God Stalk by P.C. Hodgell
So as I was reading David Eddings' Pawn of Prophecy, I thought about how quintessential it was. So perfectly in line with its time and how the Eddings' took, essentially, The Hero's Journey and added the characterization and charm to elevate it above its somewhat unremarkable origin.
And then I read God Stalk. Published in 1982, the same year as The Pawn of Prophecy, it doesn't start with prologues about the gods, a history lesson, or a bevy of maps about landmasses we do not know.
It starts with a woman—Jame—trying to escape "hauntings." Her people are from another world, on an endless journey through time and space trying to stop, basically, entropy from consuming all life. However, her clan is dead, and the land they protected has fallen to death, decay, and evil. With the severed hand of her father—still baring his signet ring—and a creepy-ass book bound in "pale leather," she flees, uncertain of what her future holds so long as she doesn't become a haunt herself.
Well, holy shit. If Pawn of Prophecy is quintessential fantasy, God Stalk is the opposite.
God Stalk hits hard. Creepy, intriguing, with a world bursting with information and nuance. Then, it settles down into a big building where very different people live together. We watch Jame pop off on various adventures, but it always comes back to this massive inn with its many residents: Res aB'tyrr.
Jame is the focal point, but we don't get so close to her. I'd argue that the world is just as significant as Jame, and almost has its own characterization. And things don't always make sense; I felt like I could re-read from the beginning and understand so much more of the foreshadowing and hints and world at large. In many ways, it reminded me of Contrarywise.
This big-picture approach to the story does come with baggage. Namely, there's no time to watch Jame forge friendships or come to terms with something new. This could be damning, but Hodgell avoids this pitfall by not trying to make us feel emotionally invested in things that happen off-screen. Jame has a new friend; you need to know this for the story. The end.
The plot is all over the place. Jame is invested in a dozen different factions around town, and from chapter to chapter, flits between one storyline and the next. Here, she's a member of the thief's guild. There, she's a dancer for the Res aB'tyrr. Way over there, she's trying to train her cat to hunt. She also might be a low-key acolyte for a god she doesn't ascribe to? And on the run from a god she actually reveres? It doesn't really feel like things are building in one solid direction. In hindsight, it kinda feels like she's from some Elder Scrolls game where somehow you can be the leader of every faction at the same time.
All of this really should have bothered me, but it didn't. I can enjoy reading something just for the fun of reading something, and since the book made no pretense of expecting you to be deeply emotionally invested, I didn't feel a disconnect from the narrative.
Until I did.
The thief storyline seems to pick up speed with the novel, crowding most everything else out. But I wasn't particularly invested in the thief storyline; it was just one of many. Worse, it didn't seem to particularly matter to Jame. Her real focus was on her relationship to her identity—her god, her people, her history. Thieving just seemed like a good distraction from that while she low-key/subconsciously mulls all that stuff over.
That wasn't great, but one thing worried me more: a character named Bane.
Bane abuses boys. We definitively know he lures boys in with the promise of tutelage within the thieves guild, then flays and murders them. Sometimes he forces others to witness his cruelty. Sexualized violence is implied.
So ... that's inexcusable. In no context can you spin that. The world would be better off with Bane.
And yet, Jame is strangely intrigued by him.
Huge red flags.
I mean, I knew to expect the worst when I saw those flags, but I was hoping this would be more like a Batman/Joker sort of deal—(man, two Batman references in two sequential reviews. Is it obvious I've been watching Harlequin?)—where they don't like each other, yet there's a weird pull there.
Hell, I was even kinda wondering if Jame was drawn to Bane because it was her job to put him in the ground.
(Aside: Bane regularly calls Jame "M'lady," so, in my head, he's wearing a fedora.)
As time went on, though, it became clear: something icky was going on between Bane and Jame. In the home stretch, this is made apparent.
Jame loses one of her friends, and she ends up with Bane whille a mob approaches. The mob is out for blood, and Bane appears to be willing to face them.
"No!" Jame practically clings to Bane's sleeves. "I can't bear to lose you both in one day!" she cries, conveniently forgetting that as they speak, a child might be dying/rotting in Bane's chambers because he's a literal serial killer of children.
In the back of my head, I kept hearing, "you kept thinking it was like Contrarywise, and yet you still didn't see it going super fucked-up?"
"But at least there's no incest!" I insisted, as Jame realizes Bane might be her half-brother. Then he passionately and violently kisses her because he's totes in love with her and charges off to his doom.
She screams and weeps because maybe she’s in love with him, too.
Ugh.
But even if you can excuse the Bane storyline (you shouldn't, as the narrative works too hard to paint him as troubled rather than evil), the story just falls apart. Everything is too loosey-goosey, too slapdash. There's no focal point, nothing to root for, and as the aimless charm and fascinating world-building of the early chapters starts to face, nothing of substance or sufficient intrigue replaces it.
Much like Contrarywise, I loved this book until I definitely didn’t, which is the most painful sort of reading experience. Do not recommend.
Though I will give Hodgell some props for including either a trans or gender-fluid character and not making them a punching bag, a predator, or a huge joke.
Cover art by Unknown :(
