Dance down the Dark

[bibliogramma]

Naomi Kritzer's debut duology, Fires of the Faithful and Turning of the Storm, is a great read, and one that shows a great deal of promise for even greater reads to come. It's a well-written story about a young musician who becomes the catalyst for massive change in a war-torn land ruled by a corrupt and intolerant priesthood.

The character development arc of the protagonist, Eliana, was well-handled. She seems not so much a young person with a great destiny as she is just, by chance, the right person in the right place at the right time, who just barely manages to grow into waht is needed, which is what most people of destiny really are.

Considering that the overall title of the duology is Eliana's song, the importance of multiple uses of music and dance as repositories of information, tools of change and focus of emotion and magcal/spiritual power in the novel was not unexpected, but was certainly well integrated and very believable. As well, I particularly enjoyed Kritzer's portrayal of the processes of planning and executing a revolution - the posturing and political infighting and petty rivalries were a welcome change from some such tales where everyone is noble and high-minded.

As someone who is more naturally sympathetic to pagan, goddess-based religions, I found it a bit unsettling to be in a world where the savagely oppressed Old Religion is one that is strongly paralleled to Christianity and the theocratic Inquisitors do what they do in the name of The Lady, but ultimately this positioning of these two common religious types helps, I think, to underline what Kritzer is saying about the ubiquity of religious intolerance.

While there were a couple of over-used tropes that bothered me, particularly the one about the hero who arrives in the middle of planning a revolution and figures out what everyone was doing wrong, the novel impressed me for its treatment of religious intolerance and its exploration of how power can corrupt not only the opressor, but also the formerly oppressed. Kritzer's maturity in dealing with these questions, and with the issues of religious tension, prejudice and persecution, as well as her courage in leaving these issues unresolved more than compensates for her occasional use of some well-worn plot elements.

The voice is fresh, the world-building and characterization are very sound, the themes were well-handled (as well as being of particular interest to me), and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from Kritzer.