Lotus Reads Wit’ch Fire (1998)

Wit’ch Fire, by James Clemens, is the first in a series of fantasy novels set in a world in which the good people of the world have been conquered by a demonic hegemony. When a village girl awakens to an intense power she does not understand, she must go on the run to avoid the sickly hunters set on her trail. It’s set in a rich, vibrant world, features fantasy races with well-considered social structures, features of large cast of interesting characters, and treats its protagonist with empathy and sensitivity. The writing style is sometimes awkward, however, and there are way too many apostrophes where they don’t belong.

---

This is a book I enjoy despite its shortcomings. The narrative perspective drifts freely from objective third person, to the inner dialogue of characters, to the use of exclamation points when the author himself is excited to reveal the next action-packed moment. It doesn’t feel well considered, and if I’m completely honest, it sometimes feels like reading a story written by a kid. Clemens seems pretty excited to be writing the story, and his excitement can’t help but bleed into each page. I think the egregious use of apostrophes may also stem from this same excitement; every word has an apostrophe, even common fantasy words like elf and dwarf. I confess I find the constant punctuation an irritant, and if I could read a version of this book with them all edited out, I would.

The strength of the book lies in its character investment and its world building. The plot of the story follows several characters, who are all very different from each other, as their paths become entwined around Elena, a village girl suddenly endowed with magical powers shortly after she began puberty. The story follows a straight, simple path as characters are introduced, a calamity sets Elena’s desperate flight into motion, and they all end up joining ranks around her for their own reasons. Each of these characters has their own interesting hardships, including Elena, and as a reader I became invested in each of them. Clemens reveals them to the reader through their thoughts, actions, and reactions, allowing the reader to build empathy for them organically. I dislike shallow lists of bullet points offered as character traits, and that is not the case in this book.

This book features a number of existing fantasy races, but Clemens puts an effective spin on each one without ever feeling gimmicky. The mountain giants have a culture rooted in honesty, loyalty, and gifts for discerning deception, while the brutal and rock-like ogres have are constantly at war with each other, but have well-defined social rituals and taboos when it comes to inter-tribal politics, death, exile, and their ruling elders. There are also endangered dryads, misunderstood shape-changing silurians, arrogant but long-lost elves, and other familiar races, none of which are simply copy-pasted pop culture. This is solid world building built on familiar ideas.

Another strong point for this book is the putrid and sickening feel of the antagonists. Though they have a silly name (the Gul’gotha), and at first they feel a little over-the-top and mustache-twirling as villains, they become truly frightening. Infection, corruption, plague, parasites, torture, and violation are at the core of these dark forces. Clemens does a great job describing them, and their practices, as invasive and vomitous without falling into the common pitfalls of writing about “black magic.” Some authors emphasize “evil-ness” through increasingly unlikely volumes of bodily fluids, body counts, or loading monsters up on as many legs, pincers, and poison stingers as possible. Clemens manages to write about the instruments of the Gul’gotha with clarity and empathy, even while their every orifice teems with parasites, or they force open their own rib cage, or other horrible things. It’s stunning, and terrifying, and never feels “edge lord-y” or “grimdark.” Solid evil demonic stuff.

There is a lot to like about this book, and there are some things that could be improved. As it is, I would still recommend it as a great fantasy adventure-pulp story.