Clouds End

ISBN: 0-441-00525-X Order from: Amazon.com

A lyrical, slightly surreal, fairy tale-like book of intertwined lives, stories, and realities, told with self-conscious poetry.

Reviewed by David on October 05, 1998

Genre: Fantasy (Village Heroes, Fairy Tale)

Synopsis: On a remote fisherman's island called Clouds End, an ominous visitor brings warning of conquest driven by madness. Four young islanders, and the magical guest depart to bring warning to the other islands and to find ways to prevent the expanding empire from bringing war to their beloved home.

Full Review: The story is told in a soft, singing tone, reminiscent of McKillip's works. The tale is interspersed with story-telling, a traditional way of conveying wisdom through metaphore. And yet, sometimes the metaphores turn out more real than reality—or perhaps indistinguishible from it.

The world of islands exists bounded on one side by Mist: a magical froth making and unmaking reality. Clouds end emerged from the Mist only a couple of generations ago. Occasionally, the mist claims the islanders who sail too close to it. Some hear the call of the Mist, and are seduced by the songs of the world: they become shapeshifters, claimed by wind, birds, rock and fish. Occassionally, these haunts find their way back to humanity, by taking the shape of a human and absorbing his memories, regaining human roots, history and emotions. This phenomenon, called Twinning, has ominous consequences: sooner or later, either the human or the Doppelganger have to die, or be absorbed by the Mist to allow the other full life.

One such shapeshifter, Jo, comes to Clouds End as a seagull, and takes the shape and the memory of Brook, a young woman. The two women become tied by bindings of love and fear: they are closer than sisters, and yet vie for the same home, friends, lover, life. The islanders, fearing for Brook, cannot kill the shapeshifter because of laws of hospitality, and because the haunt brings them a warning they cannot ignore.

Brook, her intended young man, and their two best friends depart for the mainland, carrying warning and carrying away the bad luck of the haunt. With the uncertain aid of the haunt, they make their way through perils and pain. Separated by the coming war, they struggle with with privation and death, and explore love and killing.

The plot is augmented by storytelling by the characters, the stories that talk of world creation and change, of Heros (who are more like gods) of fire, sea, etc. Some of the fantastic tales turn out to be true, as the protagonists hear the voice of the wind and fire.

The tale blurs fantasy with deeper fantasy. The struggle with a mad empire bent on conquest turns out to be less important than the struggle of human and magic lives, the loneliness and boredom, the warmth of growing roots versus excitement of adventure. This is a novel of choices, where each choice brings a measure of good and evil, happiness and sadness, love and loss.

The poetic narrative is told with remarkably lyrical tone, and the well-explored conflict of wild magic and family ties is skillfully told. The desperately lonely shapeshifter Jo is indeed haunting.

My personal prejudice against blurred, ambiguous worlds, and the preponderance of style over romance, make this jewel of a book less attractive than its author's skill warrant.

Nevertheless, this book is worth reading if only to appreciate how boringly monotone most other modern fantasies are.

Overall: 6; Plot: 5; Characters: 5.5; Style: 7; World-building: 6; Originality: 7;

ISBN: 0-441-00525-X Order from: Amazon.com