Far From the Warring Lands
by Stephen Crane Davidson

Reviewed by Megan Powell

Everything is politicized these days, including book reviews. Avoid one book because it’s part of a multi-novel epic; avoid another because it’s based on a TV show, movie or RPG; read this one because we should support electronic publishing; read that one because it’s mid-list cannon fodder in need of an audience; read new authors to encourage publishing houses to take chances and expand the boundaries of a given genre; read classics to encourage publishing houses to reprint old favorites.

I could make a strong political argument for reading Stephen Crane Davidson’s first novel, Far From the Warring Lands. He’s an author who has built a reputation publishing short fiction in print and electronic markets; this novel, at a tight 172 pages, isn’t bloated or derivative; it’s an e-book, so we should all be excited about this new trend in publishing….

All true, all well and good. But when it comes down to it, when I pick up a novel, I want to be entertained. I want good world-building, logical plotting, believable characters. Davidson delivers on all counts.

The plot in a nutshell: On the eve of his village’s destruction by soldiers of Aln, the young Merric saves his uncle Jerrid’s life by killing an assassin. But it wasn’t merely the arrow that killed the man. Some power within Merric, inherited from his deceased healer mother, helped steer the arrow, and this power was not entirely under Merric’s control. Merric becomes a special target of the enemy, who can track his untutored magical outbursts. He is joined in his flight by Naree, recently escaped from her Aln father; she has magical skills, and problems of her own. Together they, sometimes accompanied by Jerrid, flee the Aln and debate their best course of action. Of both immediate and long term concern is the question of how to bring Merric’s power under control. Merric’s attempts to come to terms with his past and his potential don’t only have a bearing on his mental health; he may be either a useful weapon or an uncontrollable danger to those around him.

The book is a combination of (externalized) quest and (internalized) coming of age novel. Yet even that distinction is imperfect, because the psychology of the characters is intimately connected to their physical actions. The physical quest is not so much a search for anything tangible as it is an escape, keeping one step ahead of the enemy. The potential discoveries revolve around Merric’s control over his powers, and that control will be based on psychological factors.

Davidson avoids easy answers. There is no Great Evil to fight, no god ready to step in at the last moment. The people who war have been at odds for years. Merric is horrified when he kills, and this horror does not fade. While he is able to logically decide that, in some situations, it is better to kill than be killed (or allow a friend to die), this doesn’t make the individual deaths any easier for him to accept. When Naree is told by reliable sources that she has become bound to Merric, and the best thing for them to do is complete the link sexually, she can rationally accept the situation. But that rationality, even when combined with her (reciprocated) fondness for Merric, doesn’t make sex an easy answer. She’s been abused, and has difficulty trusting people; jumping into bed with someone she’s known for only a short time is not something she’s prepared to do.

The focus of the novel is very tight. There are people and societies that, despite being important players in the world Davidson has built, remain a mystery. Merric provides the point of view, and he doesn’t know everything about the world he lives in. Over the course of the novel, we learn more, but the sense of unexplored depths never goes away. This isn’t lack of imagination on the part of the author; he’s specifically decided to keep Merric center stage. As readers, we’re never privy to an omniscient view, or even the wide variety of viewpoints that characterize many fantasy novels; this constraint makes Merric’s world seem much more real.

And ultimately, that’s why I read fiction, especially fantasies. I want to be transported to another world, and meet new and interesting people. If that world isn’t always the most pleasant place, well, that just makes the illusion all the more convincing.

Far From the Warring Lands, originally published by Virtuabooks, will be out soon through a different publisher; you can e-mail the author for updates. In the meantime, an excerpt is available.

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