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The three of them set out on a trek through the Wilds, studying the landscape and narrowly avoiding the clutches of the Winnowry agent sent to recapture Noon. Meanwhile, in Ebora, Tormalin's sister, Hestillion, senses an ancient presence within the corpse of Ygseril, and hatches a plot to revive the long-dead root-mother no matter the cost...
I have some thoughts on this book I just needed to express/write down. Fair warning, there will be spoilers ahead, and also some vague spoilers for another fantasy series which I'm going to use to draw parallels to this one - namely Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings. For thousands and thousands of years the world known as Sarn was plagued with alien invaders, monstrous Jure’lia, worm people. Other two main characters: Eboran (around 400 years) and fell-witch prisoner of the Winnowry (20+) are compelling characters too, but I don’t want to give away too much. Uncovering this wonderful rich world and getting to know these characters - is part of the fun. One-Winged Angel: After being destroyed by Noon and Vostok in The Poison Song, the queen of the Jure'lia reforms herself from the bodies of her subjects, and keeps going - absorbing more and more of them into her until she becomes a full-blown Eldritch Abomination and marches towards Ebora, swearing revenge for the destruction of her eggs.The Jure’lia were defeated, but through the ages all knowledge of what exactly happened was lost. What is known is that the Jure’lia all died at once, their giant ships plummeted from the sky and crashed all over Sarn. As you may have gathered by now, The Ninth Rain is Jen Williams doing what she does best: traditional tropes with a twist. Like many aspects of her Copper Cat trilogy, the tropes in The Ninth Rain are recognisable, yet strange. For example: when Williams introduces the Eborans – an unnaturally beautiful, long-lived race who keep themselves separate from mere mortals – readers might roll their eyes and mutter ‘elves’. In a dark spin on the traditional, Williams takes the Tolkien-esque elves (and other wonders) and filters them through her own unique imagination. She then takes what’s left in the filter – the grit, the dirt, the uncomfortable, the bitter and the hard-to-chew – and mixes it with all kinds of unlikely ingredients with the experimental skill and competence of a chemist. Ninth Rain is one of the most unique books I've read. It's like a combination of science fiction and fantasy; I love the execution; the author made these aspects blend seamlessly. Also: I liked this book a little. Just so you know. And I'm a little excited about it. Just so you know.
En cuanto al argumento, no vamos a negar que es el típico que podemos encontrar en libros de fantasía, pero como he dicho antes tiene un algo que me ha parecido original e interesante sumado a la prosa de la autora que no se te hace denso, ni repetitivo. During a time of peace and safety (uncertain though its continuation may be), 40-something naturalist/explorer Lady Vincenza “Vintage” de Grazon has ditched her family’s grape-growing estate to travel the world, studying the artefacts left by the Jure’lia with her assistant/bodyguard, Tormalin, a hundreds-year-old (but ridiculously young and handsome) Eboran, and his trusty sword, the Ninth Rain.While a huge victory for humans and Eborans, the fallout from the battle was disastrous. Wherever the ships of the Jure’lia violently met their end, some device or other machination of the defeated force caused a sort of infection or disease that corrupted the very place these vessels found their final resting place in. This ever-spreading corruption not only tainted vegetation, but also animals, resulting in monstrous abominations. The direst consequence however, of the defeat of the Jurelian Queen and her people, was the death of Ygseril in the final battle. The tree god had delivered his final Rain and so begun the end of the Eborans. For while the humans believed Eborans to be immortal, their everlasting youth and health was derived from drinking the sap of Ygseril which they were now denied of. Eborans started slowly wasting away, until discovering that human blood was a suitable, if not nearly as potent replacement for the sap they so needed. What followed became known as the Carrion Wars, which at the height of it saw Eborans slaughter humans and drinking blood from their still warm corpses in the middle of the battlefields. Before things could get even worse though, what the Eborans believed to be their saving grace, became their eternal curse. A terrible, incurable disease, born of the drinking of human blood, befell these Eborans. They started dying slow and agonizing deaths and before long the Eboran population was decimated, with only a few Eborans escaping this fate. Reviled by humans, and as the last of their kind, they slowly disappeared until most people had only ever heard of them in stories, first as saviors and then as villains. Jen Williams' debut fantasy trilogy, The Copper Cat, was a grand fun-filled adventure with great characters that I've grown to love throughout the three books. In my review of The Silver Tide, I commended the author in crafting a modern high fantasy tale that was her own instead of emulating the increasingly popular grimdark sub-genre. As much as I loved The Copper Cat trilogy by the end of it, I can put my hand to my heart now and say that without a doubt The Winnowing Flame is going to top that easily.
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