Two crowns. Susana Eevee.
Review: Santiago G ª Solans.
SWAT Group. Col. Excalibur. Granada, 2010. 404 pages.
A divided peninsula, rather fragmented into two irreconcilably opposing realms: Two Thrones , the white Aldaria and black erected . Two warring nations from time immemorial for reasons long forgotten: the rich and the rural South and North brutal and mining apparently refinement against vulgarity, or maybe not? A ridge that marks the border and Aldaria old couple living on its slopes, Max Fiendeus and Magda , to recover her grandson in the figure of an amnesiac - about his childhood, northern raider with one eye of each color: soot / Doogan , but only to see it return to its people adopt in pursuit of certain mandatory obligations. And from that encounter battles, magic, battles, bloody deaths, love and violence, and the fate of the two Crowns in the hands of the prince who seeks his identity in adverse circumstances.
Although the leitmotiv of the novel is obviously the impending war between the two nations, the main theme is the story the search for identity of soot / Doogan, broken into a duality of conflicting loyalties. And if something catches the attention of the novel is undoubtedly the star. A man who discovers he has been living a lie and he's trying to find the truth that is under his explosive personality. Raised in the harsh north, accustomed to the role of executioner and murderer on the orders of their king, wants to bring out the goodness and greatness that you would expect, but certainly with acts of heroism will commit other atrocious that inevitably will earn the disapproval of the readers. Soot / Doogan is a character gray, very gray. Educated to a bloody role within the nobility built, feels somewhat lost when they must face their true heritage. You can not avoid following their instincts and these are downright obscure, can not escape just like everything that has lived and learned erected to suddenly become Aldaria, which in many cases will have to curb his violent nature and repress desires, always unsuccessfully. Soot is, ironically, a man of Honor, but the twisted ethics erected violence makes him put above everything else, when you try to make a shift to a more gentlemanly honor will be in the position to break even more fragile personality rather than restore it. The need to conduct a betrayal of that until time considered fellow martial clashes with the ideals and soldierly camaraderie shared environment. Used to live without regrets, without moral conscience of their crimes and misdeeds and that he were not such, according to recover glimpses of his childhood memories internal armature that will cracking created, allowing to enter an unexpected pain that makes you more irritable if fits. It is very difficult for him to reconcile what has been in recent years with what he understood to be waiting for your part now. So the war in which they are involved the two kingdoms is an ironic reflection on the protagonist's inner conflict. Can both positions be reconciled?
The author presents the history, despite the appearance of Tasurgo , a sorcerer of immense magical powers to serve the king erected, although " own agenda " , in a highly realistic, reflecting the war in all its crudeness and actors with all faults. The author spares no detail and no rough, no deaths, no betrayals, no violations or multiple felonies. Imbues not any romance in the battles and fighting, just ambition, pain, guts and relief after surviving c ombate. A war that perfectly reflects the inner struggle of the protagonist and that somehow embodies perfectly the carriers of both crowns, white and black, giving new meaning to the phrase that appearances are deceiving. There is in them or in the narrative, a Manichaean expected, there is a totally good and totally bad one, but two-one over the other, we must recognize, are capable of the best and worst. It is a pity, however, that the only two female characters in the novel some weight, Emet y Río , se antojen tan desaprovechados, necesarios para la tensión dramática, sí, pero faltos de un auténtico protagonismo.
Como primera novela de la autora, se advierten sin embargo algunos defectos en su prosa y en la trama fácilmente perdonables, pero que podrían have been corrected with a small correction. Especially at the beginning of the novel, it is noted somewhat hesitant, immature. Along with beautiful descriptive paragraphs are other certain dryness, failing in the linking of the scenes or in the flow of the action, occasionally also changing the subject focus of the story in a paragraph encouraging some confusion. Throughout the novel, there are certain reactions hardly believable characters and some situations and actions are too tenderly enforced or naive, as the promotion policy of the army erected, especially coming from the hand of the king himself, or the fact of leaving left a corpse branches covered in a forest and go look for days without being eaten by animals ...-, tightening too much disbelief of the reader, although you can always blame the fantastic character of the created world: another world, different rules . The pace is slow sometimes, she is like spinning on certain issues and places, focusing on certain details that adorn but also lengthen the narrative. With advancing the plot and about the inevitable war that seeks to unite the two crowns, Eevee be doing with the reins of the story with a much stronger prose while pleasant, and the story flows with greater determination.
From there, concise and direct writing becomes prominent in the narrative, with scenes too long, quite the reverse, and talks well linked; leaving, that yes, little room for descriptions, especially of the fighting and battles, while emphasizing on the different weather experienced by actors and landscapes that abound. The appeal using " temporary jumps " scenes that advance the general thread, cause surprise at first, disconcerting and leaving the reader wondering, first, how can you be a character in a place where just leaving it in another. Honestly, is a resource breaker, but do not quite jell. Coupled with an irregular use of the time elapsed or invested in making the different trips, as soon as lengthen shortened, and that makes the distances are never too bright, despite the map that opens the volume, could be say it is the main flaw of the novel fails to use the ellipsis as a means to more nimble narration, it creates confusion.
Saved however the reef, with hand-write much stronger, is the end, when all seems doomed, when tragedy strikes and truth Eevee shows that it is able to surprise with a conclusion that, even leaving the future in air closes unexpectedly adventure with a terrible consistency and yet was to be expected to resolve the dichotomy soot / Doogan - Aldaria / erected in a which subsequently appears unavoidable. The parallelism between external and internal conflict takes on new meaning and closes the book with the satisfaction of not having read "business as usual." Two crowns is a good debut novel for author hopefully take hold and confirmed in future works.
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