In Golem, an isolated colony “booming with technology,” Lyaphend Farwalth meets up with the Prime Dictator’s daughter, Wave Haizer. She happens to possess an object Lyaphend wants—one that, with a mere touch, will open up Lyaphend’s mind to a...
In Golem, an isolated colony “booming with technology,” Lyaphend Farwalth meets up with the Prime Dictator’s daughter, Wave Haizer. She happens to possess an object Lyaphend wants—one that, with a mere touch, will open up Lyaphend’s mind to a past she’s forgotten. Evidently, more than a thousand years ago she was Enlenea, one of the “tainted” humans turned immortal by a mysterious energy. She belonged to the Elegies, a select few of the tainted that some humans worshiped as gods. While the tainted can be killed, they’re eventually “revived” in objects or living people; Lyaphend won’t truly know who or what she is until all of her memories have returned. As the story progresses and time passes, readers encounter a varied cast, including the red-eyed, sorcery-practicing Halians and other individuals often at odds with one another. The novel feels like a series of subplots; along with the story of the Elegies, there are narrative threads following the Reverentia group, determined to find the origin of the tainted’s power, and Argen, a young man from a “land far away” who travels to Golem. It makes for an unpredictable tale, as characters will suddenly resurface in later stories despite numerous years having passed. A standout among the vibrant cast is Regnal, an Elegy with no form of his own who “imitates things of his interest,” such as an avian creature. The prose shines, as when an Elegy utters, “Your flavoured animosity bitters my resolve,” or when Argen wipes “the cold sweat from his brow, cleansing his memories of a dream’s unrelenting musk.” All of this culminates in a smashing ending—one that the author can let linger or pick up at another time for a sequel.