sawyl | Stories of the Raksura: Volume 1 (Reply)

As a longstanding fan of Martha Wells' novels set in the Three Worlds, her collections of short stories and novellas set against the same backdrop were obviously a must. Here then, is a quick overview of the first book, with the second to follow shortly.

The longest story in the collection is The Falling World, set no long after the end of The Siren Depths. The action begins with Jade, sister queen of Indigo Cloud, departing on a trade mission. Some days later a similar delegation arrives from the would-be trade partner asking to open negotiations, implying that Jade has either been taken captive or disappeared en route. Eliminating the former, Indigo Cloud send out a group to search along Jade's party's likely route. With the help of Moon and Stone, the clan's two ruling consorts, and the scrying powers of Merit, the head mentor, they gradually start to peel back the layers of mystery surrounding the disappearance.

The Tale of Indigo and Cloud, the collection's second novella, relates how the clan's eponymous ancestors first met. Essentially a slow burn romance surrounded by a tale of fiendishly clever politicking, the story begins when Indigo returns from a trade mission with an abducted consort in tow. After convincing ruling queen Cerise that she didn't kidnap Cloud so much as help him to escape, Cerise then sets about trying to smooth things over his previous court. When Cloud's queen, the hot-headed Argent, takes exception to this, Cerise sends a message to Cloud's birth court of Sunset Water and then sets about stalling until she can assemble a sufficient number of allies to head off a war.

An epilogue frames the story, setting in the context of a selection of books expectedly donated by Sunset Water to Indigo Cloud. This uses Stone, a child in the main story and ancient line-grandfather in the afterword, to link the two elements emphasising the loneliness of a life that has stretched back into near legend and stressing how different the retelling is for him; where Indigo and Cloud and Cerise are only figures from history for everyone else, they are Stone's friends and family, all now centuries dead.

The Forest Boy tells of Moon's early days as a young child-survivor of the massacre that killed the rest of his family and left him alone in the world as a creature with no knowledge of his own kind. The final tale, Adaptation, covers Chime's unexpected and unwanted transformation from an Arbora mentor into an Aeriat warrior. An event that predates Moon's arrival, it adds depth to one of the series most intriguing characters, giving a real feel for why he might be quite so upset about the sudden loss of everything his previous existence stood for.

This is a strong story collection and a must for anyone who likes the original novels. Each story widens the world and deepens the reader's understanding of the characters and species that populate the Three Worlds. While I like the collection as a whole, Indigo and Cloud a real gem: Wells does a brilliant job of imaging how politics and power struggles and posturing and fight-versus-display might work in an alien culture whilst also managing to sell an unlikely romance between the two principal characters.