Century of Sand, by Christopher Ruz. Reviewed by Bryce Anderson.
[Disclaimer: This book is another book in the #ImmerseOrDie StoryBundle. I also have a book in the bundle. I don’t believe it changes my opinion of the book, just the timing for publishing the review.]
Rating: 10/10
Quick pitch: To save his daughter, an ex-soldier must make a deal with a demon. If he can find the bloody demon. “Century of Sand” is a riveting, beautiful, brutal fantasy novel, the first in a trilogy.
Plot: There’s a commotion in the castle. Shouting. Some sort of explosion. A man approaches a pair of guards, whom he seems to command, with a small girl in his arms. He says the girl was caught stealing, and that she’s supposed to be executed for it, but really what’s the need? There’s blood on the man’s robes.
“I told you I’d come back for you. A father never forgets.”
To save his daughter Ana, Richard must guide her through a deadly, parched wilderness. He must form uneasy alliances and sometimes betray them. Using a scribbled map, he must find a demon and return its heart, praying that the exchange grants him the power to kill a magician-king who can level entire cities.
Piled atop everything else, he has to understand the trauma the Magician has inflicted on his daughter, which has left Ana mute but gifted with dangerous powers.
Review: Usually, when I say a self-published book impressed me, I mean that I enjoyed it, that I liked the ride it took me on, that I could maybe imagine a publisher picking it up and turning it into a solid mid-list title. I don’t demand a timeless fantasy classic, to be treasured for generations.
“Century of Sand” just blew the curve all to hell.
I’m still sorting this out, trying to figure out what captivated me. It’s not a funny book, and Cthulhu knows I usually need me my funny. The book takes itself seriously on many levels; only the occasional jokes or banter, no whimsical trope subversion. But where so many attempts at serious, high fantasy go off the rails (turning into history books, indulging in balls-to-the-wall purple prose, losing the reader amid a cast of dozens of indistinguishable characters and plot lines), “Century of Sand” powers forward. Though its language is often lyrical, though its characters make their decisions with the fate of kingdoms in the balance, it doesn’t stop being a deeply intimate study of a father and his daughter as they make their way through a world which seems hell bent on killing them.
This fantasy novel takes itself seriously, not in the plodding, graceless style you get when bad authors try to imitate classic sword-and-sorcery. Reading “Century of Sand” felt like reading an unearthed fantasy classic, written by some undiscovered grandmaster back in the days when fantasy could take itself seriously without feeling all shy and self-conscious about it. It throws itself into its story of love, betrayal, magic, and survival without apology, digging its claws in from the opening page and never letting the reader or its characters catch their breath.
The setting is oppressive: bright and blistering and bone dry, a barren Middle Eastern landscape that leaves you reaching for a glass of water every page or two. This dusty, hard-scrabble sensibility permeates the entire world, leaving the characters parched and desperate, knowing that their next mistake could be their last. Every alliance becomes one of necessity, with both sides eyeing each other warily, waiting for a sudden yet inevitable betrayal. Combining these precarious alliances with Richard’s unswerving devotion to keeping his daughter alive and safe yields an explosive mixture; Richard is ready to make some troubling, but all-too-believable choices.
Eat yer heart out, “Game of Thrones.”
The world is enriched by the deft integration of religion and religious controversy into the narrative. A lot of interesting ideas are handled here: the line between devotion and blasphemy, faith and doubt. Clearly this is a world where the gods wield real power. But what are they? Richard’s own questioning faith focuses on devotion to the Daughter, who at first seems like a genderswapped Jesus. But as the Daughter is explored, and as other gods-or-possibly-demons flex their own muscles, she becomes something more subtle and more interesting.
Richard’s doubts are a stark contrast to Stephenson, a charismatic preacher who seems to have the run of one of the towns Richard and Ana visit. His own burning faith focuses as much on “the Lady,” who ostensibly serves the Daughter, but has grown to usurp the devotion of the village. The pantheon seems deliberately muddled, with different people having different ideas about which gods reign, which gods serve, which are simply demons. It’s a fun and believable exploration, one which adds a great deal of mystery and drives the plot rather than bogging it down.
I also found the B-plot riveting. Richard tells Ana stories when he needs to keep her calm, or wants to take his mind off his own troubles. So he starts telling the story of the first expedition to the tower, the one where the Magician stole the demon heart Richard now carries. In these scenes, we are introduced to Parkin, who later goes on to mentor Richard in the ways of soldiering. But back then, Parkin was a fresh-faced recruit following the enigmatic Magician on a mission cloaked in secrecy. Parkin’s tale is grim throughout, but it’s a good relief pitcher that gets called up at the right times.
I didn’t know it was a trilogy until after the fact, so I found the ending abrupt. But having the sequel on my Kindle does soothe the burn a little. #3 is still in the works.
So, yeah. Classic fantasy, epic scope, outstanding writing. “Century of Sand” is available as part of the #ImmerseOrDie storybundle through May 7, 2015. If you buy the bundle, you’ll get my book too. But seriously this is the book you should be coveting. After the bundle expires, there’s always Amazon and whatever.
One-question interview with the author:
Bryce Anderson: So why did you choose to self-publish? Seriously, I’m having trouble understanding how any agent or publisher would pass on this. Do you have rejection letters? Are most of them along the lines of, “Your novel is not a good fit for our agency, for we specialize in Caribbean travel guides?”
Christopher Ruz: At the time, it made good business sense. It was around 2011, and I’d just self-pubbed all my short stories based on Internet advice. The market was exploding, and for a while I was making $500 a week in sales from Century, a couple novellas and ten short stories, far more than I’d have made from a trad-pub deal.
Then the Amazon algorithms changed, KDP Select became a thing, and my earnings went down the toilet almost overnight. In retrospect, yes, I wish I’d queried agents and gotten Century a trad-pub deal… but more and more agents and publishers are accepting previously self-pubbed manuscript, so we’ve all still got options. 🙂
Bryce Anderson is a resident of Salt Lake City, the author of The Improbable Rise of Singularity Girl, a mediocre chess player, and—according to rumor—twenty-three ferrets in a human suit. His plan in the event of the zombpocalypse is to shamble around biting people until some hero takes a chainsaw to his legs. Somebody’s gotta do it.