Pauline J. Alama, an American writer garnering praise for her genre short
stories, offers an excellent debut fantasy novel rich in creatively
developed settings, characters, plot and magical elements much of which
involves gods and ghostly entities mingling with mortals.
Set in an invented pagan medieval world beset by chaos and verging on
collapse, The Eye of Night's story gets narrated by Jereth, sole survivor of
a shipwreck that wiped out his family. Now a disillusioned ex-priest of the
Rising God, Jereth writes of the events of his own life reflecting a
disintegrating world with the Troubles emanating from the North and
manifesting in the form of earthquakes; floods; social upheavals; and seasons
and climate out of whack causing failing crops; and the fraying of time and
reason. All this disturbs and awakens restless spirits of the dead.
While the haunts and the disruptions slowly spread southward overwhelming
land after land, the wandering Jereth joins with an enigmatic, unusual duo:
the elegant, refined-looking yet simple-minded Lady Trenara and her
caretaker Hwyn, a battered, dwarfish young woman hiding a shrewd mind even
as she uses her fine singing voice and some other dubious skills to help
earn their keep.
Hwyn, it turns out, possesses some mystic gifts which enable her to become
the bearer of the eponymous Eye of Night, a talismanic object that seems to
be the egg of the legendary Sky-Raven. Preparing itself to give birth, the
Eye communicates to Hwyn that she and her companions have been chosen by the
gods to fulfill a prophecy: to buck the tide of refugees and bear the
uncanny object in their keeping to the North, where its hatching could bring
about utter destruction or the reflorescence of something miraculous.
On their journey to the heart of darkness as it were, the trio encounter a
myriad of cultures and persons, many offering danger and threats, some
benevolent and giving, but all fascinating and all involving mystical
manifestations of various sorts. These exciting adventures contribute to
the maturation of Hwyn and Jereth. Their relationship develops in very
interesting ways that include very moving romantic dimensions — Trenara,
all the while, remains a mystery until some very surprising revelations at
the end.
A great deal of the magic in this refreshingly character-driven story
involves spectral beings that interact with the protagonists in ways that
literally force them to confront the ghosts of their pasts. Thus Alama
takes standard fantasy novel tropes and cleverly adds excitement to the plot
proceedings and deepens the characters, the lengthy but always absorbing
and fascinating text spacious enough to develop richness of people,
supernatural incidents and background detail.
Jereth proves an engaging narrator, the prosodic rhythms in his descriptions
of emotions and environment contain just enough archaic flavor to give the
reader a genuine feeling of immersion in the mind-set of another time and
culture without being stuffy and off-putting. Extensive descriptions of
rituals and ceremonies, including quotes of prayers to various deities and
song lyrics add a very welcome poetic and bardic touch, the verses sometimes
offering provocative spiritual concepts to ponder concerning this invented
world's religions. Alama, through her fictional alter-ego, portrays a
belief system integral to the plot in which the forces of nature and the
cycles of annihilation and re-birth arise from the Great Wheel of the Gods:
the Rising God; the Bright Goddess above him; then the trickster-like Upside
Down God to the right; and finally the Hidden Goddess.
Read The Eye of Night and discover an intricate, well-conceived world in
which pagan spirituality and magic plays a very significant part along with
the believable emotional ups and downs of the compelling characters. The
book's adventurous travels, supernatural thrills, mythic resonances and
depth of feeling along the way to a spectacular climax makes this fantasy an
auspicious beginning to hopefully a long and prolific writing career for
Pauline J. Alama. We should all keep an eye out for whatever she does to
follow up on The Eye of Night.
