When author John Lawson asked me if he could send me a copy of his book to read and review, I was a bit surprised. I had only been blogging for about three weeks and hardly anyone was visiting my site. I gladly agreed to read the book, and when I received my copy of Witch Ember, I made sure that it went right to the top of my reading list.
Witch Ember follows the life of Esmeree who was born with a magical ember that grants her the ability to use magic. Because of this special ability, Esmeree’s life has been filled with peril. Being forced to whore herself out as a child just to survive, Esmeree starts to receive some training on how to control her magical abilities. This training is a double-edged sword as she starts to receive more attention from the Medianist church who persecutes anyone found to have magical ability. While fleeing from the church Esmeree is attacked by friends and foes alike. All of the events lead up to a climactic battle that manages to close quite a few plot threads while leaving the story open for a sequel. The beginning of Witch Ember is confusing because the prologue revolves around events that occur in the middle of the book and the first chapter starting with Esmeree being a little kid. This jump in the timeline confused me, and I was about 75 pages in before I started to realize that the prologue is actually an event that occurs further into the story. Once I got a grasp on the timeline I started to enjoy the book a lot more.
The overall story runs a little long with a good portion of it devoted to the protagonist growing up in adverse conditions. I estimate about half the book is used to build up to the events in the prologue, and at times it seemed a little too wordy. There are instances where characters were introduced with time being devoted to them and then they just disappear with barely a word. Even though Witch Ember is a little wordy, it is very tightly written and the author shows a remarkable ability to not lose control of the story.
John Lawson has filled the world of Witch Ember with mysterious races and multiple human nations. Whether it is the brutish Bracks, the woodlike Alfs, or the mysterious Rraakks, I couldn’t help but be impressed by Lawson’s ability to give every race and nationality their own personality without following most standard fantasy stereotypes. For example, I was worried that the Alfs were going to be just another generic breed of elves. The only comparisons between them and traditional elves are that they both live in wooded areas. Lawson’s Alfs are more of a mix between flora and fauna than just another humanlike race.
While I am impressed by Lawson’s worldbuilding skills, I would have to say that his most impressive feat is the creation of extremely engaging characters. I quickly developed an emotional attachment to the protagonist Esmeree, which helped make the story more enjoyable. She is a likeable character who at times seems to want to do nothing more than just take care of her friends. The complementing cast of characters include the paladin Guiromelans, the magic user Llydaw, and the mysterious Drake all manage to perfectly complement Esmeree. The most memorable scenes were where any mixture of these characters interacted together, especially the paladin Guiromelans.
The only character related issue I had was with Lawson’s use of a specific dialect that is only used in Witch Ember. The use of this dialect almost drove me nuts, and I felt it was a more of a detriment than a complement in the story. Whenever I felt like I had some reading momentum, I had to stop and check the glossary to see what a word meant. Eventually, I got tired of checking the glossary, and I just tried to figure out what the word means through the context of the story. Unfortunately, the dialect is so different from standard english that even this was not easy to do.
Overall, Witch Ember is a good but not great book that is highlighted by it’s unique world and captivating characters. Besides the issues that I mentioned above, Witch Ember contains an engaging story that makes me respect the writing ability of small press authors. It is a shame that quality books like Witch Ember are hard to find while some mass market books aren’t worth the paper they are written on.
Note: I mentioned to John Lawson what I felt the low points of the novel were, and he mentioned that those are the two main gripes people have with the book. However, he feels so strongly about creating longer books with unique language that he went ahead and wrote the books the way he thought they should be written. I have a huge amount of respect for the author because of this.
Reviewed by Jeremy Brown, The Fantasy Review
© All Materials Copyright John Lawson 2006