The Shadow of His Hand: Book One of the Markulian Prophecies by Benjamin PattersonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
A princess, a soldier, and a baby set off to fulfil a prophecy that will save the Realm: The Mark must reach a place known as The Hand of God before Embracing's Day, or all is lost. The problem is, The Hand of God now lies in Jerikan territory-the same enemy who's trying to destroy them.
The Shadow of His Hand is an interesting read, but uses several tropes that annoy me greatly. YMMV, so ignore the star rating as you like.
As an epic fantasy, the novel delivers. Our heroes set off on an impossible quest and face all kinds of hardships. There's friendship and betrayal, love and loss, and politicking galore. They trek through what feels like the whole world - jungle, desert, and the open sea. It is quite a militaristic book, so if you're not one for battle descriptions, you may find some of that just a tad too detailed. As a medieval fantasy, it is, as expected, rather Euro-centric. There are weirdly modern-sounding words or phrases that pop up at times which, when set against some almost-archaic formal sentences, feels a little odd.
The most annoying bit about the worldbuilding is the racism. Because, of course, the dark-skinned foreigners are described as heathens, poor, uneducated, primitive, lacking in ambition, eat weird food, are possible cannibals, and none of them speak the common tongue. They are the plot device that turn up to help our travellers (at least twice!) out of the sheer goodness of their hearts. When all of them are captured by slavers - on a journey they are only on because they are helping them on the quest - only our heroes make it out. Fredrick never even thinks of saving the slaves caught in the hold. The worst thing about this is that the Princess herself has foreign blood - her mother (or maybe grandmother?) comes from the same geographic area.
Now we come to the part where YMMV. The characters and their relationships are the major pain points for me, mostly because I'm easily irritated by some of these characteristics or character flaws.
If Patterson intended us to very annoyed at (or even hate) High King Eldilin Mancott, then he did a superb job there. I have a thing for competent people in important roles, and the High King is NOT it. Eldilin is always whining about his duties and responsibilities and acts as if the whole Realm is on his shoulders, but he isn't even competent at carrying them out. It's his adviser who does practically everything for him, but he has the gall to complain that he can't be himself and he can't do ANYTHING for himself. He's pretty useless, imo, and probably thinks its a sin to be happy. And when people actually try to help him, like his wife, he rejects their help (You don't understand! It Is My Duty!).
His wife, Jaithe, is another whole matter. Their marriage was the most insta-est case of (one-sided) instalove I have seen in a while. I mean, she sneaks into the hall to see him because she wants to laugh at her sister and the other hopefuls who want to be chosen as High Queen, and then SHE SEES HIM AND IMMEDIATELY FALLS IN LOVE. Because he's such a sad, sad man and just needs a woman to truly love him and then he'll get better. Um no. This is how women get trapped in bad marriages because they think they can change their husbands through the power of love. I guess if you like that trope you might like their "romance". Where, tbh, he spends most of the time ignoring her and shutting her down for even attempting conversation. At least they haven't even consummated the marriage because she refuses to sleep with a man who doesn't love her. Good for her, but also LMAO.
TBH, the other case of instalove in this book, is between Fredrick, our hapless soldier, and Princess Kathryn, who he saves, but at least Fredrick is aware enough to figure he's just crushing because she's rich and beautiful AND A PRINCESS. he's such a glorious mess anyway, so that just adds to his quirks. (He thinks he's crushing, but the text really wants to imply it's true love, so take from that what you will.)
Final bit! This is touted as Christian fiction, so let's look at it from the lens of faith. The faith set up is interesting (implied British tone), where there is a God - Elan - and twelve Guardians. The Realm is supposed to believe in Elan, but generally, worship practices have somewhat shifted from Elan to praying to/worshiping the Guardians instead (feels like a swipe at Catholics). It's a classic apocalyptic set up transplanted into a fantasy world - the world is ending, and the prophesied one must save the Realm. Jerika has summoners, who work with demons - so, very Good vs Evil, God vs Devil.
Patterson is daring in a sense that of the people sent on the quest, both Fredrick and Kathryn have shaky holds on their faith in Elan. Even High King Eldilin, who is supposed to uphold worship of the true God, only sends them on the quest because he can't deny the evidence of The Mark. Focusing on Fredrick's journey, you can see how his faith in and reliance on Elan grows. Fredrick comes across as a second-generation Christian-type, who knows generally what he's supposed to believe, but not why, and his relationship with God is affected by his circumstances growing up. He starts with a faith not his own, but grows in it through the hardships he faces in trying to fulfil the quest. Elan does step in to save the day several times (through various means), and the set up is good enough that it feels organic to the plot, with Elan as an active player instead of coming across as contrived/deus ex machina.
Final note on our heroes. At first, I was going to give them (both Fredrick and Kathryn) the Too Stupid To Live label, but honestly? They don't deserve it. They do try their best against the worst circumstances, so I'll just say that they work well together even if they're just Slightly Useless.
Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from the author. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
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