'Beneath the Dark Crystal: Volume One' – Adam Smith, Alexandria Huntington (Archaia)

It's been a while since I've featured a 'Dark Crystal' book here which is remiss of me as Archaia have published some absolutely beautiful books so I should have been jumping straight into the next one. My reading has hit a few bumpy spots recently though and the time never seemed to be quite right to start the next set of books. Last night though...? Well, that was the right time (once I'd got everything else out of the way, when is the next weekend...?) so I settled down with a bar of Turkish Delight and had a read. It took a while to get into but it was worth it.

If you haven't read 'The Power of the Dark Crystal' then beware... The following blurb is dark and full of spoilers...

With the Crystal healed and the Skeksis banished, Kensho and Thurma return to their separate worlds to enjoy the peace they fought so hard to ensure. But when Kensho arrives at the Crystal Castle, the Gelfling look to him to take the place of Jen and Kira as leader of Thra. Unsure if he, or anyone, is fit to rule, Kensho sets out into the wild to rectify the sins of the past and better understand the world he saved. Meanwhile, Thurma strives to rebuild the realm of Mithra as the newly-crowned Ember Queen. But her own quest to decide the future of her land is thrown into question when a Fireling from a noble bloodline makes a claim as the true heir to the throne.

Maybe I'm just reading all the wrong books (and it's not like it wouldn't be the first time) but the genre fiction that I come across tends to focus on defeating someone bad or solving a huge problem. Either of these generally tends to result in the world (doesn't matter which) being saved but you don't generally tend to find out what happens next. For the record, I had a little think and Brian McClellan's 'Powder Mage' trilogy and Tad Williams' 'Last King of Osten Ard' books were the only series I could think of that tackled this problem... until now. 'Beneath the Dark Crystal' takes Kensho and Thurma, from the previous trilogy, and not only asks that question of them but has Kensho declare rather loudly (I'm assuming to the reader) that the same things are happening all over again and that something needs to change. How does that work out then?

Well, I think it's a pretty brave move of Adam Smith to not only go for a slow start but to so obviously have his Gelfling characters fall back into familiar habits. That's the whole point of this story and while it sets the tone, it doesn't make for an engaging opening. Luckily, Smith knows his characters, letting them run (and fly for a little bit too) and tackle the issue in their own way. Thurma's problems are not only particularly pressing (basically, kick starting her entire race so it can live again) but she also has a rival who has her own eyes on the throne. This makes her arc the dynamic one that pushes things along, her problems need solving right away, while Kensho's is the more thoughtful arc that takes in an entire world and asks, 'where do you start trying to make things better?' You can see straight away that Kensho is going to get bogged down in the detail but that is just the kind of Gelfling that he is and why Aughra chose him. He just needs to find that out for himself.

These two arcs dovetail really well then, showing two different ways of answering the same question with characters that we're already invested in. That last bit is all the more important as of course we're not going to get our answers straight away so what we need are reasons to keep reading other than waiting for those answers. Kensho and Thurma are those reasons, characters whom we have seen come a long way already and now there's a little further to go. Thra and Mithra are not particularly dangerous worlds (except when the Skeksis are involved and we haven't seen them, yet...) so there's no sense of a cliffhanger which does leave the ending feeling slightly flat. Again though, Kensho and Thurma rescue it. Adam Smith has taken these two characters on and demonstrates superbly just how well he knows them. They are where they are because they desperately want to do the right thing. I won't be picking up the next book to see if and how Kensho escapes from jail or whether Thurma gets to keep her throne; I'll be reading it as I want to see both of them succeed, they're good people and part of that is because Smith knows them so well and tells just the right story as a result.

It's not all about Smith though. Alexandria Huntington not only takes on the art duties for Volume One but also takes an approach that threw me to start off with but ended up being just the right note to hit. The lack of detail in the background doesn't feel right to start off with as the wider world has always played it's own starring role in the past. Then you remember that this story is about people and that's where Huntington really comes into her own with 'face work' (you can tell I'm no artist...) that really connects you emotionally with the characters. I really hope that Huntington sticks around for the next two volumes, I'm interested to see where the story goes and how she depicts it.

'Beneath the Dark Crystal: Volume One' takes a while to get going but then you realise that's the whole point and it becomes the most thoughtful 'Dark Crystal' story yet. I'm hoping for more of the same in the next book, just need payday to happen before I can buy it...