Commentary/review

I have already expressed my admiration of books written by Martha Wells over the Fall of Ile-Rien Trilogy and the Murderbot Series. I recently revisited a notable prequel to the Ile-Rien story – “The Element of Fire” and liked it, again, quite a bit. “The Element of Fire” is a fantasy novel about an independent main female character (several of books by Martha Wells have that trope) and her male love interest. The twist is that the main female character – with an unforgettable name, by the way, Cade Carrion – is not fully, or entirely, a human woman (again, not unheard of in this Author’s fiction). We enter a fantasy realm shared by humans and the faerie known from English, Scottish, French and Nordic folklore. There is not one system of morality, order, justice. There are several of them. The members of each species carry their own systems, like the people of Antiquity carried their own laws, according to birth. The trouble is that they share a world of limited resources, participants and passions. Everything is steeped in magic. Everything is abundant and yet seems scarce. To say that politics are complicated is an understatement. Martha Wells has the ability to write a universe which is small and large at the same time. The choices are few, the perils are monstrous. It is all out of scale – or, perhaps, there is no scale at all.

In such a setting, uncommon characters will flourish. They hesitate. They are prone to mistakes and bouts of genius. They have great potential and many weaknesses. They are absurdly charming in everything they do. They are subtle, smart, unique. They are truly noble and reject all privilege. They live in a fairy tale, after all.

I enjoy a good fantasy story of that kind as a part of my escapist routine. When dams fall and waters rush over the land, a good, uplifting story will carry a soul safely home.

There is nothing wrong with that cover. The book was originally published in 1993 and that is how fantasy novels looked back then. Simple and true to the fantasy genre.

Cover Photo by Vasilina Sirotina on Unsplash