Some fantasy novels deal out the tropes of the genre like cards from a dog-eared deck. Others affirm the elemental power of these tropes, reminding us not only why we read fantasy, but also why we read at all. There may be nothing new under the sun, but a good story makes you just not care. Like the expert strike of a reflex hammer, it hits precisely the right spot.
Leigh Bardugo’s first novel, “Shadow and Bone,” does so straight from its opening lines, pulling the reader into a mesmerizing exploration of one of the most potent fantasy novel motifs: the discovery of hidden strength within oneself.
A war orphan, Alina Starkov is raised on charity on the estate of a minor noble in Ravka (picture a fantasy Russia of samovars and horse-drawn sleighs), along with her best friend and fellow orphan, Mal. Tested as children for the rare magical ability that would destine them for the Grisha — elite magician-soldiers of the kingdom’s “Second Army” — Alina and Mal are found wanting and are conscripted instead into the common army.
Alina is a perfect specimen of the “nothing-specialness” essential to the book’s central theme. She’s a skinny, nervous girl, brittle, unremarkable. And she’s all but friendless except for Mal, who has grown up to be a head-turner and inevitably drifts away from his former companion. She’s also an affecting narrator; Bardugo’s clean writing wins the reader easily to Alina’s side as her regiment marches toward the Shadow Fold, the kingdom’s curse and calamity: “a swath of nearly impenetrable darkness that grew with every passing year and crawled with horrors.”
This Shadow Fold is the legacy of Grisha magic gone bad. A vast, lightless void, it splits Ravka in two, forcing perilous crossings through the darkness in silent skiffs, soldiers’ fingers at their triggers lest the volcra — savage winged monsters — hear or smell them. Ravkan life is defined by darkness: that of the Fold, and that of the Darkling, the most powerful of the Grisha, a figure as feared as he is revered. So when the regiment is attacked by volcra in the Fold, what power could be more fitting to burst forth from the mousy Alina, facing death in the dark, than the ability to summon light?
It’s an unheard-of ability. Grisha manipulate wind, fire, tides, steel, flesh and even darkness. But not light — until now.
Bardugo’s setup is shiver-inducing, of the delicious variety. This is what fantasy is for: letting us slip into the skin of characters grappling with great power and the destinies that come with it. And if the aim of the author’s reflex hammer falters after the initial setup, and if the tatty corners of well-thumbed conventions begin to tell, “Shadow and Bone” has other pleasures to buoy it through.
Its system of magic, for one. The Grisha are an intriguing creation: a breed of magician-scientist-soldiers wielding tangible powers in the service of the realm. They are a caste apart, with members who specialize in bursting the human heart, and wonderfully named suborders like the Etherealki. One secondary character on whom the author — a Hollywood makeup artist in her other life — lavishes enjoyable attention is a “flesh tailor,” whose skill in enhancing beauty has made her the pet of a vain queen.
Then there’s the world Bardugo creates. With its uncannily beautiful robed magicians, vast wild landscapes and fabled creatures, Ravka evokes the Russia of fairy tales. The Little Palace of the Grisha is “like something carved from an enchanted forest, a cluster of dark wood walls and golden domes”; a place “covered in intricate carvings of birds and flowers, twisting vines and magical beasts.” Even orphan life has a tint of the fable: lying for hours in the meadow and stealing peaches from the kitchen; and the army’s march comes across as a pleasant stroll. But there is a darker inspiration at work here as well, and one of Bardugo’s clever decisions is to name the Darkling’s personal guard after Ivan the Terrible’s notorious black-clad “oprichniki,” the precursors of the K.G.B.
So what about this Darkling? He is an enigmatic figure: brooding, magnetic and, of course, handsome. “He had a sharp, beautiful face, a shock of thick black hair and clear gray eyes that shimmered like quartz.” And though he seems young, he has already lived a very long life. “He’s not natural,” thinks Alina, but she is drawn to him regardless, and he to her, as she grows from a scrawny nobody at odds with her new world into a passionate young woman of great power. “I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Alina,” the Darkling tells her. “You and I are going to change the world.” Is she a match for this most powerful of men? Or will childhood love prove the stronger lure?
Writers turn to the plot conventions of high fantasy for a reason. They satisfy fundamental human desires — not merely to belong but to surpass, to be special, to have power, to be loved — and they do so at a louder volume than does ordinary life. They give us what we crave. The test lies in whether, as we are reading, we feel the dull, inward sinking of “This again?” or the exhilarating, grasped-by-the-hair lift and thrill of vicarious experience. “Shadow and Bone” imparts some of both, but in the richness of its Russian flavor, there is much to relish.