_Hope's End_ by Stephen Chambers
_Hope's End_ suffers too much for being the first book in a series. It gives inklings of where it wants to go, but it never manages to escape the tiredness of its own tropes. As is spoiled on the back cover, it is another in the genre of science fiction in fantasy clothing. Before the text makes this clear, however, we begin in a fairly generic dark to middle age city, dominated by a church, with only a few clues here and there to its science fictional origin. The protagonist, Vel, is a deeply immature young con man. But, of course, there's something more to Vel which I won't spoil, not that it matters all that much. The plot is dreadfully generic and is only surprising in the bodycount at the end.
There are a few ways a book like this could work. The simplest is as escapism. A standard exploration of this setting is to unveil it as a mystery. The protagonist makes more discoveries about the secrets of his world and our greater knowledge lets us discern their significance. Unfortunately, little is discovered in this novel. Rather, things are simply revealed to Vel by some mouthpiece or another. The sense of mystery is cursory at best, and the revelations are neither surprising nor interesting. The plot, offering little in the way of original adventure, seems to be a placeholder so that the author can get to where he really wants to go.
Where that is is something apparently more than just escapism. The prologue of the book ends with the name "B. Mussolini". The symbol of the church is the "swa" which is fairly obviously seen to be a swastika from the description in the text. The sprinkling of these and other fascist references throughout the text seems to indicate the intent of the author. It seems clear from the revealed origin of these references that the author wants to explore the nature and birth of fascism and, in particular, fascist leaders. The included first chapter of the second novel in the paperback supports this idea. The problem is that, while the author may have something interesting to say in the future, he doesn't say it here.
Even if a first book does not work by itself, it must at the very least grab one's attention. It should make the reader care about what happens to the characters in the next novels. Too many novels refuse to kill off any of their characters, but it is possible to err in the other direction. Here, I think I understand why the author did what he did, but, unfortunately, the few interesting characters in this novel won't be appearing in the next. Perhaps some would be intrigued enough by the inklings of future themes to pick up the next novel, but my interest wasn't piqued.
One could guess that if this were part of a trilogy, this would at best constitute the prologue to the story. The second novel would be the descent into darkness and, depending on the preference of the author, the third would be some sort of redemption. It's not a bad structure, I suppose, but the first book has to be a foundation for the rest and this foundation doesn't offer much. It's possible that the explorations of the latter novels could retroactively make this book worthwhile. Given the generic construction of this novel, however, it seems unlikely. Odds are I'll never know for sure.
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Last updated 10/10/02