Soooo, let’s do this. I bought the entire trilogy a couple of years ago at the Elf Fantasy Fair. A friend of mine had read the entire trilogy and found it enjoyable. At the fair, I was presented with the last batch of the trilogy, so I figured “why the hell not?” I had nothing to lose and the purchase wouldn’t cost me too much. Let’s go out on a limb and give this a shot. I had contemplated getting the series before, but the local bookshop never had part one. So, there’s no day like today and let’s just take this thing with me.
“Profeet van de Duivel” is the debut novel of Dutch fantasy writer Adrian Stone. Debut novels are interesting things, especially when reading ones by authors whose later novels become very popular. They often show promise, but are nevertheless deeply flawed. Look at Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. I really like that one, but the first novel in the series pales in comparison to Pratchett’s more mature works. I dare say it’s not even that good. That in itself makes sense; you do not become a great writer overnight. It takes practice and above all you have to try and establish your own voice.
Stone is obviously at this point. His earliest work shows promise, but it is deeply, deeply flawed. The concept in itself is interesting enough, there are no gaping plot holes and I am a sucker for religious conflict in general. The real issues I have all have to do with the structure of this novel.
One of the major, major flaws of this novel is quite simply “too much exposition.” Stone hasn’t quite grasped the concept of ‘show, don’t tell’ yet. Characters give their full biography upon being introduced, including their motivations. Armana is quite literally introduced like this: “This is my daughter. She recently became a priest and is an extremely good healer.” Now that passage, my friends, is cringe worthy; that’s not how real life works. I don’t introduce my friends by stating their full name, occupation, special talents and hobbies. That just doesn’t work. The same goes for other stuff: you really don’t have to tell me the juice of the tree induces trance-like states if the next passage is literally about said stage. It’s a waste of ink. Stop assuming I’m an idiot and just show me, I’ll come to the right conclusion without you taking me by the hand.
The absolute worst example of this, and I am actually a bit pissed about this one, is the statement that a character is a traitor a mere 10 pages after the character is introduced. What the hell? Way to kill the shock-effect. Wouldn’t it be much more effective to receive the knowledge that traitormctraitorpants is a traitor after he’s done the betraying? The effect is that I’m obviously not going to care about this character. It’s not even a spoiler, because the surprise is spoiled by the character himself 10.pages.after.being.introduced.
The second major flaw, in my opinion, is the fact that this novel is basically a long sequence of action scenes. This novel, I kid you not, misses at least a 100 pages of establishing relationships between characters and character building. How am I supposed to care for a character if I barely get any time to get to know them? Seriously, Marak gets his second chance at the temple of Ava. Okay, good, show me his life there. Did he have a hard time letting go of everything he has been taught to believe up until that point? Did he make friends? How did he make friends? What does he do on a regular day? Are people giving him a hard time because he’s a former member of a forbidden cult? Obviously they do, but please, show me. Instead, Marak arrives at the temple and after that we jump about three years ahead in time to the day Marak is banished from the temple. If Ava is supposed to be his saviour, will you at least show me how?
But okay, good, Marak flees to the priestess who saved him all those years ago and becomes a part of her family. But then we skip ahead to the day the priestess is killed and he has to flee again. What the hell? I want to care about these characters, but please, give me a chance to do so. I want to know the family dynamics of Marak’s adopted family. He mentions that he has fallen in love with Armana, but that gets mentioned once and then that entire subplot is abandoned. Why tell me if you’re not going to do anything with it? What is Marak’s relationship with Armana anyway? Does she know he has the hots for her? Do they barely tolerate each other or are they friends?
Speaking of a lack of character building, it shows most painfully in the subplot on Armana’s ‘love’ for traitormctraitorpants. They barely spend any time together, but as soon as count Sexy and Marak are stuck on the island, they decide to have sex. Armana says that she barely tolerates him, but why did you decide to bed him in the first place then? It would’ve taken 10 pages at most to tackle their relationship and give them a better reason for hooking up than “he doesn’t treat me differently just because I’m powerful.” They have no chemistry; I don’t even understand why she decided this would be a good idea. I’m hoping she’ll turn out to be preggers, that sounds like fun. Anyway, this subplot didn’t work because a: we get no insight in how the two of them got together and what drove either of them and b: This would have worked a lot better if we hadn’t known in advance that traitormctraitorpants was a traitor. Imagine the shock value when we find out. I mean, Armana is shocked when she finds out, but I can’t bring myself to care because we knew this was going to happen all along. It’s like this big barrier stopping me from getting emotionally attached to a character.
So yeah, that’s the major flaws for you. It’s not all bad, the novel is an entertaining read in itself. I’m interested to see how Stone will develop as a writer, there is potential and I’m curious to see how it will develop itself.