And you know what, it really does.
The world of Crua remains a careful blend of scintillating wonder and outright horror in equal measure. The world continues to tilt, one end of the axis becoming increasingly untenable. The rai, the magical upper classes, continue to oppress everyone around them, both systemically, and rather more immediately with the occasional fireball or on-land-drowning. Using their magic seems to drive them increasingly into sadistic cruelty, and picking at that power balance is one of the many interesting parts of the story. Are the rai cruel because their magic slowly makes them that way? Or do they have a choice, a means to become something else? Given the horror that goes into their creation (which was explored in the first book in visceral terms), the reader can even see how they were once victims, now acting out their trauma on a wider stage, seizing the sense of power and control, and slowly losing themselves. On the other hand, they incinerate people for looking at them funny, and laugh about it, so maybe I'm overthinking it. But this is a wonderful bit of exploration of class warfare. The rai are on top, and while they're more than happy to murder each other in pursuit of power, without much interest in how many "little people" are caught in the crossfire, they're also willing to turn as one on any threat to their power. And that's before we get into the Forest that sprawls across much of the story, looming larger than its trees, full of wonders to delight the soul, and horrors which will more than happily eat it - not to be malevolent, but because they do not care. The world is filled with detail and asides and little revelations that give it a flavour and texture that are different to anything else out there, and yet also very believable.
A threat like Cahan. A threat like foresters. A threat like regular people carrying bows and arrows, and willing to use them to solve problems like "Maybe if we put an arrow into that fire guy from a hundred yards away, we don't have to listen to him any more. Cahan is the catalyst for a war that's bubbling under the surface of a broader conflict, but he's not the only one. He is, to be fair, a lynchpin. A person who feels like he needs to hold everyone together, without much of an idea of how to do it. Dragged unwillingly to the head of a march for freedom, he's a man who just wanted to be left alone, who now gets to make choices about how (and if) people get to live at all. He is, to put it mildly, not excited about that. And Barker charts his character...I want to say growth, but perhaps expansion is better, as Cahan makes some rather poor choices while thinking he doesn't have any other option. On the other hand, we get to spend a lot of time with some totally new characters (no spoilers there), and watch some old friends and/or enemies figuring themselves out. It's something Barker does well, letting each viewpoint unfold enough to give us empathy, if not sympathy, and see these people thinking through their emotions and their actions, trying to understand themselves and , if not be better, at least sometimes try to be different. There's an element of sympathy for self reflection, and then there's moments where you can be wading hip deep in the icy needle consciousness of an unrepentant killer. And you know what, it all feels like it makes sense, and I spent a lot of time being surprised, and watching characters I thought I understood take opportunities to be...different. Not always better, but different! And this sort of character stretch is done with a human rawness that makes it plausible, that makes it real.
In a world filled with trees so huge they almost dwarf the sky, where uncaring entitites of unknowable puissance lurk in the dark glades out of view, where the alien and the horribly twisted familiar are the edge of a forest away, the humanity and the cruelty and the courage and the hope pour off the page in a deeply human experience which was both incredibly tense and deeply cathartic to read.
Overall, this is Barker at his best; thoughtful, challenging fantasy that rewards a close reading, providing characters and a world that grips the heart and characters and a story which makes it sing. Go on out and pick this one up./
