Review: An important voice in gay fantasy fiction.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 30, 2013
This two-volume fantasy has already been praised (last year), but I finally got these on Kindle and tore through them.The world of Cadeleon has turned away from mysticism and magic, but has embraced a religious doctrine that is dogmatic and heavy with ritual. In the midst of the pale, dark-haired Cadeleonians live and thrive a very different people - the Haldiim - copper-skinned, blond, and blue-eyed. They, too, have shunned magic, but their religion is altogether different - one of celebration rather than penance. Kiram, a brilliant Haldiim "mechanist" from a warm southern city, is given a place to study at the Sagrada School - the first full-blooded Haldiim in history to receive this honor.Like Hale's epic "Rifter" series, the "Lord of the White Hell" books offer complex world-building and a core mystery that culminates in a showdown between good and evil. But here the narrative is centered on the emerging relationship between two very different young men who are forced to be roommates in an aristocratic boarding school. The not-quite-earth world in which Kiram and Javier live, each part of a distinct ethnic culture, is brought to vividly to life without excessive description.Hale creates a beautiful sense of place without being hamfisted or distracting. She makes characters that we can see and feel, and builds her story around their interrelations with each other. Ginn Hale is a good writer. She is particularly good with names, creating evocative tags for her characters that underscore their ethnic differences without being exactly like anything you've ever read. The Hogwarts-like Sagrada school is misleading - for all the the main characters are teenagers, they are adult in the way teenagers in the Renaissance were. The families of these two young men are important in the narrative, something that gives real richness to the plot as it unspools.Unlike most fantasy fiction in the world today, this is a gay love story in which power of love is, ultimately, the strongest force. Hale is an important voice in gay fiction who delivers the goods.