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 The Silver City by Pamela Belle
The Wolf Within by Pamela Belle
reviewed by Helen Ryder
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 11, 1996
Pamela Belle and the Silver City trilogy is, at most, the best of the average. There are at present two books available in this series, The Silver City and The Wolf Within. The trilogy is set in a fantasy world spread over high mountains, ranging steppes, river valleys tropical paradises and exotic islands. The land is divided into numerous small kingdoms with many marital ties between. Only the Toktel'yian Empire seems strong enough to be of threat to these kingdoms and the present Emperor is not inclined to take advantage of that strength. The first book starts in a promising manner, introducing us to Halthris of the Tanathi tribe, a female warrior in one of the many tribes of loosely bound nomadic steppe dweller in the Northern plains. When a trading party is attacked by a Ska'i barbarian they realise that the unseasonable movement of the savage Ska'i hordes precipitates an attack on the nearby kingdom of Zithirian. The Ska'i worship the Wolf God and fight for the honour to despatch as many of the enemy as possible to his deathly Realm. As a friendly ally, Halthris is sent with all speed to warn the King of Zithirian of the impending attack but is dismayed when the news is not acted upon with the alacrity she feels it deserves. The king is an old fool, the heir a young one, and there is an obvious power struggle between the middle and youngest sons. The elder, Ansaryon is perceived as effeminate, wily and worst of all a dabbler in the art of sorcery, denounced as evil and proscribed in Zithirian. The youngest son Tsenit seems to be of greater honour being popular with the subjects as a warrior eager to serve the city. Of course the attack goes ahead and the roles change as one is revealed to be a traitor. Halthris has to choose who to follow, who to believe and finally who to back in the fight for Zithirian. One of the innocent pawns used in the ensuing struggle is a boy child, Bron, who possesses remarkable magical powers. He is used as a weapon of evil and his parentage is revealed to be of the most horrible nature.
The second book opens some years later and Zithirian is at peace again. Bron is now grown but is feared by the people of Zithirian as his powers grow more apparent, although he is loved by the city's rulers. Bron has a constant internal struggle with the Wolf God who threatens to take him over and use him to wreak devastation in the god's insatiable desire for blood and death. Bron has to leave Zithirian to seek aid in quelling or exorcising the evil spirit on the remote island of Jo'ami, the only island never to have been dominate by the Toktel'yian Empire and reputed to be the source of the world's most powerful sorcerers.
Potentially the two books have the makings of an above average series. The author has obviously done a lot of work in developing the world, placing the characters and the cultures in context and producing detailed histories of the main characters. Unfortunately what had potential has been let down by the writing. The mark of a good writer is not to let the hard work show so obviously. Instead of letting the story flow with the main character using questions and incidents to open up these histories, huge chunks have been used from the character references and placed at the beginning of each segment, like enormous info dumps. What could be learned slowly or was not needed at all was replaced by great tracts of personal histories, thoughts, emotions - most of which we didn't need to know for the character concerned, often a minor one, to be motivated within the storyline. What is worse, the author obviously believes that the reader has the memory of a gnat. Each chapter, sometimes each page, has constant references to what had happened only a few pages before. There is only so much of this a reader can take. Whatever possibility I had of immersing myself into the action was destroyed by constant annoyance at these obvious writing flaws. And that doesn't even touch on the plot flaws. If more advance information had been 'planted' as seeds to entice the thought processes then perhaps the sudden major 'revelations' wouldn't have jarred so badly.
I am really upset to give this kind of review. The weirdest thing is that although I wouldn't go out and pay to buy the last part of this trilogy I was able to obtain some kind of sympathy with the characters and would like to know what will result of these two books. I believe that when Ms Belle smoothes out her writing skills and makes her books more readable she may become a storyteller of some note.
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