To Ride Hell's Chasm in Beyond Reality

Aug 11, 2011 seak rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

Hey, I have a booktube channel (youtube for book reviews, etc.), and I include To Ride Hell's Chasm in my Top 10 Standalone books list here. Please subscribe if I've earned it!

In the land of the 10 volume monster-epics of fantasy, the stand-alone is a much rarer beast, so many preferring to take a concept and bludgeon it to death. Not that I'm complaining, it's just nice to have a book that you know will run its due course in one, single volume.

To Ride Hell's Chasm takes what seems to be a simpl ...more

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May 15, 2012 mark monday rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy-modern

To Ride Hell's Chasm is a passionate and thoughtful high fantasy about a despised soldier and his assignment to track down a runaway princess on the eve of her nuptials. the novel is roughly split into two parts: the first describes Mykkael's attempts to gather information within the virulently xenophobic city he has made his home while dealing with the constantly shifting relationship with his stiff-necked commanding officer; the second portrays the detailed flight of Mykkael and the surprising To Ride Hell's Chasm is a passionate and thoughtful high fantasy about a despised soldier and his assignment to track down a runaway princess on the eve of her nuptials. the novel is roughly split into two parts: the first describes Mykkael's attempts to gather information within the virulently xenophobic city he has made his home while dealing with the constantly shifting relationship with his stiff-necked commanding officer; the second portrays the detailed flight of Mykkael and the surprisingly brave princess in question as they run the ferocious, terrifying natural gauntlet known as Hell's Chasm. the narrative takes place all during the course of one very intense week.

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

Wurts writes adult fantasy. this is not to mean that the book is filled with sex and gore but rather that it is concerned with tackling serious topics in a serious way - one that does not pander to the reader. this is not a gee whiz adventure full of flights of fancy or bright & shiny bits of colorful fun. it is a serious novel and Wurts' intelligence as a writer is consistently displayed. overall i really appreciated the formality of the prose, the seriousness of the themes, the depth of Mykkael's characterization, and especially the empathy towards animals. her underlying anger is clear in the depiction of all the extremely unreasonable barriers put up by racist idiots that her hero is forced to surmount. watching Mykkael deal accordingly with such loathsome attitudes is one of the joys of the first half. the second half is genuinely thrilling. Wurts has a firm grasp on how threatening the uncharted wilderness can be, and the passage through Hell's Chasm is very well done. i felt like i was there - and it was a horrible experience! at times the latter parts of the novel were hard to put down because everything was conveyed so viscerally and in such grueling detail - the reader gets to feel each and every pang of fear, bout of anxiety, each bruise and cut and stab of pain, every stumble and every panicky rush forward. it was gratifying to realize that i was in the hands of a masterful writer during the trek through this nightmare terrain. and as far as the ending goes: satisfying and well-earned.

taking everything above into consideration, this would easily be a 4-star novel. unfortunately, To Ride Hell's Chasm has some substantial flaws. there are some breakdowns in logic (soldiers who sass back at their commanding officer like they are teenage girls in a reality tv show; a princess who constantly accuses her insanely brave rescuer of cowardice). there are some strange missed opportunities (a swordfight between two major characters in the middle of swirling & magic-laced mists, the flight of a king and his retinue through sewers while strapped to wine casks, a bloody fight between society matrons & soldiers & demonic shapeshifters... all described secondhand). but the most distancing problem is that this novel is often genuinely overwritten. it's perplexing - Wurts is a writer with real skills and when she reins herself in, she is capable of creating many stunning and beautiful moments with prose that sings off of the page. but the sheer repetitiousness of various phrases is a real turn-off ("hag-ridden" pops into mind - and my God if i never see the word "haze" again i will be delighted). even worse is the feeling that Wurts does not trust her readers to remember key details about her characters - almost as if they are children who have to be reminded again and again about various character traits and Important Issues. i had the same feeling when reading Cherryh's unfinishable Foreigner. what this translates to is (1) when a character is described as sharp and knife-like, we will see this description repeated over and over again, ad nauseum - sweet Jesus i got it the first time! my memory is fine! - and (2) the aggravating tendency to sum up the feelings or rationale for why a character said or did this or that. it may be too late to provide constructive critique because Wurts is a justifiably popular and prolific author, but i really wish in the future that she would put more faith in her adult reader's ability to remember things and to understand the logic behind certain words and deeds without being told, over-explicitly, what that logic may be.

okay enough with the critique, there's more positive things that i want to say about this worthy novel.

the magic system was exceedingly well-done. i loved how the reader is forced to figure things out slowly and i loved just how smart the depiction of curses, cold & hot magic, lines of magic, shapeshifting, demonic intelligences, shamanism, etc turned out to be. kudos! Mykkael's fighting style ("barqui'ino") was intriguing and his troubled engagement with his own fighting style was layered and compelling. kudos! Mykkael himself is thoroughly memorable. the tragedy of his life is related in bits and pieces, all accumulating to create a flawed yet entirely heroic individual who will stay in my memory. and an uplifting character in that he defines all that humans should strive towards without ever coming across as corny or hand-wringing. kudos! the cover art and the interior illustrations are quite nice (and i think all done by the author). kudos! the novel's mythical beasts ("kerries") were phenomenal - fascinating, threatening, truly real monsters that felt alive. kudos! the horses' personalities were wonderfully differentiated; the death of Fouzette was wrenching and the return of Stormfront was amazing. kudos! the brilliant yet nauseating way that Mykkael decides to get the princess free of Hell's Chasm was like nothing i've read before. kudos! and i loved the ending. sometimes a sentimental and emotional ending is just what the doctor ordered - especially after so many trials and tribulations. kudos! ...more

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Sep 26, 2009 Kerry rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, library, 2009, 6-out-of-10

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 03, 2016 Tani rated it it was amazing

Shelves: female-author, favorites, fantasy, five-stars, sff-2016, sff-explorer-2016, 2016-novels

Janny Wurts is an author that I've been keeping a watchful eye on for a number of years. I'm so glad that I finally got the chance to read something by her! This book was pretty much splendid.

Looking back, this book almost feels like it was two different books entirely. In the first part, we have a mystery: the disappearance of Anja, princess of Sessalie, on the very night that her beloved fiance has arrived for their upcoming wedding. This part combines mystery and politics as the two leaders Janny Wurts is an author that I've been keeping a watchful eye on for a number of years. I'm so glad that I finally got the chance to read something by her! This book was pretty much splendid.

Looking back, this book almost feels like it was two different books entirely. In the first part, we have a mystery: the disappearance of Anja, princess of Sessalie, on the very night that her beloved fiance has arrived for their upcoming wedding. This part combines mystery and politics as the two leaders of the king's armed forces try to determine what could have happened to her. One of these men, Taskin, is in charge of the entire kingdom's defenses. A noble of the kingdom, he is a smart and efficient man, but a product of his safe and isolated country. The second, Mykkael, commands the gates and order in the city. He is a foreigner who won his place through a victory at a tourney, and his dark skin makes him a target of the racism of the people of Sessalie. Despite their opinions, though, he is determined to do whatever it takes to find and safeguard Anja, regardless of how unorthodox some might consider his methods.

As I said, the mystery takes precedence in this first part. It's pretty clear that Myykael has knowledge that surpasses that of anyone else in the book, but he's almost as reticent with the reader as he is with the other people in the book. This leads to a lot of clashes with the nobles of Sessalie, and with Taskin. This part is quite political and deals a lot with racism, as the people of this isolated kingdom are suspicious of anyone who is not like themselves. I really enjoyed the interactions between Taskin and Mykkael in this section, and the way that Wurts handled all the political issues that accompany Anja's disappearance. Some might find this part a little slow, but I found myself fascinated by it.

The second half of the book is almost pure action. Even though the first part spends so much time with Mykkael, and it's clear that he suspects that Anja's plight is dire, I was still startled by just how dire things actually are. The fate of the kingdom, and the world, hang in the balance, and it's up to a few brave souls to pull everyone through.

Although I enjoyed the first part of the book a lot, it's in the second half where the story really shines. Despite all the action and danger, Wurts doesn't neglect character. I loved getting to really know the characters in this section, despite the way that my knowledge later threatened to wrench my heart out. I cried, I will admit, several times as the end of this book drew near, and for events that I would have never expected to cry about. I have to highly applaud Wurts for that.

I also applaud her for the magic system that she created in this world. It may not be the most complex, but I loved the way that she crafted it to present a real danger to Sessalie and to the world. Too often, I have to work to really embrace the idea that the fate of an entire world could be affected by the events of a book. Throughout the last part of this book, I was truly worried that the world would be lost, which is not something that often happens to me. I usually feel a bit of safety, knowing that this is fiction and a happy ending is almost guaranteed, but I definitely lacked that in this book. Thus, the reason that I inhaled the last 250 pages in as close to a single sitting as I could manage.

This is a book that I highly recommend. The society is thoughtfully created, the magic is suitably dire, and the derring-do that is required to save everyone is truly epic. ...more

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