Shadow-Maze

by Jonathan Wylie, Mark Smith, Julia Smith

On what should have been a day of celebration - the day marking their transition from boys to men - Varo and Brostek's lives were changed for ever. Their village was destroyed by the Knifemen of Bari, leaving them homeless, orphaned and alone.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy

330 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Jonathan Wylie is the pseudonym of Mark and Julia Smith, a married couple who live and work in Norfolk. Having met while they were both working for a major London publishing house, they sparked each other into creative life, and began writing as a team a few months after setting up home together. They have been writing full time since 1991. The pen-name they have used most recently is Julia Gray, author of Ice Mage, Fire Music, Isle of the Dead and the popular 'Guardian' Cycle.

Reviews

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

reviews.metaphorosis.com

3.5 stars

Two young men are all that remains of a village massacred by the mysterious Knifemen. They dedicate their lives to vengeance, with the help of some new-found friends.

In the mid-80s, I bought a lot of books by Jonathan Wylie. (He later changed his name to Mark & Julia Smith. No accounting for tastes.) Most of them were epic fantasy series, with the occasional alternate historical mixed in. But he/they also wrote a few standalone books. This is one of those, and it's pretty good.

SFF has moved on since the 80s, in a good way, with writers like Daniel Abraham entering the field. This story doesn't match the current level of sophistication, but don't hold that against it. It's still a nice read.

The story is largely a by-the-numbers adventure/puzzle quest, but all the parts are pretty well done. There are some discontinuities and just-accept-its in the characterization, but once established, the characters work well. They're generally interesting and likeable, and for all the "I vow revenge" nature of the story, it's remarkably light-hearted. You won't find any great surprises, but it's a well-put together narrative that maintains your interest all the way through. The ending tilts heavily toward "happy ever after" in a not very credible way, but it's done well enough that it's not a major flaw.

All in all, a good, solid adventure fantasy. It didn't win literary awards, but it's approachable, fun, and a quick, pleasant read.

[Sea Bunny Voyager · Rating 3 out of 5]

For this week's Throwback Thursday, I took a trip back to a year in my youth, January of 1994. This book was published then, only garnering one edition, and it appears, went largely unnoticed.

I found it years ago, bent up and looking unhappy, in a free book box, and since I collect books like dragons collect treasure, I took it home and promptly stashed it away and forgot. Until...last week, when I looked at it, said, "oh, look it has a wolf on the cover", and decided to open its pages for the first time in gods knows how long (poor book).

The premise is simple: two young guys get back from their Rite of Passage, find their whole village killed by a band of vampiric thugs, and set out on the road to adventure and bro-dom. Along the way they take their trusty tamed wolf, meet a chick with a magic tapestry, and are helped by a kid with a curse/disability. They're fighting for the usual things, redemption, revenge, stuff like that.

Sound vaguely interesting?

Well, that's where you'd be half-right. This book is a 90s fantasy in all it's plot-driven glory. If you like 90s fantasy, even find it slightly fun, you might get an enjoyable couple days out of this one. It lacks a more modern character-driven approach, but hey, it's from a different time. That said, it also lacks some amount of originality. It's just a fantasy world where stuff happens and, hey, adventure! There's nothing wrong with that, if that's what you want (and that is what I wanted! It was like watching an action movie!)

What this book does do really well is keep you guessing. What does that tapestry mean, where are those strange symbols from, and just how does this Link business work anyway? Does this book answer all that and more? Yes! And it does it in an interesting way.

It also has well-structured pacing. I found myself wanting to know what happened, not shying away from returning to it due to plot. The characters also seemed to stay true to (what we knew) of their selves...though sadly, aside from Magara (the chick), we get very few peeks into what is going on internally with everyone. And some of them were indeed stock, because the two main bros accumulate a (this is not a spoiler) war band to ride with them and go fight things. These guys are your typical lot: one likes to kill stuff, one is a failed wizard, one likes drink, one's a merchant, ect. I really wanted to get to know all of these guys a little better, but the pace of this story really didn't lend itself to that, and being plot-driven it would have been a hinderance in this case, I think.

So what about the end of the journey? Satisfying? Worth it? The ending wrapped everything up nicely, and explained a few things that were originally left open (that I wasn't sure the authors would get to, and was happy that they did).. There was some weirdness at the end that I guess I could sorta understand in context, and it left things open for further developments. Unfortunately, knowing this book was published in 1994, with no further developments, I guess this means one will never know! That said, I really would have liked to see the continuing development of things, both for this fantasy world and the characters. Due to all of the above, this book gets a solid 3-3.5 from me. It was an enjoyable action escape.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading the whole novel was a bit tiring, it lacked the flavor to make me read the book in a faster pace. I had a whole lot of questions that remained unanswered, and I don't know if the author has intended it to be that way or they had deliberately intended this story to be followed with a sequel or what. First, the first half of the story was littered with so much background information, which is quite good only the authors had done too much of it, more so they did it with events and people who I thought never mattered, instead of explaining the background of the villain, how he rose to power, how he came to have summon a group, etc. Second, I thought it was lame that a magical source only came from this garden in a valley, and an ancient tapestry, I mean they could have thought of something more interesting, perhaps inventing a unique system of magic, and lastly how the story ended seemed kind of disappointing, although it ended quite well. I found myself smiling and laughing because the ending was quite distasteful. Having fused the the two main protagonists into one, and my one expression was "what the...". All in all, this novel could be something more, but it isn't because it lacked the creative juice needed for a novel worthy of a place besides my favorite books.

[Ice Bear · Rating 3 out of 5]

Need to re-read to remember how good this was.