Into the Broken Lands, by Tanya Huff
2022-Sep-20, Tuesday 07:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summeryewberryInto the Broken Lands, by Tanya Huff is my first 5-star book of the year. (Small spoilers under the cut)
It's a stand-alone High Fantasy novel set in an unnamed larger world. Our heroes set out from the city of Marsanport, traveling north to the last inhabited town of Gateway, before the land stops making sense in the Broken Lands.
The Heir of Marsan, a young man named Ryan, is on an expedition following in the footsteps of his great uncle, the current Lord Protector of Marsan. Sixty-three years earlier, the Lord Protector traveled into the Broken Lands, a forbidden place that was corrupted by Mage Wars, a hundred years before that.
During the Mage Wars, six mages razed and ravished that land, pushing the bounds of all they could do, warping nature around them as they fought to destroy each other and prove their power. In the end, all of them died, and the land absorbed what was left of their power, damaged and twisted.
Now, Ryan sets out to find more fuel, before the black flame in the capital can die. He enters the Broken Lands with a group of eight. All of them will be scarred by the time they leave. Some of them won't leave at all.
It's a story of two expeditions, 63 years apart. It's also the story of one young man growing into his own hero. There's also a meditation on responsibility, truth, and abuse of power. It's a lot of things, all connected, and it all works.
Tanya Huff unveils the world-building slowly, feeding you pieces and expecting you to keep up and connect the dots. Ryan's group doesn't know the full story of what happened 60+ years ago, and no one knows what happened 100 years before that. All they can do is try to stay alive long enough to make it home.
Spoilers below.
I love all the characters, even if some annoy me, just because they all leap off the page with personality. I love the creativity in the Broken Lands; I love the crazy flora and fauna, and the weird life forms that are neither, and the nonsensical buildings, none of which obey the laws of the universe. I love the creeping horror of the various realisations as they hit you: more than one weapon survived, some mages may not be entirely dead, and the awful choice Ryan needs to make in the end. And I love that, in a way, Arianna helps two groups get through the Broken Lands, 63 years apart.
I love how Tanya Huff expects you to use your brain if you want answers (why does the tower "help" the group travel back out? The answer is in the previous expedition).
And because I know her writing I was expecting there to be deaths, but I also know she's kind to lovers and most of her explicitly queer characters survive. But what deaths there are, are treated with gravity and compassion, and none of them die needlessly or just for shock value. They all mean something.
It's dark in places - possibly her darkest book yet - but it's never depressing because there's humour and determination too. The characters keep moving, keep fighting, and it's rewarding reading that, no matter how it ends. I love spunky characters.
As soon as the dragon tooth was discovered in the first few chapters I was hooked and I couldn't put the book down. I hadn't even completed it when I knew it was going to be the best book I'd read in a long time. I love quest stories and I love absurdist humour, which is what a lot of the magic is, and all the characters were lively and fascinating.
Look, Tanya Huff's writing just works for me.
The only thing I dislike is the lack of a map, only because I love maps in books, but it really doesn't need it. Most of the action takes place in the Broken Lands, where even the land itself isn't constant.
I need to read the whole book again, I think, because there is so much in it.
It's a stand-alone High Fantasy novel set in an unnamed larger world. Our heroes set out from the city of Marsanport, traveling north to the last inhabited town of Gateway, before the land stops making sense in the Broken Lands.
The Heir of Marsan, a young man named Ryan, is on an expedition following in the footsteps of his great uncle, the current Lord Protector of Marsan. Sixty-three years earlier, the Lord Protector traveled into the Broken Lands, a forbidden place that was corrupted by Mage Wars, a hundred years before that.
During the Mage Wars, six mages razed and ravished that land, pushing the bounds of all they could do, warping nature around them as they fought to destroy each other and prove their power. In the end, all of them died, and the land absorbed what was left of their power, damaged and twisted.
Now, Ryan sets out to find more fuel, before the black flame in the capital can die. He enters the Broken Lands with a group of eight. All of them will be scarred by the time they leave. Some of them won't leave at all.
It's a story of two expeditions, 63 years apart. It's also the story of one young man growing into his own hero. There's also a meditation on responsibility, truth, and abuse of power. It's a lot of things, all connected, and it all works.
Tanya Huff unveils the world-building slowly, feeding you pieces and expecting you to keep up and connect the dots. Ryan's group doesn't know the full story of what happened 60+ years ago, and no one knows what happened 100 years before that. All they can do is try to stay alive long enough to make it home.
Spoilers below.
I love all the characters, even if some annoy me, just because they all leap off the page with personality. I love the creativity in the Broken Lands; I love the crazy flora and fauna, and the weird life forms that are neither, and the nonsensical buildings, none of which obey the laws of the universe. I love the creeping horror of the various realisations as they hit you: more than one weapon survived, some mages may not be entirely dead, and the awful choice Ryan needs to make in the end. And I love that, in a way, Arianna helps two groups get through the Broken Lands, 63 years apart.
I love how Tanya Huff expects you to use your brain if you want answers (why does the tower "help" the group travel back out? The answer is in the previous expedition).
And because I know her writing I was expecting there to be deaths, but I also know she's kind to lovers and most of her explicitly queer characters survive. But what deaths there are, are treated with gravity and compassion, and none of them die needlessly or just for shock value. They all mean something.
It's dark in places - possibly her darkest book yet - but it's never depressing because there's humour and determination too. The characters keep moving, keep fighting, and it's rewarding reading that, no matter how it ends. I love spunky characters.
As soon as the dragon tooth was discovered in the first few chapters I was hooked and I couldn't put the book down. I hadn't even completed it when I knew it was going to be the best book I'd read in a long time. I love quest stories and I love absurdist humour, which is what a lot of the magic is, and all the characters were lively and fascinating.
Look, Tanya Huff's writing just works for me.
The only thing I dislike is the lack of a map, only because I love maps in books, but it really doesn't need it. Most of the action takes place in the Broken Lands, where even the land itself isn't constant.
I need to read the whole book again, I think, because there is so much in it.
