Tazmand – a review
As is usually the way of it for me, I can’t claim any significant objectivity in writing this review – I know and like the author. This is also a book with a Tom Brown cover.
Tazmand is a YA fantasy novel, and book one of a series. I have every intention of reading the whole thing. YA isn’t an area of fiction I’m widely read in, although fantasy certainly is. To my delight, I found the world of the novel entirely unfamiliar, with more technology than you tend to find in fantasy, and no tedious explanations of history, or how magic works or anything of that ilk. We’re thrown into a number of related situations and left as readers to figure things out as we go along.
This is predominantly a story about some young humans figuring out that they need to make some radical changes in their lives and then working together to make that happen. There is magic, conflict, drama, and considerable peril. The young humans face what felt to me like mild peril (it’s a series, it seemed unlikely that any main character would die in the first book). However, what’s going on in the background is violent and hideous – it’s told in a way that I think would be fine for most teens but I’d be careful with anyone under twelve, I think. It’s not detailed, but there are people in the habit of burning other people to death, in cages, for public edification.
What I liked most about this book is how it handles the issue of empire. The plot of this book is very much driven by the actions of an aggressive empire. We see that from the perspective of their victims and it is clear in the story that violence, conquest and colonialism are horrible, and inexcusable. The way in which empire-makers lie as they go, to justify what they do is dealt with really explicitly.
At the same time, the empire itself is ludicrous and dysfunctional. I wouldn’t be the first person to compare the set-up to Gormenghast, with the vast, preposterous palace at the centre of the story. The library featured on the book cover carries this part of the world and story. It’s a vast, mouldering, gothic library where the books stolen from colonised peoples are kept. Most of the activity involves shelving and unshelving, with books being hefted about by illiterate children who are at constant risk of being injured by falling bits of the library building. It stands as a powerful metaphor for all stolen wealth and culture, and is a neat way of expressing what empires do to themselves and those around them.
I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
