The Last Page by Anthony Huso – review

The Last Page opens with one of our protagonists, reluctant king-to-be and college student par excellence Caliph Howl, out for some petty revenge for a prank he suffered over three years past.  What young Caliph didn’t count on was having his machinations observed by Sena Iillol, our other protagonist.  Unwilling to risk having his plan upset, he invites Sena out on a date, under false pretenses, which she accepts, under false pretenses.  When she arrives for their evening out the next night, Caliph tries to ambush her with an advanced blood spell to wipe her memory, only to have Sena kick his ass for his trouble.  This is the beginning of their bizarre on-again, off-again romance.

The story is set in a society structured around a magic-as-science technology, with a plot involving the search for an artifact that is able to circumvent the limitations inherent in that science, all while in the midst of a conflict in which newly crowned King Howl tries to win a civil war.  While blood magic is hardly a new concept, the way Huso has attuned it to the science of his world, with all its myriad mechanical and industrial applications, is quite novel.  The story’s requisite MacGuffin, the legendary Cisrym Ta, is somewhat less so, being half Sauron’s Ring and half Necronomicon.

The political structure of Caliph Howl’s homeland, the Duchy of Stonehold, was one of the more interesting elements of the setting.  Howl’s position of High King is a sort of amalgam of an ancient Roman dictator and a Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire, which rules over a nation with the socio-economic structure of an industrialized nation.  This was probably my favorite aspect of the setting, and it was a shame that it couldn’t be explored more deeply.

There were other parts of the book that frankly annoyed me.  An example of this is when a minor character, so minor that we only know about him because one of the protagonists wrote and received letters from him once or twice, is assassinated for no apparent reason.  Another one would be when a certain very powerful and influential character is introduced, one who could set in motion incredible events, but instead she decides to sit on her hands, and we never see or hear about her again.  Maybe she’ll become significant in the sequel, but as it stands she seems rather pointless.  In general the problem was that most of the characters were acting from motivations that, even by the end of the book, are only half-understood.  Perhaps the intended effect was to create a tense atmosphere of mystery, but the result was that a great deal of it simply felt random and distracting.

My overall impression of The Last Page is mixed.  Anthony Huso definitely has a lot of cool ideas, and the plot is solid.  Where he faltered somewhat was in the delivery.  I simply did not feel that his writing was at a level that could create either dramatic tension or compelling characters.  He does get there eventually; the later chapters are much more compelling.  So, all-in-all, I would say that The Last Page is pretty good, for a debut novel.  If you are looking for a fantasy novel with something different in its structure, this will scratch your itch, but not rock your world.