So, just finished reading Trudi Canavan’s new novel, Priestess of the White. It falls under the category for me of ‘research’ – attempting to make sure that as my thoughts on my novel develop, that I copy as little as possible, and innovate as much as possible. Of course, it’s also (and ok, yes, primarily) an excuse for me to get hold of as many of the fantasy and sci-fi novels I love as I can…

Trudi’s become reasonably famous here in the UK due to a relatively high profile marketing campaign for her ‘Black Magician’ trilogy; highly stylised black and white posters are all over the Underground. Having enjoyed that, I expected to move gracefully on to the new series, the ‘Age of the Wilds’ as its called. Sadly this was not to be…

I don’t know whether its because I read the excellent ‘Night’s Dawn Trilogy’ in between, but the writing just struck me as, well, not quite developed yet. Which is odd, as its her fourth novel… Maybe my standards have just temporarily risen.

That said, once I got into it, the book proved reasonably compelling. Always interesting to see sociological debates translated into a different universe. And Trudi, whilst probably not touching too seriously on the metaphysical nature of anything interesting, does touch on the psychological nature of faith. And – which is great from my perspective – the dangers inherent in a giving a religious institution power. Never really expected to be reading (even a tacit) argument for the separation of church and state in a fantasy novel.

Perhaps this truly is a book written for (young) teenagers; which might potentially explain the copiuous amounts of sex and the simplistic style. I guess its the disparity of content from the style that made me feel something was wrong… still, will see what happens. The plot sustained itself enough for me to read the next book… we’ll see if I’m compelled to the conclusion (it is as yet unpublished).