What I’m Reading: Tower and Grave

In book four, forces continue to line up against the Sorcerers’ Guild that is the true power ruling Ilbrea, privileging the six wealthy guilds over the oppressed mass of poor in Ilara and brooking no opposition to their rule. But the rebellion against the sorcerers, secretly led by the Lord Sailor, head of the Sailors’s Guild, grows daily, with increasingly brazen attacks against the sorcerers and other guilds. From the north, Ronya, the ice queen of the frozen city of Isfol, is thought to be on the march with her horde of unfrozen mythical beasts. And in the east, the Brien clan, who practice a type of wild magic anathema to the sorcerers, may be shifting from passive loathing of the sorcerers to actively planning to attack.

But while in the previous books, the sorcerers have been made out to be little more than paranoid villains, intent on maintaining their hegemony and the unequality in Ilbrea against all costs, and out of presumably little more than love of power and privilege, in this book we get a bit of a different angle. Lovers Mara and Tham have sneaked back into Ilara early in the book and approach the Sorcerers’ Tower, carrying the news that Ronya is preparing to attack Ilara from the north. They’ve decided that since Ronya is a magic wielder, it makes sense to take the information to the Sorcerers’ Guild, rather than the Soldiers’ or Sailors’ Guild. Along with Elver, who was driven insane from torture by Ronya, and the sled dog Elle, Mara and Tham are the only survivors from the ill-fated expedition to the north that began in the first book.

Mara, Tham, Elver, and Elle are admitted to the Sorcerers’ Tower, something rarely granted previously to those without magical powers. There, Lady Gwell, head of the Sorcerers’ Guild, repeatedly meets them to learn all they know of Ronya and the threat from the north so she can better defend Ilbrea. But when not undergrowing debriefings, the four survivors are given a luxurious suite in the tower and meet three sorcerers whose role is something between prison guards and companions. Over time, the four develop a friendship with the three sorcerers, who are kinder and friendlier than they had expected. Mara and Tham also eventually discover a secret that may provide some justification for the way the Sorcerers’ Guild operates.

While Mara’s and Tham’s plot arcs seemed the most central to me in this volume, there are four other Karron siblings whose stories we continue to follow. In the past books, I found the story of the mapmaker NIko, who was captured and tortured by the Brien, but turned by them into a faux-hero due to his resemblance to their legendary warrior Solcha, to be a bit boring. The problem was that Niko simply struck me as flat and uncharismatic. He was a drunkard who mostly sat around feeling sorry for himself while stumbling from one appearance to the embattled Brien warriors to the next, while pining away for Allora back in Ilara, whom he knew he’d never see again.

This time, though, Niko’s story was far more interesting, and perhaps my favorite in Tower and Grave. For one thing, Niko and his own prison guard-companion, Danu, the beautiful niece of Brien clan head Briana, with whom he has gradually fallen in love. This is a welcome change from his previous pining for Allora. What’s more, the warrior Danu has begun training Niko in warlike arts, while her presence inspires him to moderate his drinking. Throughout their appearances in the book, they gradually come to acknowledge their attraction to each other, inching toward outright acceptance, even as they have to sneak around to make out without attracting attention. Niko himself comes alive in a way he hasn’t for me in previous volumes, and the details of his gradual growing closer with Danu were nuanced and fun.

The scribe Adrial also continues to interest me. In book three, Ilbrean city authorities discovered that his pregnant wife, the mad inker Ena, did not carry his child. (Adrial already knew that and didn’t care, but Ilbrea has strict laws against such things.) To prevent Adrial from suffering a terrible, life-threatening punishment by whipping for impregnating her before marriage, Ena had admitted it wasn’t his child and been sentenced to exile on the horrible island Ian Ayres where women like her and their children are sent. At the start of the voyage, she had leaped from the ship into the ocean, presumed drowned. Upon learning the news, Adrial entered a crushing depression, which is the state he’s in as Tower and Grave opens. Only with the help and chiding of his apprentice, Taddy, does he put aside his grief and resume his responsibilities as second-in-charge of the Scribes’ Guild. Only he learns from a strange encounter in a square in Ilara that Ena may not be dead.

Which the reader already knew, for the very pregnant Ena has turned up in the Eastern Mountains, meeting Niko and revealing to him that his beloved Allora has remarried the king of Ilbrea, which is what shocks/frees Niko to pursue his interest in Danu, which I’ve already discussed. As you can see, we are reaching the point where the multiple story arcs are intersecting and winding in complicated ways difficult to summarize easily!

As for the remaining two Karrons, Allora is still wed to King Brannon, though she refuses his advances since he ordered Ena to be exiled. While I like Allora as a character–she’s an interesting mix of imperious and caring, mannerly and passionate–she’s unfortunately given a passive role in this book, as in the last one. Her job in the plot is basically to mope about, regretting the deaths of Niko and Ena and acting surly toward the king.

While the story arc given the final Karron sibling, Kai, is more active, it also didn’t interest me as much. Kai has joined the underground rebellion against the sorcerers, but he and the man he’s besotted with, Drew, have been injured at the beginning of the book and spend much of the first half finding ways to avoid telling their true feelings to each other. In the second half, mostly healed and now openly in a romantic relationship, Kai and Drew have more to do, but I still find theirs’ the least compelling of the plot lines.

One trend of the series that continues in Tower and Grave is the increasing frankness of love scenes. While the first book was coy about whether the characters might be having sex together or just making out, that is certainly no longer in doubt. Each succeeding volume has ramped up the explicitness, so we’re now getting far more than hints, even verging now into unvarnished, if brief, descriptions of foreplay. This is probably all fine for readers in their mid-to-late teens, but I would hesitate to put this book in the hands of a middle schooler, the way I might with the first two books in the series.

Another trend I noted in the third book and that continues here is the decreased prevalence of epic, awe-inspiring settings. The first two books had spectacular descriptions of ice cities, magical underground waterfalls, and gorgeous fantasy cities. Tower and Grave did have some interesting descriptions of the interior of the Sorcerers’ tower, but didn’t spend too much time on them. Much of the rest of the book was in dreary castles and keeps that we’ve seen previously. I miss that aspect of the first two books.

All in all, my judgment of Tower and Grave is about the same as with the third book in the series–I wasn’t as compelled by the decreased emphasis on worldbuilding in favor of the somewhat soap opera-like plot surprises and character revelations. I expect some readers will actually prefer the style of writing this series has evolved into. Nevertheless, I am still enjoying the series overall, and am eager to find out what happens to my the characters–especially my favorites Adrial, Allora, and Mara. I will certainly continue reading with the fifth and final volume in a month or three.