he Burning Land is an epic fantasy by Victoria Strauss, the author of The Arm of the Stone and The Garden of the Stone, two previous fantasy novels unrelated to this one. She begins this new story on the continent of Galea, where the rulers of Arsace have returned to power after their defeat of the Caryaxists, a militantly secular movement devoted to wiping out all traces of Galea's Âratist faith. The Brethren, people whose souls are continually reincarnated in new bodies, are obligated to guide and protect all Âratists until the god Ârata rises from his long sleep and humankind enters a new age. Among their most important responsibilities is to exert control over Shapers, those who possess the ability to control and transform inanimate matter. Unrestrained Shapers can too easily be tempted to misuse their powers, as they have in the past, during the Shaper War.
Shapers are not the only ones with unusual abilities; there are also the Dreamers, people whose minds can move across the world as they sleep. Now the Dreamers of Arsace are dreaming of a disturbance on the other side of the vast southern desert known as the Burning Land. Perhaps some Shapers, fleeing across the desert from the Caryaxists persecuting them, have somehow managed to survive in the region believed to be Ârata's sacred resting place.
Gyalo, a devout young Shaper, is sent into the Burning Land in order to find out if any descendants of the fugitive Shapers are alive, and to return with them to Arsace. He survives his perilous journey to discover that there are survivors living along the river south of the desert, and meets Axane, a young woman who is a Dreamer but has kept her skill a secret; Dreamers in her community of Refuge are eventually forced into total confinement and unending sleep, and Axane deeply fears such a fate. Her people have believed that no civilization beyond Refuge exists, but Axane, through her dreams, has envisioned another land.
Gyalo's appearance among the people of Refuge throws doubt on their most deeply held beliefs. Viewing him as a heretic, and wanting to protect themselves from an outside world that they now fear, Refuge's governing councilors sentence Gyalo to death. He and his companions manage to escape, and Axane follows them, torn by the knowledge that in seeking freedom for herself she may be betraying her own people, while Gyalo will discover that his king and the Brethren he has honored and admired have allowed their own fears and desire for power to corrupt their faith. He and Axane, sentenced to imprisonment, will find their own faith tested as they try to escape.
An involving novel shines with intelligence
Victoria Strauss has the enviable ability to create a large cast of characters who live and breathe; even characters with minor roles are sharply drawn. Gyalo, a truly good man who finds himself betrayed by the mentors he has trusted and believed in, and Axane, a compassionate woman longing for freedom, are at the center of the story, but others—the tormented Shaper Râvar, Axane's father Habrâmna, the hard-bitten and loyal soldier Teispas, the prospector Vâsparis who has adapted to life in the Burning Land—are only a few of the memorable characters who populate this novel. Strauss provides a helpful glossary and list of characters, but her skill as a storyteller is such that readers should rarely have to consult it. In addition, her eye for telling details and ability to paint a scene make The Burning Land a book rich in visual imagery. Combined with a solid plot and Strauss' crisp, clean and literate prose, this is one of those novels that envelops readers, the kind of book that makes it a pleasure to linger in its imagined world.
Many of the elements of The Burning Land—the quest, people with magical powers, the battle between good and evil—are the familiar stuff of fantasy, but Strauss has brought a formidable intelligence to her story and pays as much attention to her characters' ideas, inner lives and intellectual and spiritual struggles as she does to their battles and their dramatic confrontations. Âratism, her invented religion, is a satisfyingly complex belief system complete with heresies, myths that are sometimes contradictory and an organization that governs and guides its believers while being open to the kind of corruption and lust for power that can lead to abuse. The novel builds inexorably to a tragic confrontation that is both heartbreaking and seemingly inevitable, and the conclusion, while completely satisfying—this is not one of those novels that ends on a cliffhanger—is likely to leave most readers hoping to visit this world again.
