What’s It About

Re Temur, exiled heir to his grandfather’s Khaganate, has finally raised his banner and declared himself at war with his usurping uncle. With his companions—the Wizard Samarkar, the Cho-tse Hrahima, and the silent monk Brother Hsiung—he must make his way to Dragon Lake to gather his army of followers.

Temur has many enemies, and they are not idle. The sorcerer who leads the Nameless Assassins, whose malice has shattered the peace of all the empires of the Celedon Highway, has struck at Temur’s uncle already. To the south, in the Rasan empire, a magical plague rages. To the east, the great city of Asmaracanda has burned, and the Uthman Caliph is deposed. And in the hidden ancient empire of Erem, Temur’s son has been born and a new moon has risen in the Eternal Sky.

Representative Paragraph

A beautiful moment of rebirth…

Hesitantly, as if seeking reassurance, one curled frond reached toward her fingers like a spring slowly giving up its tension. It brushed the back of her hand, downing the fine hairs in shimmering pollen. Then, as if flame licked the edge of paper for a moment before the whole leaf caught, a thread of green seemed to rush away, to propagate through the whole vine. Leaf after leaf after blossom, the plant relaxed into the daylight. On every side, sweeping away, a rustle of leaves bore witness to the change that raced through the jungle. For the first time in the world, the forests of Reason bloomed under a daysun’s rays.

Should I Read The Novel?

I’m sure those who’ve read the first two books in the series will read Steles of the Sky no matter my opinion.  Having said that, after finishing the novel I had no urge to go back and read the backstory of these characters.  (But more on that in the commentary).

Commentary

If you’re like me and you believe that award shortlists are meant to be read and not admired then the nomination of a multi-series novel, that you haven’t been keeping up with, creates a quandary.  Do you ignore the book’s existence on the ballot?  Do you try to find time to read the other novels in the series?  Or do you simply take the view that nominated works must stand alone, that in terms of character and plot and theme it must engage the newbie reader as much as it does the person who’s already invested in the series.

I decided long ago to adopt option three, as a result I found myself reading Steles of the Sky the concluding volume in the Eternal Sky trilogy.

While this is the third book, to Elizabeth Bear’s credit I never felt lost in terms of the narrative.  I quickly picked up who were the good guys and who the villains.  I also easily came to terms with the world building and the mix of cultures – all non-white and based on Asian, Middle Eastern and Native American mythologies.  But what I really appreciated was how Bear pulls this off without the need to info-dump or have character explains plot points they should already know.

However, as a concluding volume in a trilogy I did expect the book to have a sense of momentum and pacing as it wraps up and deals with the threads left by the previous novels.  Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. The first half of the novel involves lots and lots and lots of walking (especially trudging through snow) – generally from disasters or events set up by the previous volumes.  Even when Re Temur and his posse of like-minded individuals find a set of magic portals that allows them to arrive at their final destination quicker than might have been the case, the narrative still feels as stuck in the snowdrifts as some of the other characters.

The villain of the piece, al-Sepehr, does very little. I got the impression he was an arrogant piece of work who, because he had control of a Djinn, felt like his victory was inevitable. But this means that other than the extreme climate and the odd glass demon, our heroes never seem to face a genuine threat. In fact they have plenty of time to get their act together as they organise an army to fight the forces of al-Sepehr and those who have allied with him.

The novel’s many disparate strands lead to a final battle between good and evil. This happens, though in the last thirty or so pages, and is dealt with so quickly, so abruptly, that it feels inconsequential. I’d be willing to accept that this war between al-Sepehr and Re Temur is not the point of the series – that it’s about the friendships and relationships between different cultures that are formed as a consequence of the villain and his villainy.  But as a climax to a trilogy, I expected something a little more… well… climactic.

The novel also involves far too many characters, an issue that’s not unique to the Eternal Sky – I’m looking at you George – but is still annoying nonetheless.  The Steles of the Sky has at least five or six viewpoints to contend with, and while this does give us a variety of voices and opinion, it does means that characters disappear for large chunks of the novel.  As a consequence I struggled to engage with anyone, including Re Temur who has the lion share of the narrative.

Having said all that the prose is knock your socks off beautiful.  I quote some of it above.  But more than the pretty words, it was never a chore to finish the book.  In spite of the slow pacing and characters I didn’t care for, Elizabeth Bear’s ability to tell a story shone through.  I didn’t turn the pages out of an obligation to reach the end of the book.  I did it because I still wanted to know what happened next.

Going by the interwebs, those who have read all three books really enjoyed the series and its unique take on epic fantasy eschewing the traditional medieval setting for something a lot more complex and interesting.  It didn’t work for me partly because Steles of the Sky doesn’t stand alone as a novel but mostly because there are too many characters, the plot strands are diffuse and the climax is little more than a speckle of snow rather than a raging blizzard.