Tough Traveling: Immortals

The Thursday feature "Tough Traveling" is the brainchild of Nathan of Review Barn, who has come up with the excellent idea of making a new list each week based on the most common tropes in fantasy, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones. Nathan has invited anyone who is interested to come play along, so be sure to check out the first link for more information. Compulsive list-maker that I am, I'm very excited to take part!

This week's tour topic is: Immortals

IMMORTALS are fairly common in Fantasyland. There are three kinds:
1. GODDESSES AND GODS, who exist forever unless people stop believing in them.
2. ELVES or DARK LORDS, who live forever unless someone kills them.
3. Humans who are
a) Cursed and have to spend Eternity drearily Questing and/or hating everything.
b) MAGIC USERS. These generally find plenty of occupy the long years and mostly have a rather good time.

It's feast or famine with these Tough Traveling weeks! We could probably go on forever with books featuring immortals, but to keep this post to a reasonable length and because time is limited, I thought I might be cool if I split up my list using the categories outlined above and feature just a couple books (hopefully one obvious choice, and one not-so-obvious choice) for each.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The following two entries are specifically for "Gods who exist forever unless people stop believing in them." Well, that's pretty much the central premise of this book, the idea that gods and other mythological creatures exist due to the sheer force of spiritual belief or mental discipline. From Odin to leprechauns, immortality was achieved when immigrants to the US brought with them their beliefs, though as that belief began to wane thanks to obsession with technology and new fads so did the power of the mythological beings. (Review)

Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell
The minor god Olgun doesn't actually have a physical body, but he definitely still counts in this category (and I also love these books so much, I never miss an opportunity to talk about them). Instead, he hitches a ride in the protagonist Widdershins' head because she is his last worshiper. They need each other, as Olgun can augment many of Widdershins' abilities and help her get out of tough jams, and Widdershins being his last believer is also the only reason Olgun still has a presence in this world. (Review)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The obvious choice and most well-known example for immortal ELVES, it would be remiss if I didn't include them. Exactly as the examples states, Tolkien's elves in world of Middle-earth are immune to disease and do not experience physical aging, though they can still be killed by violence or by wasting away when they lose their will to live. Otherwise, they're essentially immortal.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
My entry for immortal DARK LORD is the Darkling from Bardugo's Grisha trilogy. At first, all we know of the Darkling is that he is the charming, handsome and mysterious leader of the Grisha, but then he is eventually revealed as main antagonist. Turns out all the Darklings who held leadership in the past were all one and the same man - he is an ancient powerful force that has existed since the beginning. (Review)

The Scroll of Years by Chris Willrich
Hmm, cursed humans. Well, Imago Bone isn't exactly what I'd call "dreary". In fact, as a thief and scoundrel, he lives a pretty merry and exciting existence adventuring with his lover Persimmon Gaunt. But he has been touched in some way with immortality. I don't know how precisely, since I've never read the short stories, but the book's description states "A thief in his ninth decade who is double-cursed", Imago has not aged in nearly seventy years. Cursed? Check. Immortal? Sounds like it to me. Questing? Always. (Review)

Hounded by Kevin Hearne
Here's my example for a human MAGIC USER who finds plenty to occupy their long years and mostly have a good time. Uh yeah, that pretty much describes Atticus O'Sullivan to a T. The guy definitely knows how to have fun, and at the moment this two-thousand year old druid's idea of fun is setting up shop in Tempe, Arizona with his talking dog, selling herbal tea to college students and New Age types. Plus, he gets his kicks looking and acting like a frat boy. (Review)

Book Review: Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell

Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Series: Book 1 of Widdershins Adventures

Publisher: Pyr

Date of Publication: February 21, 2012

Author Information: Website | Twitter


Our protagonist in Thief's Covenant is a young woman who wears many masks and goes by many different names. Once she was Adrienne Satti, an orphan taken off the streets to be raised as an aristocrat's ward, but soon after was forced to shed her old life to escape arrest for a savage crime she didn't commit. Now, she is known simply as the thief Widdershins.

And really, how could I not be drawn to a book starring a character with a name like Widdershins? Along with its impishly clever cover (I kept thinking I was holding the book upside down), it made me believe I was going to be settling back to a cute young adult novel, but to my delight it ended up being something so much more than that. It's true Thief's Covenant could be light and funny at times, but at others it was also quite dark, grim and heavy.

For instance, the book opens with a scene following a bloody and brutal massacre on page one, which instantly dispelled any sort of preconceived notions on my part. But this I considered to be a point in the book's favor, along with the fact that it doesn't seem to fall prey to typical Young Adult genre conventions (I for one thought the decision to forgo a romantic arc was brave but ultimately wise).

As such, I really think a wider audience can enjoy this without being worried about it feeling "too YA". Actually, I couldn't help but make comparisons to Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, not only for the obvious similarities like the subject of the orphaned thief and the past-present format of the novel, but because Thief's Covenant also contains the kind of unexpected plot twists and gut-wrenching story developments that are so characteristic of the Gentleman Bastard books.

Being such a slim volume, I was also pleasantly surprised at the richness of the setting and how layered the story was. The book takes place in a world where every person from the wealthiest noble to the grimiest street urchin worships one of the dozens of gods approved by the Hallowed Pact. Widdershins, however, is a follower of the almost-forgotten minor deity Olgun, but their worshipper-worshipped relationship is one that is unlike any other. Olgun is in fact a major presence in Widdershins' life, or more accurately, a rather major one in her head. Like I said, there's plenty of fun and cheeriness in this book too, and the playful banter between the two of them is a very good example of the humor you will find to break up the tension.

I only wish the story had been better paced; part of this is due to the aforementioned time jumps which occur quite frequently, with flashbacks to an earlier part of Widdershins' life almost every other chapter. On the one hand this was a very good way to give us better insight into her character and personality, and I find I really enjoyed her back story. On the other hand, it made the plot feel disjointed and gave the book a slow start, and because of this I couldn't get into it right away.

And yet, one thing I did notice was the carefully planned and measured way the chapters were laid out, done with such a subtle elegance that the events told in the flashback chapters would always relate to what was happening to Widdershins in the present. In this way, all the questions you'll have about her character and her history will eventually be answered. The steady doling out of details admittedly made this book a little tough to get through for the first half, but the rewarding second half made picking this book up well worth it in the end.

 3.5 of 5 stars

"A richly told story with a measured start, ultimately 

leading to unexpectedly good fun"

A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.