David Drake

The Books of the Elements — (2010-2011) Publisher: From the Bestselling author of the Lord of the Isles... In this novel of magical menace to the survival of all humanity, David Drake introduces a new fantasy world, Carce, based on Europe during the later Roman Empire. Far in the north, a group of magicians perform a strange dance on a volcanic island intended to open a gateway for supernatural creatures that will allow them to devastate the whole Earth and destroy all life. Not knowing the cause, two young men, Corylus and Varus, and two women, Hedia and Alphena, each separately pursue the answer to mysterious and threatening happenings that prefigure disaster  in  the great city of Carce, the center of civilization.  Through magical voyages in other realities where fantastic creatures, and even gods, help or hinder them, each of them must succeed or not just the city but the world will end in fire. The Legions of Fire is the first of a fantasy quartet set in the world of the city of Carce.

The Legions of Fire

The Legions of Fire by David Drake is a mixed bag of a novel. In one sense, it’s literally so, as Drake combines historical and fantasy genres along with Greek and Norse mythology — that’s (mostly) the good mix. The not-so-great mix was in my response to the novel and its characters, which really was all over the map in terms of engagement and enjoyment. The book kept me going, though the end was a bit of a struggle, and I’m curious enough to go on to book two but not without reservations.

The Legions of Fire is quasi-historical, set (more directly and fully so in the first half of the book) in the city of Carce, which one may as well spell as R-O-M-E, as beyond the name I’m not quite sure what the difference is. I don’t consider myself a classical scholar, so I’m sure there are some dissimilarities, but all the major aspects that would be familiar to a general reader are there: references to Sulla and other famous or somewhat famous Romans, to tribunes and senators, to well-known streets and temples, enemies on the borders, a rivalry with Carthage, etc. The setting is concrete, fully wrought, and rich in detail. These early chapters with their Roman background were some of my favorites. His descriptions of class, dress, architecture, gender roles, and food — all of the details of daily life — layer one upon the other so the reader truly inhabits the Roman world. It feels as if Drake really knows his stuff, but isn’t strutting it; it serves as great background rather than calling attention to his scholarship or mastery of Roman trivia. The latter half of the book moves into more fantastical or simply unfamiliar realms — underworlds, northern lands, and the like — and here the setting feels a bit more like a Hollywood set. It looks as it should on the outside, containing all the right images (dryads, nymphs, satyrs, magic swords) but all seems conveniently placed for us to stroll by and note, but not to look behind. The doors all have the right kind of framing and metalwork, but they don’t open.

The main premise of The Legions of Fire is that Carce, and the world as a whole, is about to be threatened by the rise of the fire god Surtr and his fire demons who will cleanse the world in flame. A vision of this is given to the four main characters very early in the novel, and the rest of the book deals with their attempts to prevent the cataclysm as well as save themselves from the strange situations they find themselves in. Two are the children of a Senator: bookish horrible-poet Varus and his sister Alphena who is somewhat of a scandal for her temper and for her training as a man with a sword. Their stepmother Hedia is another main character. The group is rounded out by Varus’ best friend Corylus, a military brat and son of a recently retired knight. They begin the novel together but soon are put onto different paths. Corylus ends in the north where he meets Odin, runs into dryads and nymphs, and converses with the “vengeance” or ghost of a dead man, among other adventures. The other three end up in even stranger realms and meet creatures who are equally fantastical or even more so. While I enjoyed the mix of mythologies, as mentioned, these realms felt less fully constructed. The adventures as well felt a bit perfunctory, partly due to their episodic nature. Only Corylus’ felt like it had a cohesive narrative focus to it; the others sort of moved from place to place, encounter to encounter, and as a reader I never truly felt attached or engaged to what they were doing. Their acts lacked a sense of urgency or suspense or drama despite the situations themselves having all three.

I varied in my response to the characters themselves. Corylus, a competent military man, is certainly likable, but a bit dull. I never had any doubt that he would do what needed to be done, which robbed his scenes of some suspense. Varus is also likable, but his character is more passive than active and moves so often in a fog that the same fog sort of settled over me as a reader. Alphena, though much more active, was also a bit monotone. The standout character by far was Hedia. At first presented, one thinks she’ll fall into the stereotypical stepmother haughty bitch role: there are rumors she poisoned her first husband, servants are terrified of her, and so on. But she turns out to be much more complex and is certainly the most vibrant, the most engaging character of the entire novel; the book gets a real spring in its step when we return to her storyline and I certainly hope she plays as major a role in the sequel. All the characters are very well drawn as characters. We’re given sharp details and real-life motivations for how they are and what they do; they move through their situations as real people and not as “heroes.” But save for Hedia, none are particularly compelling.

The same, unfortunately, is true of the ending. Considering the stakes (end of the world, death of humanity...) and the sheer dramatic potential of the on-stage performers (fire god, fire demons, nasty bald wizard, nymphs, magic sword, a magic flute...), the ending falls curiously (and fully) flat. It was difficult not to simply skim through the final scenes. I wanted to know what happened, both to the world and these characters, but the prose and the scenes themselves did nothing to convince me that a skim or a summary by someone who’d read the book would have given me any less pleasure. I actually found the opening chapters, set in plain old Rom- um, Carce, with plain old folks to be much more compelling than the end-of-the-world magic-all-around dozen-demons-dancing magic-sword-a-swinging climax. I seriously hope Drake ups that aspect of the writing in the follow-up, which appears to involve some sort of sea monster (Release the Kraken?).

The Legions of Fire kept me reading, though barely by the end. The characters are all well drawn and likable, but save for one great exception a bit dull. The historical setting is particularly strong, the fantastical ones less so. The mix of mythologies is interesting but not executed strongly or vividly enough. And the ending is a letdown dramatically. Thus, a mixed bag. My recommendation now is to hold off to see how the series shakes out before picking up book one of what is projected as a four-book series. —Bill Capossere

The Legions of Fire

David Drake made his name writing military science fiction, such as the great HAMMER’S SLAMMERS series of stories and books, and was one of the greats of military SF for Baen Books in the 1980s. The GENERAL novels (The Hammer, The Anvil, The Forge, The Steel, and The Sword), co-written with S.M. Stirling, remain one of my favourite SF series of all time for superb plotting, hard-hitting action, brilliantly-described battles, and its cyber-steam/star-faring/carbine-wielding/dog-riding fallen human civilization. In recent years, Drake turned his efforts to fantasy, and wrote the LORD OF THE ISLES series. While that series grabbed my interest, it was not able to hold on to it to the end. The Legions of Fire, the first of a planned quartet, failed to grab my interest at all, and it was only through sheer determination that I finished this sadly boring book.

The story is set in ancient Rome, during the first century A.D. However, it is not called Rome, but rather “Carce” (pronounced “kar-see”). Everything else about the background is Roman: the Capitoline Hill, the Appian Way, Germany, Gaul, Carthage, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, the Flavian Amphitheatre, and so on. So why did Drake call Rome “Carce”? Your guess is as good as mine, because it makes no sense to me, and the renaming comes off as being very false when everything else is so clearly Roman. Aside from that, the story is about a horrible supernatural threat not only to Carce’s Roman Empire, but to the whole world, and how four main characters react to and deal with the threat. The four characters are Corylus, the son of a Roman knight; his friend Varus and Varus’ sister Alphena, the children of a Senator; and finally Varus and Alphena’s stepmother Hedia. Drake draws these characters out quite well, and I was impressed with his ability to demonstrate the different personalities of each. It was these nicely drawn characters that kept me reading. The magical system is drawn from classical mythology (dryads, nymphs, and “otherworld” dimensions), which fit very well with the Roman setting.

So with the above setting (Rome) and a big bad threat (the end of the world), four interesting primary characters, some very interesting supporting characters, and a plausible and interesting system of magic based on our own historical mythology, you would think The Legions of Fire would be a good book. I am sorry to say that it is not a good book. It is the most boring work of fiction that I have read in recent memory, and the main reason is that in about 370 pages of text, nothing really happens until the last 100 pages or so, and even that is not particularly suspenseful or surprising. I had looked forward with some anticipation to this book because of my experience with Drake’s science fiction and with his fairly decent LORD OF THE ISLES. I was sadly disappointed, because I know that Drake is capable of much better plotting than that in The Legions of Fire. There is not one surprising moment, and the moments of action or suspense were few and far between and generally weak. I was grateful when I finally read the last page.

I do not like writing harsh reviews of anyone’s work, but especially that of authors I have enjoyed in the past, because of two things: firstly, I have affection for authors who have given me the gift of a good read; secondly, it means my screening system has failed me. Life is too short to read bad books, so I try not to. Do not read The Legions of Fire, as it is not an effort worthy of Drake’s previous achievements, and I hope that he goes back to the drawing board for the sequels. Surely an author of Drake’s abilities could transfer from military SF and produce a gripping, fast-paced fantasy. With characters like Corylus, Varus, Hedia and Alphena, he should have been able to, but alas, did not. Do yourself a favour, take a pass on this 1 ½ star book, and grab a copy of the GENERAL series or HAMMER’S SLAMMERS if you want to experience David Drake. I think I might go do a quick re-read of Raj Whitehall’s adventures myself for summer vacation. —Angus Bickerton

Out of the Waters

David Drake’s Out of the Waters continues his new BOOKS OF THE ELEMENTS series set in Carce, a quasi-historical Rome. In my review of book one, The Legions of Fire, I called the novel a “mixed bag” in terms of pace and character and said I was actually more engaged by the historical setting and action rather than the fantastical elements. It was a bit of a struggle to finish, but left me curious enough to pick up book two. Out of the Waters is less mixed, but unfortunately it tips to the wrong side of the balance sheet.

We return to Carce and the main characters: Corylus, the surprisingly philosophical soldier; his friend Varus, failed poet turned prophet and son of Senator Gaius Saxa; Varus’ sister Alphena, who feels trapped by the strictures of society and urgently wants the respect that so easily comes to men in this society; and the siblings’ stepmother Hedia, whip-smart, tough, decisive, and highly effective.

The book opens when Senator Saxa’s opulent public spectacle, which he’s put on to celebrate his promotion to provincial governor, turns into a sprawling image of a strange city defending itself via flying ships against a gigantic multi-limbed monster from the sea. The crowd thinks this is all stage scenery, but our main characters realize they are witnessing an actual event from the past, which turns out to be the destruction of Atlantis by the monster Typhon. And it seems Typhon is soon to be coming for Carce. Of the characters, however, only Alphena sees Typhon as a man, not a monster.

As before, the group works — sometimes together, sometimes alone, sometimes in partnership with new characters — to prevent the prophesied destruction of Carce, by water this time, from coming to pass. We shift back and forth between viewpoints and settings as the characters split up into their own journeys and adventures, trying to stop Carce’s destruction but also trying to figure out the true nature of Atlantis, of Typhon, and who or what might be behind the stages of this attack.

There are some strong ideas here and there, some nice images, some neat fantastical elements (I particularly liked how he melded in some Native American myth), but overall the book just didn’t hold me. If the first book was a struggle to get through, this was a struggle and a half. One major reason was that while in The Legions of Fire I was captivated by the historical detail and storylines, here there was far less of this, and what was there was much more static and less engaging. The characters’ quests felt pretty perfunctory; they evoked the occasional flash of interest, but I never was really invested. This was especially disappointing with regard to Hedia, one of the few standout characters in the first book. I did finish the novel, but it was mostly out of a sense of reviewer obligation rather than keen interest in what would happen to the characters. If you liked The Legions of Fire, you may indeed enjoy Out of the Waters. If you didn’t care for book one, I doubt very much you’ll want to pick up book two. And if you haven’t started the series, much as I wish I could, I can’t recommend doing so as there is so much out there that is better. —Bill Capossere