Review – The Godspeaker Trilogy

The Godspeaker Trilogy by Karen Miller consists of Empress, The Riven Kingdom, and The Hammer of God. I originally picked up these books because I was so in love with the cover art. I mean, they’re gorgeous. I bought these even though I’d read some not so amazing reviews of Karen Miller’s work online, just because they were so damn cool looking.

So now for a brief synopsis of the trilogy (Did I say brief? Ha. There are three huge books after all.): Empress is set in the land of Mijak, a horrible blood-soaked place where the deity is one of death and punishment, and every citizen, no exceptions, lives to worship the god, to do its bidding. Nobody is educated beyond the godspeakers (priests) and the occasional merchant. It’s a brutal existence, but it’s all the Mijaki know. Miller makes it very clear in this first book that this is not a nice place to be. Despite that, she introduces us to characters that we are supposed to care about, and let me tell you, it’s not easy. There are a few people that shine through as being a little less evil than others, people that you can’t help but like just a little, but for the most part everybody you meet in this first book is just downright horrible. Primitive to the core, evidenced in both their lifestyle and speech (which annoyed me at first, but you get used to their brusque way of speaking), these people are very single minded and have just one goal: make Mijak the world. This basically means expansion by force, lots of killing and enslavement. And they’re not nice like the Romans were, assimilating other cultures into their own, oh no. The Mijaki will kill you if you resist, and if you go quietly, you’ll become a slave, usually for killing later. As I said, this is not a nice place.

The main character of Empress is Hekat. The book begins with her as a young child, headstrong and proud and the youngest of a big family. Her father, deciding she’d be much more useful if he sold her and got some money out of her, gives her to a traveling group of slave merchants who happen to ride through town. While on this slave train to the city, Hekat is pampered and treated like a treasured object. Seeing this treatment as deserved, her pride grows. She even falls for her new owner, thinking that he was treating her so preciously because he felt the same for her and would continue to take care of her forever. Little does she know, she’s destined for the life of a high-end sex slave. And in Mijak, once you’re a slave, you’re stuck. Slaves are given a “slave braid,” a lock of red hair that never goes away, no matter how many times you shave your head and re-grow your hair – the godspeakers and their dark powers have a hand in this. Well, Hekat certainly doesn’t want to be a slave forever, especially when she sees that her “love” doesn’t feel for her anything like what she feels for him, only treating her kindly because he sees the value of her as a pampered sex toy for the wealthy. She runs away the night before she’s to receive her slave braid, finding her way to the warlord’s palace grounds. She impresses the warlord and those under his command with her “dancing” (how they refer to fighting with knives, or “snakeblades”, the only form of combat in Mijak) and works her way up the ranks, entrancing the warlord himself and eventually entering the ruling house of Mijak.

All this is done with a “the god wants me to do this” attitude from Hekat, who believes she is god touched, a favorite. After fashioning herself as Empress, she basically takes over the ruling of Mijak, and nobody fights her. And if they do, they die horrible deaths by “the god’s hand” which only seem to support Hekat’s claims of being chosen by the god. And her people love her, really love her. She really is the perfect representation of Mijak.

Though this book was entirely about Hekat and her family, you do learn so much about the Mijak way of life, which I personally was horrified by. The writing wasn’t the greatest in this first book either, but you soon learn that this is simply Karen Miller’s way of showing the primitive nature of the Mijaki, and it does work. But it’s a heavy book to wade through, especially when none of the characters are all that likable and the dialogue is so rough. But if you can make it through – you get the wonderful prize of getting to read the second and third books.

I won’t get into these last two books in too much detail, because they’re slightly more formulaic than the first and so don’t need as much explanation. In the second book, The Riven Kingdom, we are introduced to an entirely new kingdom, the island kingdom of Ethrea. Life in Ethrea is a wonderful breath of fresh air after wading through the stale blood of Mijak. The language is more elegant, more like modern English that’s much nicer to read than the rough primitive Mijaki dialogue; the characters are lovely, funny, and generally good at heart; and the land itself is lush and green, beautiful after the hot, dry deserts of Mijak. Think a more cultured olde-time England in comparison to a primitive brutal tribe from somewhere similar to the Middle East or the wilds of Africa.

The king of Ethrea is on his deathbed and with his two sons recently dead from a plaque caught while traveling overseas, the kingdom is a little uneasy about their future. The only remaining royal family member is Princess Rhian, known for her elegance and beauty. Rhian’s more than a pretty face however, having been raised by a father who taught her statesmanship and strategy while bouncing her on his knee. With her excellent political brain, Rhian sees no reason why she can’t be the next ruler of Ethrea. Of course, most disagree. A woman ruler? That’s just crazy talk. And so, disposed by a horrid head priest, Marlan, and several council members who agree with him, Rhian gets the choice of marrying a shriveling lackey of Marlan and thus become a puppet queen, or flee. She of course runs, and is joined by the royal toymaker, Dexterity Jones, who has been having visits from his long-dead wife-turned-spokeswoman-for-God who tells him he needs to help Rhian, even giving him miraculous powers that pop up now and again when he needs to make a point. They’re also joined by Hekat’s son, Zandakar, banished from Mijak in a horrid scene at the end of Empress. Of course, nobody knows this strange man is really the son of this horrible Mijaki ruler. (That drama gets played out later.) Their ragtag group is completed with a brusque and blunt physick named Ursa, and Rhian’s chaplain (also Marlan’s cowed nephew), Helfred, who says it is his duty to protect her.

They must travel across Ethrea to reach Rhian’s love, Alasdair, son of the duke of Linfoi, and persuade him to marry her. One of the complaints about Rhian ruling was the fact the she was unmarried. Hoping to appease these dissenters, she thinks, hopes, that Alasdair will let her rule alone, not stealing the power of a king’s crown out from under her.

This second book is all about this group and their travels, trying to get Rhian on the throne. It’s not until the very end of this book that we learn that there is a horrible threat on the horizon. Mijak (remember them?), expanding their borders ruthlessly, have decided they need to give Ethrea to their god. This, of course, would mean the death and enslavement of every living Ethrean. Not good news, really.

In the third book, Hammer of God, we read about the days leading up to Ethrea’s seemingly hopeless battle with Mijak. Ethrea, a peaceful country where swords haven’t been used for anything more than show fighting for several centuries, pitted against Mijak, full of warriors bred and trained from birth to ravage and kill. Ethrea rests their hope with the trading nations they’re allied with, and they’re all extremely reluctant, mostly because nobody believes this horrible nation is really coming, convinced it’s a trick contrived between Ethrea and the only other empire warning of the Mijaki threat, the nation of Tzhung-tzhungchai, much hated by all (and clearly inspired by Asian cultures). The other trading nations are convince that if Ethrea and Tzhung-tzhungchai are allowed to create an army and an armada to fight this “Mijak” that they will instead turn their armies on their lands. Hammer of God is basically 800 pages of Ethrea trying to convince everybody that this threat is in fact real and quite horrible, pleading for help, and all the while trying to prepare for the inevitable battle with Mijak.

Having finished the whole trilogy, I now appreciate the first book much more. You begin the trilogy seeped in this horrid Mijaki culture, and you need that in-depth knowledge to truly appreciate the threat against the much more likable Ethrea. It’s not just some vague “bad thing” coming to destroy the “good thing.” You really know what’s in store for the Ethreans, and it makes it pretty horrifying as you read the pathetic attempts made by the people of Ethrea to stave off what you know to be inevitable. Sure you hope it will work out for the best, but when you compare the two nations, you know damn well who would kick whose ass in a fight.

Karen Miller definitely wrote an epic with this trilogy, and it’s a great read. As I said, if you can wade through the first book, it certainly pays off. And if you can make it through this entire trilogy, you have a new appreciation for Karen Miller’s raw talent. I’m currently reading another set by her, and I think if I didn’t know how good her writing can really be, I might have given up on the book I’m reading. She’s got a way of introducing you to her worlds and stories that makes you wonder a little when the real meat of the story is going to begin, if ever. She certainly expects her readers to hang in there for the long haul (much as I do apparently, with these insanely long reviews I write sometimes). I would definitely recommend giving these books a go, especially if you’re a fan of the fantasy genre. And hey, if you don’t like them, at least they’re look great on your shelves.