Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton – review

This book review is proving to be a real challenge. Mark Charan Newton has penned a book so rich that trying to do justice to its many themes, characters and story arcs is taxing my writing ability in a whole new way. In fact, it’s akin to trying to review five separate but connected novels simultaneously.

By now I suspect you’ve guessed my conclusion:  it is a masterpiece of the genre. Let me try and tell you why I experienced it that way.

What I found most astonishing while reading the book is that it’s Newton’s first major novel. The creative risks he takes in the story, as well as the complexity and depth of the world he’s created, are reminicsent of an experienced author with many a novel to his or her credit. This is a fantasy novel by and large, but make no mistake, this isn’t the family-friendly fantasy of Tolkien. The themes explored are far darker and grittier than most fantasy to which I’ve been exposed, and his characters often use the sort of language that we might hear everyday in our own worlds rather than the pseudo-classical tone adopted by many fantasy authors. And yet for all its darkness, the story is interspersed with truly touching and very powerful moments of connection between characters that, at least briefly, push back the encroaching shadows.

I’m getting carried away; first and foremost let me try and summarise the story…stories for you. The book follows the fortunes of, by my count, seven major protagonists and a host of supporting characters as the city of Villjamur struggles with the death of its mad ruler amidst the spreading panic of an approaching ice age. To be fair to Newton, I’m trying to be strict in judging who’s a major or minor character, and I’m fairly sure that those who’ve already read the book might well disagree with my take. Each of the main protagonists is worthy of a novel to themselves, and while the book weighs in at a very respectable 479 pages, I finished it in the sort of time frame that I would normally take on a much shorter book. I quite literally couldn’t put it down.

As I mentioned above, the degree of depth in his world is remarkable. The ‘magic’ of ancient technology harnessed both for good and evil, a variety of very different species whose individuality stands out from the ‘variations-on-a-human’ common to other speculative genres, and, perhaps most strikingly, a city that came across as a character in her own right. (This raises my count of major protagonists to eight.) In addition the setting of his stories on a dying world adds another intruiging dimension to each story individually and contains perhaps a subtle critique of our own attitudes to the environment and our limited resources. Furthermore, Newton is in no hurry to dump all the details of his world upon you, though I suspect that the temptation was considerable in the context of just how developed that world is. He will often leave you wondering for a while before revealing the vocabulary, subtler meanings and shades of his world. This can be irritating when you have little else to focus on, but in this novel is never a problem.

The stories weave in and out of one another, though often without actually touching, from the Inquisitor’s murder investigation and discovery of corruption to one young fop’s quest to salve his guilt by bargaining with arcane powers for his mother’s life. Some of the characters are brought together during the book to great effect, and Newton also plants the suggestion of possible alliances for future installments. It’s certainly clear that this is book one of a series. To the best of my knowledge, this book is the first of four.

Despite the aforementioned complexity of the novel, I did not at any point feel overwhelmed by the number of characters or plotlines, as one or two reviewers have remarked they did. Newton’s characters, from the least on up, are so memorable and distinct that even after a significant absence, as the author turns the narrative spotlight elsewhere, I found myself able to return to them without needing a reminder.

Special mention must be made of one protagonist in particular. This isn’t to say that he’s necessarily my favourite, but even I recognised the genius inherent in writing such a character. I’m referring to Brynd, leader of the Night Guard – the Emperor’s personal bodyguards. He hides his homosexuality behind the mask of his albinism in order to survive in a world that forbids his sexual proclivity. Most tellingly he also struggles with the paradox of being in so manly a calling in a world that would consider him anything but, were they to know. What a creative, fascinating way of exploring so contemporary a theme and in such a compelling character!

Newton does include one fairly graphic sex scene with Brynd which has been the cause of some controversy. I for one am not a big fan of graphic sex scenes, gay or hetero, in the SciFi/Fantasy novels I read. While I agree that any novel including sentient characters of any species must explore sex, I feel that there’s something to be said for leaving the details to the imagination. The literary equivalent of the camera panning away as the lovers get down to business, for example.

In my reviews I try as far as is possible to describe the book and my experience of it without giving the game away. This is often quite difficult, but here it has been a mixed blessing. I couldn’t possibly summarise the wealth of plots and subplots without regurgitating the book in its entirety. On the other hand, I worry that I’ve been unable to convey the richness of this particular novel.

In conclusion this book has my strongest recommendation. Not just for it’s entertainment value, which is considerable, but equally for its glut of thought-provoking and even challenging tales in the richest and most original setting the fantasy world has seen for a while.

…Oh, and one other thing. Am I the only one who thinks that this world would make an awesome roleplaying game setting? Just a thought….

Editor’s note:  The cover shown is for the UK edition (from Tor), which is what our UK-based reviewer had in hand; for the convenience of our American readers I linked to the U.S. (Spectra) version at Amazon.