The Storm Lord

The Wars of Vis #1

by Tanith Lee

THE STORM LORD is a big novel of an unknown planet and of the conflict of empires and peoples on that world. It is a story of a priestess raped and slain, of a baby born of a king and hidden among strangers, and of how that child, grown to manhood, sought his true heritage.It is a novel of alien gods and lost goddesses, of warriors and wanderers, and of vengeance long delayed.It is an epic in every sense of the word.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction, Epic Fantasy, Adult, Novels

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.

Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.

Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.

Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.

Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.

Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.

Reviews

[Nicholas Perez]

I learned from an interview I found that this series is connected to The Birthgrave and that a connector book was planned before Tanith Lee's death. Won't get to it for awhile, but I'm interested.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have previously enjoyed books by this author but sadly this wasn't one of them. The story starts off with a situation which, although it eventually provides the driving point of the novel (as it shows us how the book's anti-hero is conceived and preserved to fulfil his destiny) succeeds in killing off, or driving off stage for most of the story, almost every character featured in the first few chapters. The style of the story features constant head-hopping between characters within a scene and so there are multiple viewpoints, but as soon as the reader becomes used to a character they are rapidly killed off.

The story is set on a planet where at least some of the inhabitants are subjected to irrestible sexual urges during the appearance of a certain star - cue several instances in the story of rape, which is usually "enjoyed" by the victims. The first, however, is not - the tyrannical Storm Lord, on progress through the Lowlands where the downtrodden white skinned race live, has a woman brought to his tent to fulfil his urges during the star's rising. She supposedly kills him through some strange sex magic (when really he has been poisoned by his councillor at the behest of his nasty wife the Queen). The woman is taken back to the city as the odd inheritance laws mean that the last child conceived during the star's rising becomes the Storm Lord's heir so if the Lowland woman is pregnant with a son, the child would supplant the Queen's own unborn child.

The Queen of course arranges for slow poison to be fed to her "rival" which will cause premature labour, and demands from her lady in waiting that she murder the child and bring her its little finger as proof. The unwilling lady learns that the Lowlander - whose people have a kind of telepathy - is aware of everything. The child's mother then cuts off her son's finger to be taken as proof. She then asks the lady in waiting to get him to safety while knowing she faces death.

A sequence follows where various people are killed off, including the lady in waiting, and the baby is taken in and raised by Lowlanders. Because he was found with the body of a woman of the ruling Vis race, it is assumed - given his Lowlander physical traits such as light hair and eyes - that he is of mixed race, but that his mother was Vis and his father a Lowlander not the true reversal of that. He eventually becomes a soldier and gravitates to the service of the Storm Lord, the Queen's grown son, and the story follows his career and his eventual raising of a force to rebel against the Storm Lord's growing tyranny and active genocide of the Lowlander peoples.

I found this rather a hard slog. The head-hopping didn't help but I didn't like many of the characters. There are a few minor ones who seem to be sympathetic - people the hero meets during a sojourn in a ruined city of the Lowlanders, for example - but they are soon killed off or leave the stage rapidly in other ways. Many characters have similar names and it is hard to keep track: much later in the story, a friend of the hero's meets a slave called Rem. It took ages for me to remember that he was the young man in the ruined city who loves a frail young girl who - during a rising of the star - the hero rapes and who soon afterward meets her death. He blames the hero and later conspires against him. But the hero's success is preordained and it becomes even less interesting when he has an encounter with a mystic priesthood and awakens godlike qualities in himself, involving mass telepathy, which soon have the Lowlanders raised from their apathy into a murderous cold rage against their former oppressors.

I can see that the reversal of having the people in charge as dark-skinned races, and the oppressed as white, was a reversal many decades before the 'Noughts and Crosses' series, but in this case it comes across as rather dodgily stereotypical, especially given the susceptibility of the Vis to the star's influence to which the Lowlanders, who have a low sex drive, are immune. Just about every woman in the story is portrayed either as a whore/sex slave or a victim, with the only exception, the Queen, being a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Very few of the characters are really characters at all: they are one dimensional cutouts. There are some lush descriptive passages so I have awarded this a 2 star rating when it is rather more of a 1.5 stars.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that I like a lot, rate very highly, and probably can't recommend, at least not without a number of caveats.

It was, I believe, Tanith Lee's second adult novel (after The Birthgrave), with which it shares a number of similarities, some of them problematic -- there are a number of rapes or sexual assaults, some of which take place on the page, and at least one of which is committed by the ostensible protagonist. Also, like The Birthgrave, it has a very 1970s sort of understanding (or lack thereof) of consent, and at least one or two examples of that "He mastered me and I fell for him" trope.

So with that out of the way (well, mostly):

The story begins with Rehdon, High King and Storm Lord of Dorthar, and a hunting party, riding out onto the plains and into a village of lowlanders. And because the Red Moon is in the sky (which brings the Dortharians into mating season, or something like that), he takes a local woman, Ashne'e, devotee of the Lowlanders' serpent goddess Anackire, to satisfy his Throbbing Biological Urges. (Without, to be clear, giving her any actual say in the matter.) And the next morning, Rehdon is dead and Ashne'e is possibly pregnant. And because the Dortharian throne passes to the youngest child, Ashne'e is brought back to Koramvis, the capital city (again without being given any choice in the matter) to see whether she might be carrying the Storm Lord's heir, much to the dismay of his queen Val Mala and her young son (and potential heir) Amrek. And, well, long story short, it ends with the infant Raldnor (true heir to the Storm King) spirited away and his mother dead.

And then the story really begins, with Raldnor growing up initially ignorant of his true heritage, making his way through the Lowland villages of the plains and the decadent, savage cities of Dorthar and its neighboring nations, growing gradually into his destiny (and doing, to be sure, at least a couple of unforgivable things along the way).

And again, I do like this book, and if you want more of that sort of 1970s bronze/iron age fantasy with relatively little magic (mostly some minor psychic abilities manifesting; and there are even hints that this may be more of an SF book, with the Dortharians originally coming from space) but with plenty of colorful adventure, and if the occasional moment of unpleasantness won't drive you away, then I do recommend it. 

[Cécile · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tanith Lee writes well, I'll give her that. There are some striking descriptions and some beautiful turns of phrase. Re-written, this book might be great.

Unfortunately, in its present state, it's not much more than an unbelievable collection of all the worse sword&sorcery clichés. Also, it's offensive; but not as in "it hurts my political sensibilities" (though it does), but rather as in "how can someone expect world-building this crude to be believable"?

There's a rape every twenty pages or so. It's tiring in the long run, and I'd be very thankful if she had bothered to give some thought to her female characters and made them, I don't know, three-dimensional or something; but she didn't. Instead, we get treated to a collection of paper dolls whose entire personality can be summed up as "whores". Nothing more. They enjoy being raped, they enjoy being traficked into brothels, they enjoy the hero because he's sooooo manly and good in bed (seriously, I've met 13-year-olds with a more mature view of human sexuality), and they're completely interchangeable. As for the men... well, at least they have personalities. They're still portrayed as a pack of dogs bowing to the alpha, but hey, they're characters. So it's not even possible to state that characters are not the focus of this novel. They are; only women are portrayed as subhuman. I feel insulted, and also, I fell that an author who can't be bothered to pay attention to half of humanity in her world-building is doing a poor job of it.

Also, the race relationships are represented in an incredibly crude way. Beastly black people rutting every other month and chaste, just, humane and honest white people persecuted by their black oppressor?... I mean... seriously? I was also sorely disappointed that the hero didn't escape the "tragic mulatto" cliché, making him a bit of a good guy (his white side) and a bit of a sexy brute (his black side) (no, that's not a caricature. I wish.), forever torn between the two sides of his ancestry, as if that was the way mixed-race people lived in the real world.

To sum up: a book with beautiful writing and potentially wonderful world-building, spoiled by all the crudest sword&sorcery stereotypes you can dream of. I suppose that, at this point, I should just shrugg and call it a "product of its time". The trouble is, last time I looked, the "time" for this kind of writing was 1930, not 1977. Fritz Leiber was already making fun of those clichés in 1940, for Pete's sake. We'd had freaking Tolkien and Frank Herbert and Roger Zelazny in 1977. There's no excuse, I say.

[Jonathan Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early Lee this one and a full blooded heroic fantasy at that. Even from back in the mid-70s it’s clear what a great talent this author would become. Yes there’s cliche and buckles are swashed but on the whole it’s most enjoyable, and redolent with Lee’s gothic sensibilities, which makes this one stand out from the crowd. Well worth a read.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a transition point in its later half or so. Before this, it's political machination and intrigue and interpersonal conflict and a voyage of self discovery by young Raldnor as he is buffeted about as a pawn and never quite fitting into his circumstances. It was satisfying in the Shakespearean political drama sense but had some slipperiness: it didn't sit easily into a particular genre, in terms of science fiction or fantasy, and it was never obvious what the overall shape of the story would be. Never quite an actioner and never quite a political drama, especially as Raldnor was ripped from the dynamics of court and set on a journey into the hinterlands. Just when you think you have a grip on it, things change.

It's only as Raldnor achieves a sudden spiritual awakening that abrupt motion occurs. It becomes both more and less interesting: the machinations become irrelevant, the battles are predestined, and Raldnor becomes inhuman, his personal connections severed. At the same time, the serpent goddess Anckire is moving in this world--either as an actual divinity manipulating events, or as a collective psychic virus or meme within a people bearing ultimately unknown powers. An alien and irresistible purpose pushes aside Raldnor's humanity with imagery reminiscent of Christian sainthood. The world is ultimately transformed, an entire culture blasted by divine action, whether that divinity is actual or the product of collective psyche.

[Jason Waltz · Rating 3 out of 5]

my first Tanith Lee novel. not bad. liked it quite a bit till Book (section) 4, from which point through the end it became a shell of a story, just like the main character became a shell of a man. the tale lost all the humanity of its storytelling when he lost all of his humanity - it emptied of what appealed. he was a pretty strong character till that point, as was the story equally strong. so ended disappointedly.

[David Elsensohn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was frustrating for me, because I like Tanith Lee.

There is the promise of a richly detailed worldscape, of vicious cultural attitudes, racism, and a rising heroic son of the downtrodden. But despite the “twist” of making the oppressed people pale and blonde, and Lee’s talent for brief, brilliant whirlwinds of descriptive writing, this feels like a concentrated brainstorming of ideas wrangled into a general timeline.

Lee likes to place the reader in anyone’s head as needed for narrative, and I am used to this, as she handles the different thought processes and pacing for each. However, the reader can quickly become lost with so many names, nationalities, races and references strewn through every paragraph. The difficulty of reducing estrangement for the reader is usually handled through the narrator, and the hero does encounter strange things, but it’s damned hard to determine who everyone is and where we are.

The hero is sullen and unsympathetic, until he becomes godlike and absent. The things that happen to him are interesting and would make for good conflict and development... but while he grows in power, he does not seem to grow enough as a character. As another reviewer has noted, the women are all chattel or eerie witches, and the men brutal followers.

Lee often has a breathless, dreamy pacing reminiscent of Moorcock, and vibrant metaphor similar to Leiber, and there are some pretty, pretty words in here… but very few characters we like, and a fairly well-trodden hero’s journey. I’m glad I read it, for it generates ideas, and reminds me that these ideas need to be handled carefully.

[Ана Хелс · Rating 5 out of 5]

Прозата на Танит Ли мога да определя с една дума – неземна. Мога да добавя и нечовешка, сънувана, антиреална. Тя е всичко, което се случва на подсъзнанието ви , докато летите в облаците на временната си нощна смърт. Тя е онова, което ни очаква след тунела мрак , следващ последното вдишване на житейски уроци някой ден. Тя е онова, за което не бихте помислили, но щом се случи разбирате , че просто е било неизбежно. Поетично фентъзи, в което думите са достойни главни участници наравно с нехуманните герои, които ще откраднат сърцето ви след няколко страници време. Ли е моята гадателка на бъдещи сънища, и не се отказвам от нейните видения и в най-тъмния си час на графитено сива реалност.

Не знам дали някой е добре дошъл във Вис, където човешкия живот има твърде малка ценност , маркирана от раса, вид, местоположение, пол, цвят на косите. Забравете думички като расизъм, антисемитизъм или дискриминация. Тук хората дишат различия и се задушават в тях, непознали идеята за равенство дори с последния си дъх. Суров, войнствен, оцеляващ на въпреки народ, предполагаемо започнал от останките след битка на две войстващи цивилизации, които връщат часовника на прогреса с няколко милиарда години назад. Но това са само слухове, които нямат никакво значение за ежедневното зъбене срещу сивото слънце на смъртта и алената звезда на похотта.

Тъмните са поне в началото истинските владетели на драконите и останките от дивия свят, вярващи в удобните мъжки религии даващи правото на силния, отглеждащи абоминации на животни и хора за развлечение, нямащи предразсъдъци и ограничения в жестокия си хедонизъм на завоевателя. Светлите са онеправданите, тъжните, затворените, идеалните роби, но и загадъчни телепати и поклонници на древната религия на осморъката жена – змия Анакира, седящи тихо встрани, почти незасегнати от природни аномалии и ограничения в сухото си парче прокълната земя. Сетингът е повече от благодатен за сцена на кървави конфликти – страните са малки и воюващи за оскъдността си, като само най-безмилостно отдалечените от всяка сянка на хуманност могат да поставят крак върху счупения врат на остатъка от човечеството.

Героите се менят през столетията, и все пак – са почти едни и същи, реинкарнации, или вечно живеещи в смъртта, но винаги нечовешки, дори и в привидно нормална форма. Не търсете съпричастност, топлота, нежни емоции, ласкав хепи енд – такива неща в този свят са истинска фантастика. Любовта я има във форма, която би могла да се възприеме само като еклектично извратена, имаща инцестите, изнасилванията и детеубийствата като просто поредните щрихи в кално кърваво на общата картина. Очите на читателя както винаги търсят бясно своя любимец, за когото да стискат палци да намери своя вариант на нечовешко щастие, и почти винаги се сблъскват със своите лични ултра егота , сънувани в нещо като емоционален кошмар, от който кой знае защо, не са искали да се разбуждат дори при алтернативата от ясно слънце и тихо морско ваканционно утро.

Боговете идват само да усмирят своите зъбати дечица да не потъпкат цялата добре свършена тераформация и разможителен проект. Ако нещо ги издразни особено силно – цунами, земетресение, бури с чудовища – вършат идеалната дидактично – възпитателна работа за поколенията и санитарно прочистване на расите до обновяване на кръвта и биологичното разнообразие. Религиите са милиони видове, пазени от скверността на съседите и обливани в кръв от фанатици, които неясно защо не виждат огромните сходства между всички идоли, съчетаващи матриархалното начало и патриархалния край в облик с безброй ръце , носещи наказания за всички прегрешения и вероятно награди за заслужилите, макар че как се прави разликата е безкрайно неясно.

Вис е света, в който не искате да се събудите. И все пак тайничко си мечтаете да заспите под неговите небеса. И нищо чудно това да се случи в някое друго измерение, където душата ни ще продължи пътуването си към етерното съвършенство. Или поне така ме карат да се чувствам красивите истории на Танит Ли – великолепната кралица на готическото и класическото фентъзи, митпоетическата епика и вълшебната фантазия на красивите думи. Завиждам си за всеки момент, прекаран в света, който душата ми разпознава като нечий дом. Или поне идеята за обитание на частица от мен.

[Milliebot · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars?

This review and others posted over at my blog.

I don’t even know how to blurb this book because my eyes were so glazed over by the end that I had no clue what was going on. I was interested, at first, in the world building and the plot. However, the bland characters and convoluted political and religious intrigues lost me by the end.

Raldnor, the lead character, is totally unlikable. But not in the anti-hero way; he’s just an entitled prick. All the women in this book are either evil, sexual objects, or a mix of both. This was surprising coming from Tanith! I’ve encountered this often in vintage sci-fi, but usually from men. It was disappointing to find the stereotypes hold true from a female writer. There are three main love interests for Raldnor, plus a wicked queen type and they’re all basically just sex toys for the men in their lives. There’s rape early on, which seemed like it was there solely for shock-value. The main love interest for Raldnor, Astaris, is literally just beautiful. She has no personality and I’m not sure how they fell in love. In the end (minor spoiler alert!) she actually turns into a statue and there’s no difference between that and when she was alive.

Something compelled me to keep reading, but I’m not sure what. Raldnor succeeds in everything he does and has no likable traits. There’s a really long sea journey and battle and political coup that did nothing for me and I think could have been cut. There’s a weird star that comes around every so often (Zastis, or something) and it makes some of the people of the world really horny? I didn’t see the point of that either. Oh and also the “repressed” and downtrodden race were a people with light skin and bleach blonde hair (despite living in what seemed like a desert or grasslands, so I’d think they’d be tanned) and those in power were “dark skinned” with black hair. I assume Tanith was trying to switch things on their head but it didn’t feel progressive or empowering – especially because the white race takes control of the land in the end.

I kept thinking things would get better or Raldnor would develop some personality traits other than “strong, sexy man” and “chosen one.” I mean, his mother worshipped a snake goddess (who I thought was going to actually appear as a living being in the story and sadly didn’t) and killed his father with some sort of secret sex trick. I expected something cool or intriguing, but the book didn’t deliver.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book took me forever to finish. Reads like a fever dream. I never really got a connection with the main character, he never really comes across like an actual human being. Women are treated like shit by most characters, and most women are described as either crones or whores. (The whole stick of women becoming ugly when pregnant felt a bit creepy as well).
Weird, I didn't remember Tanith Lee writing characters like this.

Plot wise it is meandering seemingly without focus until the last part of the book.

Lee's Birthgrave was an early favorite of mine, but I must admit: I fear a bit that it won't stand up on a re-read. Either this is one of her lesser books, or my tastes have moved on...

[Tricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really like a lot of Tanith Lee's books but I was really disappointed in this one. It is only short but it was hard to get into. The first half was all about this man who can barely control his anger or sexual urges. Then there is a point about half way where he has a mystical moment and becomes godlike. I just wasn't buying it, even for a fantasy book.

The death of the two villainous characters was unspectacular (one being thrown from the roof and the other stabbed - neither by the hero) and the ending where he found Astaris and they rode off into the forest was just weird.

I have been told the second book is better so I am going to give it a try.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

New edition of a book written in 1976. It just didn't grab me and hold my attention.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know. I enjoyed two of Tanith Lee's books (Personal Darkness, Don't Bite the Sun) so much that I thought I'd enjoy something else she'd written from around the same time period. And this had the same flowery style, but it was just such a chore to read. Not a bad book; it had an epic story, some fairly powerful and sometimes beautiful scenes (usually where someone died), and a couple of characters I really liked (who...usually died), and I just couldn't get into it. Part of it was having to slog through TOO many characters and cities (I started losing track of which was which, and Tanith Lee's habit of starting a section without telling you who's point of view you were seeing didn't help) but the rest was (and this is probably unfair) a Conan the Barbarian rip off. Add what was almost literally a Deus Ex Machina, and I'd lost interest by the time I got to the end. This might improve with a re-read, but I don't see myself having the energy for that any time soon.

Oh, and the cover art on this edition? Nothing to do with the actual story. NOTHING. Ticks me off.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

At least at this early stage in her career, Lee comes on like Anais Nin ghosting Robert E Howard - pecs and princesses pulp fiction with its latent surrealism unfettered. She takes us through stunning descriptive set-pieces - a ship caught by a chain of erupting volcanoes, a gigantic, grave-robbed statue of a snake mother-goddess in a secret cavern - which seem more like Freudian dream-work than Tolkien-style landscape porn.

The dead-eyed amorality of her noble savages and decadents, again, amplifies the strangeness. There's little glorification of her muscular protagonists here, each sows the seeds of their own ruin. And while the rapture of the physical remains - there's a lot of sex and some troubling despite-strong-feminist-overtones consent issues which again remind me a bit of Nin - it's free from the sniggering schoolboy behind the male authorial gaze.

This is wierd fiction which defies easy qualification. And there's something in that inability to reduce either The Storm Lord to their constituent parts which makes both of them worthy of note.

[Mikel Pfeiffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have rated The Storm Lord 4 stars if the last half of the story were as good as the first half. The Storm Lord has a nice beginning on the conception and the birth of Raldnor and Amrek both sons of a King that dies before their birth (way before). While Amrek seems the heir apparent, Raldnor begins a journey and a war to get what is deservedly his. The first half spending most the time with Raldnor and his quest is quite interesting and takes some nice twists and turns. Then, Lee seems to lose herself in the tale and we're swept away from the character's story into a confusing mix of several lands and alliances. We stop caring about Raldnor because he takes a backseat to all the other machinations to get to a war that is quickly ended by a "natural" disaster. The book has a good final ending to cap the story off. Enough so that I'm intrigued enough to read the following book "Anackire". I like Lee's adult fantasy take of Sword and Sorcery but her prose has its flaws for me, I'll read more from her but tread carefully.

[StormofCuteness · Rating 2 out of 5]

My good friend highly recommended Tanith Lee and his favorite novel of hers is Anackire. However, he'd never read the 1st of the series so we decided to read this together to help us feel less isolated in quarantine.

Sadly, it brought about our first real argument in our 30-year friendship! I was/am really turned off by the many rapes and what I can only call rape porn in the 1st third of the book. He barely noticed this outdated lazy misogynist trope that I have come to despise. It felt even worse as it came from a woman. I was 10 when she wrote it, and trust me, even then knew that women as whores or crones or only useful as babymakers was bullsh*t.

And don't even get me started on the ultra weird race relations issues. *Throws hands up in despair*

The only reason for my 2nd star is that she definitely has a way with words. She uses language poetically and conjures vivid imagery. I just wish she used it to make more 3-dimensional characters.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of Lees earliest pieces I can Definitely hear her in, It has definitely made me decide to read a lot more of her stuff. The emotional wringers she throws her characters through are something else even when the physical action is very muted. Got to find the other two pieces in this cycle.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An OK set of fantasy novels. I'm just not a Tanith Lee fan. I know she is a very important writer to the history of the genre but I never could seem to get into her stories. Recommended

[Tôpher Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only the second book she wrote and though well written, it often sweeps around too many characters, there’s not a satisfying conclusion (builds to a big final battle which turns out disappointing) and, strangely enough for Tanith Lee, the females portrayed are either nasty schemers or vapid enigmatic types. There’s quite a few rapes, which in ancient civilisations is no doubt an accurate representation of how men treated women then. The women just have to put up with it and even try and make the best of it. This seems alien to us now, but in a primitive society such as represented here, to complain or be angry would result in assault or death. For modern critics to talk of ‘absence of consent’ and of the women in this novel apparently accepting or seemingly enjoying the rape shows a lack of understanding of even modern rape, let alone the power dynamics of this primitive kind where women raped had to pretend to enjoy it (even convince themselves they enjoyed it) or face death with very few or no alternatives.
This book does plant the reader in a vividly wrought world and does keep you reading even if you’re not sure why?

[Skjam! · Rating 2 out of 5]

Raldnor has long known he was different from the other children in his Southlands village. They are fair-skinned, he has dark skin. They can speak mind-to-mind to supplement their words, he appears to be mind-deaf and mute. They seem unruled by their loins, while Raldnor has entire seasons where he is consumed with sexual lust. He has made no friends here. And now that his foster mother is dead, nothing ties Raldnor to the village.

Now must Raldnor leave the home he has known, and seek his true heritage and destiny. The destiny of…the Storm Lord!

This “adult” fantasy novel is the first of the Wars of Vis series by British writer Tanith Lee (1947-2015.) After the critical and sales success of her breakout novel The Birthgrave in 1975, DAW Books was more than ready to publish this volume in 1976.

The book actually starts with Raldnor’s conception. Rehdon, Storm Lord of the Vis, is out hunting in the plains of the Southlands which his people have conquered. Rehdon has a severe case of blue balls as it is the Vis rutting season (and yes, making the dark-skinned people have “bestial” sex urges is pretty skeevy) and he hasn’t gotten laid recently due to the queen’s pregnancy. He sees the priestess Ashne’e of the local snake goddess shrine and decides to have his way with her.

Ashne’e for reasons of her own agrees, though it’s made clear that her consent isn’t required from Rehdon’s point of view. She uses her advanced mental powers to ensure that she will conceive from the act, and supposedly sexes Rehdon to death. (In reality Rehdon’s treacherous advisor Amnorh gave him a drug to weaken the heart; any major exertion would have done it.)

Now politics comes into the situation. Vis law of succession is clear that the last male child conceived is the true heir. Amnorh cannot just kill Ashne’e while she is carrying a potential heir to the throne. So he rapes her to create doubt about whose child she’s carrying (there’s a lot of rape in this book) and carries the priestess back to the capital city of Koramvis.

Val Mala, the Queen of Vis, is not well pleased by this development, as she had just wanted her husband dead for the purpose of being regent for her upcoming child. What follows is some traditional wicked queen scheming, as Val Mala sends her handmaiden Lomandra to tend to/spy on Ashne’e, only to have Lomandra bewitched by the priestess. Raldnor is born prematurely and supposedly dies shortly thereafter, as shown by the severed little finger Lomandra presents to her mistress.

In reality, Lomandra smuggles the child to safety with the help of the one likable character who has appeared so far, both of them dying to deliver the baby to not the intended destination, but a random village with them not able to tell the villagers what’s going on. Ashne’e dies as well. Thus, even if Val Mala suspected the truth, there’s no way to track down the kid.

Ignorant of his heritage, though he knows he’s of mixed blood, Raldnor grows to young manhood in the isolated town.

Reading this book, I got the distinct impression that Tanith Lee cynically aimed it for a particular audience: Young men who feel like outcasts in their own society, who don’t get laid nearly enough/at all, and are convinced that it’s not because of their personalities, but because their true greatness is hidden and they need some sort of kickoff point to show their real potential.

The skeeviness is not helped by our protagonist’s attitudes towards sex. Having consensual sex with girls from his village leaves Raldnor frustrated because it takes so much time and negotiation, and the act leaves him feeling hollow. Rape is more physically satisfying but has a bitter aftertaste of guilty conscience. He reaches a more acceptable to him compromise with paying prostitutes, and (once he’s got some temporal power) accepting the come-ons of court ladies. (One lets Raldnor know she’s carrying his child and his response is roughly “are you trying to trick me into going exclusive with you?”)

Eventually Raldnor meets his soulmate, his half-brother King Amrek’s new bride Astaris. She has a personality disorder that makes her think no one outside herself is a real person–except now Raldnor, whose mental powers are now awakening in response to her. Amrek and Raldnor don’t know about their relationship, so the king had made our protagonist a trusted captain of his guards and put Raldnor in charge of Astaris’ security detail. Oops! Cuckolding ensues and Raldnor has to have his death faked to escape.

Other content issues: The “persecution flip”, where the pale-skinned, light-haired people are oppressed by the dark-skinned, dark-haired people, brings up some uncomfortable stereotypes. Queen Val Mala goes around in whiteface because she thinks it makes her more attractive. King Amrek starts a genocide against the Southlanders. There’s blatant homophobia (the culture of “boy-lovers” practices child sacrifice and is even more misogynistic than the main Vis culture.) A thirteen year old girl is depicted as deliberately seducing a middle-aged man.

Good stuff: Tanith Lee has a gift for lush, steamy prose that gets almost hallucinatory at times. The female characters, despite their story roles, have interior lives, rare in this kind of book (even if we do get confirmation that yes, the thirteen year old really did seduce the middle-aged man deliberately.)

Plus, about three-quarters of the way in, the author pulls the rug out from under the type of story it’s been so far. Raldnor finally learns his true heritage and comes into his full awesome mental powers, leading a rebellion against the corrupt Vis overlords–and is hijacked by the snake goddess who has been orchestrating events all along for her own purposes and goals. For most of the ending, Raldnor is nothing but a puppet. It’s…a bold narrative choice.

Recommended to, um, people who’ve read everything else by Tanith Lee, just to say they’ve seen it all. She put out much better stuff.

[Alejandra Juarez Rodriguez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn’t finish this book, which makes me really sad. I loved Tanith Lee’s prose in Night’s Master, but in this book the purple prose was just too much for me.

The characters and their motivations feel bland. At the beginning of the second part (book two), almost none of the characters that first appeared continue in the story, which made me feel like a stranger in a world I was just beginning to understand.

Also, the constant rape scenes were horrifying. It almost seems like every woman that appeared had to exist for sexual purposes, which disgusts me.

[Road Worrier · Rating 2 out of 5]

The violence against women throughout the book is a bit much for me to take. The hero is a fairy tale hero who unites the masses and we have justice at last. Kind of like Dune? I guess since this is fantasy, we can have that fantasy hero, but it seems kind of simplistic and too good to be true... and what can I learn through this unlikely success about the real world? This is an unpleasant world to be in, and the path to the finish is kind of boring and complicated, and then I don't really believe it when we get there.

[Miles Isham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storm Lord was a bit fantasy and a bit long for me but the quality of Tanith’s writing pulled me through and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I still struggle with the silly names and genre cliches but the descriptive passages are often glorious. It may take me a while to summon the energy to tackle the other books in the series!

[Daniel Polansky]

I'm always fascinated by how we train ourselves to read whatever we read. Once upon a time it would have been no trouble at all to work my way through this epic tale of a prophecied god-child saving his people from destruction, but these days I struggle to with high fantasy irrespective of its merits.

[Catie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow start but the pace picked up mid-way through book three. Until that point, I didn't care about what happened to any of the characters and following the dialogue presented some challenges due to the author's style of prose.

[Macomfort · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it's got some good fantasy elements, I prefer my books with less rape, especially on the part of the the protagonist. Turning him into a psychic mind controling godling for the last third of the book didn't make things better.

[D32tr0y3r · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing Read. On of the best fantasy books ever written.

[Skjam! · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review to follow.

[Dantegideon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is so beautifully written that I was halfway through before I admitted to myself that I was not enjoying the plot at all. Unpleasant people doing unpleasant things.