"What is it like, I wonder, to feel faith like a bedrock, to believe in a god as though it were the sun in the sky? I can hardly imagine." So muses, Dexterity Jones, toymaker by Royal Appointment, about the faith of Mijak, the people we met in the first book of the The Godspeaker trilogy, Empress. The people of Mijak believe in a god that shows its presence in the world in a myriad ways, from healing the wounded to smiting the empire's enemies. The god is also unquenchable in its thirst for sacrificed blood.
The first book, Empress, tells the tale of how a girl slave rose to become empress, thanks to the grace of her god. Hekat is as bloodthirsty as the god and firmly convinced that she "lives in his eye." She is character one grows to respect and even love, or at least, love to hate. I reviewed that book here.
The second and third books feature another strong female, one not a savage ruler, but equally strong. In The Riven Kingdom,Princess Rhian loses her brothers to plague and her father, the King of Erthea, soon after. King Eberg has ruled long and well, but failed to appoint an heir or arrange for a state marriage for Rhian. The princess feels that even though Erthea has never had a ruling queen she is the qualified to rule, having been tutored in statecraft by the king himself.
The Church in Erthea is a strong force, and its leader, Prolate Marlan, intends to rule the kingdom by marrying Rhian off to his mentally-deficient nephew. Rhian is violently opposed to Marlan's bid for power and manages to escape his clutches long enough to get married to her banished lover, Alasdair. She returns to the capital, having gathered supporters as she went, and in the end, nobility of purpose (hers) defeats corrupt power (Marlan's.) In the third book, The Hammer of God, her kingdom and its allies face the deadly might of the Mijak Empire and she again prevails against the corruption of power, this time a corruption by the evil god of Mijak.
The three books explore themes of faith and belief, as well as those of nobility and corruption. While not as omnipresent as the Mijak god, the god of Erthrea acts through Dexterity Jones, bringing him a messenger who appears to him in the form of his wife. He becomes the Burning Man and does miracles in the cause of Queen Rhian. So, while he muses on the faith of the Mijaki, he does not seem to realize that his faith is also strong and compelling.
I love the way Karen Miller gives her characters such distinct voices. The Mijaki are instantly recognizable as alien, not only because of their total belief in their god, but also in the way they speak. Karen Miller makes even their grammar seem foreign. Queen Rhian and her people seem more familiar to us, with Erthrea a city-state similar to European kingdoms in the Middle Ages, when the Church ordered everyone's lives.
Great series. I really enjoyed the second two books - the first was a bit much because Hekat is such a believably atrocious person. I was pleased to see that Karen Miller has other books, some under the name K.E. Mills. The Accidental Sorcerer is a completely different read, more lighthearted but again with great use of voice in character development.
