The Three Heretics by Scott Hale
My rating: 4/5 cats
Earn your place. Earn your myth.
i don’t think it will be useful for me to review this book by focusing on its actual contents, because even if you’ve read the first book in the trilogy, The Bones of the Earth, it would be confusing as balls. if you feel like reading my review of the first book, it is here, and you can laugh at how hopelessly confused i am by the fantasy genre in general; with its tendency towards unfamiliar names and tropes, and how this book specifically confused me.
because this world is so emphatically its own thing. and again—caveat that i don’t read a lot of fantasy, so maybe it is exactly like Dune or something, and i just don’t know any better. it’s not like the film version of dune, i can attest to that, although both do feature giant worms
for me, fantasy can be too much for my puny brain to keep track of: too much vocabulary, too many characters, where all names of persons/places/things are created for the world and i gotta keep track of what’s what. for example, from the (truly helpful) glossary:
Flesh fiends: Subterranean creatures with a conflicted mythology. They wear the flesh and body parts of their victims. When a Corrupted and a Night Terror mate, there is a chance a flesh fiend will be born. They were last spotted in the sacrificial pit of Geharra, as well as near the island of Lacuna.
obviously that’s awesome, but there’s a lot to keep straight there for one pretty minor element.
and yet, although i was a little out of my element reading the first book, i really enjoyed it because it had great characters, and many weird and gross happenings. when i was approached by the author to give this, the middle book in the trilogy, a shot, the pot was tantalizingly sweetened:
There are some nasty birds in it. But more importantly, how do you feel about six foot tall, walking, talking, skin cloaked mosquitos?
i feel intrigued and excited, sir! even though this is TWICE AS LONG as the first part with so many more opportunities to confuse my head.
thankfully, he included a typewritten summary of the first book along with this, which was as memory-refreshing as it was hilarious, with his little interjections and reductions. great swathes of plot are streamlined as:
Vrana fucks their shit up and heads home.
and those aforementioned flesh fiends? in my summary, they are: creatures that wear skins and bones and are basically the worst.
which is also exactly right.
The Three Heretics, true to its name, is sectioned into three parts, each following a different character: edgar, atticus, and the holy child. while there are appearances by characters from the first book, they don’t get much screentime, so this is less of a continuation of plot than additional branches on the plot-tree. this kind of wraps around The Bones of the Earth, as its action takes place before, during, and after the events of part one.
and there is a lot to absorb here, for sure: plots and counterplots, historical explanations revealed, vision quests, religious fervor, life and death and the in-between, strange bedfellows, prophecy, and those ‘nasty birds’ i had been warned about, which made their horrifying appearance on the very first page:
Their massive claws clamped down on the nearest branches and rocks. Out of their scaled breasts, mouths unraveled, extended, and started chomping at the air. From their riotous hunger, the branches and rocks began to snap and crack. The twenty-pound scavengers lifted off, back into the air, and rushed forward.
giant birds with giant beaks AND THEN ADDITIONAL TORSO-MOUTHS??? worst birds ever.
(am now infatuated with sarah deremer: http://io9.gizmodo.com/common-animals…)
the atticus segment was easily my favorite. not only for the appearance of that giant mosquito, but for having the most badass plot, the best characters, and the most carnage. i could read miles of atticus. maybe in book three?
because i will definitely be reading part three. bring it on!
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