The elevator pitch is James Bond or Captain America versus the Roman Empire, OR the adventures of Aragorn if Sauron had won. Or, if you’re a history nerd, what Hannibal might have done if Carthage was destroyed in his lifetime while he was away from the city. 

Hanuvar’s world has an ancient Mediterranean sword-and-sandal vibe. That’s not that different from the bronze-age feel of a lot of traditional sword-and-sorcery, but is less common in heroic fantasy now than it used to be. Think Spartacus and Gladiator, but with dark magic and terrifying monsters.

Hanuvar’s not on the hero’s journey that Hollywood seems stuck on. You know -- a young, untried guy who’s forced to leave the ordinary world, learns about his powers from a wise man, comes into his own, and stops the bad guys while winning true love. That’s not Hanuvar. He’s seasoned and experienced and while you get to know his backstory, there’s no slow origin to wait through before things get interesting. You start with him at the height of his abilities.

He’s no brash youngster, he’s middle-aged. He’s not out to prove anything and he doesn’t need to find himself. He knows who he is. And he’s not interested in self advancement or riches, because he’s essentially selfless. For him, the only thing that matters is his people. He’s the last surviving general of the city of Volanus, which was destroyed by the Dervan Empire. His people fought block by block, house by house, until most fell with their swords in hand. Only a thousand or so survived to be led away in chains. 

That may sound like the setup for a tale of vengeance, but bleak as that back story is, revenge isn’t what Hanuvar’s about, either. No matter where his people have been taken, from the empire’s festering capital to its most remote outpost, he means to find them. Every last one of them. And he will set them free. 

This character’s adventures are a set of episodes that build one upon the other, like a modern television series. There’s an overall arc, there are returning characters and ongoing threats, but each tale stands alone. 

I wanted to look forward and back via this episodic structure, which has sometimes been tricky to pull off but also an awful lot of fun to craft. The chapters can be enjoyed separately, but they are almost certainly more rewarding if consumed in order. And like those TV series, each season (or book, in this case) ends with a climactic conclusion that resolves the immediate problems, although some challenges linger on for the next season/book.  

Additionally, each book builds upon the one before, creating a larger connected sequence. Book two  is more tightly integrated than book one, but that’s by design. Book one, Lord of a Shattered Land, gets you familiar with Hanuvar, his world, and his challenges, before additional complications and details get added to the mix in book two, The City of Marble and Blood (available October of this year).

Thank you, Howard! 

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Microreview: When the Goddess Wakes by Howard Andrew Jones

 When the Goddess Wakes solidly ends Howard Andrew Jones’ Ring-Sworn Trilogy, as the titular threat, building since the beginning of the series, brings danger, adventure, and notes of heroic sacrifice. 

Howard Andrew Jones Ring-Sworn Trilogy has been a recent highlight and hallmark of positivist heroic epic fantasy. In strong contrast to grimdark, morally grey epic fantasy that has long been a dominant note, the Ring-Sworn Trilogy has opted for the path of less ambiguous protagonists and antagonists, and highlighting and emphasizing the importance, and effectiveness of positive action and standing up for one’s beliefs, family, and country.  All of this takes place in a richly created multiverse.

So what about this last volume,  When the Goddess Wakes, about in particular? 

This book follows quickly on the heels of the second novel, Upon the Flight of the Queen. The Dendrassi war with the multiverse spanning invasion of the Naor has ended in peace and a tentative alliance against the greater threat of the aforementioned Queen. Alantris is a wreck, Elenai is being hailed as a Queen, much to her chagrin, but the threat and stakes have been raised, as the Goddess that the Queen wants to raise would and could have the power to unmake the entire multiverse, and has the desire to do so.

The challenge in this final volume is to face off against the Queen, and her Goddess. It is a quest that takes the characters across the realms in a desperate search for the tools to do so. Meantime, of course, their enemies are not idle, and there are those who would take advantage of this conflict for their own ends. And plenty of surprises and revelations about various characters and even the nature of the multiverse. 

Our points of view remain the same from the first (and second) novel, keeping the deep focus on our heroes: Elenai, the young Altererai Corps member whose discovery of a false sword hanging in place of a real one sparked the events of the entire series, is uneasy with people acclaiming her as a Queen. And yet it is her that the Naor (especially in the personage of their leader, Vannek) respect and it is her that is the glue for that alliance and for what of the decimated forces remain to face this last and most greatest threat. When the Goddess Wakes tests Elenai to the greatest extent yet, making her live up to her heroic epithet of Oddsbreaker.

Rylin (Rylin of the Thousand), in the meantime, has had it rough in extricating himself from his infiltration of the enemy councils to manage uneasy relationships with allies of dubious provenance in order to find a way to counter the threat of the Queen and the Goddess she is raising. His is also a slightly lovelorn story, as his attraction to Varama, leader of the resistance against the Naor in the second volume, is obvious, and not reciprocated (Varama, frankly, has Other Things to Do). Readers going back to the first volume and following his story can find some irony in this turn of events for him.

And then there is Vannek. Vannek is the leader of the remnant of the Naor horde which was the big threat in the second book. Now an uneasy ally with their former enemy, Vannek must navigate holding his forces together and facing an even greater threat, and be true to themselves as well. Vannek provides an outsider perspective to the world of the Altererai, Darassus and Alantris in general. One thing that Jones touches on, for readers who might have forgotten, is the filip and twist that the Naor are, in a real sense, the “humans” and the Darassians are, in effect, to the Naor, Elves of Faerie. The Naor “horde” is really humans trying to invade Fairyland.  It makes sense- despite the blood magic of the Naor, and their dragons, they don’t have the magical abilities Elenai, Rylin and company share. They live, relative to the Naor, in the midst of changing, and shifting realms of reality, the shards. Some of them even might be gods from a certain point of view, or to their own mind. This makes me think of Steve Brust’s Dragaera, which is of course a Faerieland to the few humans (like Vlad) who just happen to be living there amongst the native population.

But what this novel has over Amber, and yes, Dragaera is its commitment in word and deed, to inclusivity. This novel, especially of the three novels, makes it clear how welcoming a fantasy this is for all readers of any stripe. The aforementioned Vannek, although the term isn’t used in the series itself, is transgender and Vannek’s struggle with finding themselves is a theme that was touched in the second volume but gets more play here with Vannek’s further importance to the leadership of the remaining Naor horde. Other characters are depicted as gay, bisexual, and polyamorous and while having a character call this all out in dialogue may seem like “virtue signaling” to a certain mindset, it does help hammer home Jones’ point that heroes come in all stripes and types. You, too, can earn a heroic epithet, if 

As in the previous novels, there is a real “second generation of Amberites” feel to Rylin, Elenai, Vannek and their peers. The big wheels of the previous generation are here, sometimes in unusual or not quite hale and complete manners--Kyrkenall and N’alhr in particular, make room for the new generation to step up and take charge. The older generation, in power and influence are important, crucial, even, but in the end this is the story of the new generation rising up and facing challenges and overcoming them, not taking an assistant role to their mentors and higher ups. Throughout the series, Jones has done a great job with this from the beginning, and it is here in the final volume that the “second generation” really steps up. This sort of handoff is a tricky thing to do in any fantasy but it is part of the fabric and the point of Jones’ world.

While the second novel was somewhat darker that the first in terms of plot and events, this third novel, while remaining true to its roots, definitely leans into the third book of the trilogy where the hard choices have to be made, the most noble of stands, and yes the heroic sacrifices. Characters that go back to the beginning of this series are tested, and do die bravely against terrible enemies. 

The characters live up to the Oath of the Altenerai:

"When comes my numbered day, I will meet it smiling. For I will have kept this oath.

I shall use my arms to shield the weak.

I shall use my lips to speak the truth, and my eyes to seek it.

I shall use my hand to mete justice to high and to low, and I will weight all things with heart and mind.

Where I walk the laws will follow, for I am the sword of my people and the shepherd of their lands.

When I fall, I will rise through my brothers and sisters, for I am eternal."

Or, from our own world,  to quote Horatius:

Then out spake brave Horatius,

The Captain of the Gate:

"To every man upon this earth

Death cometh soon or late.

And how can man die better

Than facing fearful odds,

For the ashes of his fathers,

And the temples of his Gods."

I can hope that this series will make more readers, and publishers take notice of Jones’ talents in specific and in general the value, importance, and joy in positivist, heroic, optimistic fantasy, even as terrible things happen and noble heroic sacrifices occur.  There will always be a place for morally grey protagonists, hard and dark situations and themes, and “evils which exist to oppose other evils”. I wouldn’t want grimdark and dark fantasy to ever go away. The Ring-Sworn Trilogy, ending here with When the Goddess Wakes, however, shows that for me, oftentimes, I would like scoop sof the complex and bright Madagascaran Vanilla ice cream of Heroic epic fantasy in my reading diet  to go with the dark chocolate ice cream of Grim and dark epic fantasy in it. 

As always you won't want to start here. Go start with For The Killing of Kings and plunge into this world, characters and ethos of entertaining heroic fantasy.

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The Math

Baseline Score: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for excellent action beats and spirit of adventure that keeps the pages turning.

+1 for a strong, diverse and interesting cast of characters.

Penalties: -1 A couple of the bits of plotting felt a little jangled and rushed

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10

Reference: Jones, Howard Andrew, When the Goddess Wakes (Tor, 2021)

 POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.