Bound in Darkness - Kim ten Tusscher

Last month I reviewed Kim ten Tusscher's debut novel Hydrhaga, which has recently appeared in English translation. The package the author sent me also contained a copy of her second novel Bound in Darkness. It is the first novel of the Lilith trilogy and a much more ambitious work than Hydrhaga. The Dutch edition first appeared in 2010. As of this year, it is available in English too. I'm not entirely sure if and when the other two volumes will follow. In my review of Hydrhaga I pointed out quite a few things I had problems with. Bound in Darkness shares some flaws with Hydrhaga but overall it is a step up in craftsmanship. Ten Tusscher has developed a much better grip on the plot and the pacing of the story.

The translation of this novel was done by Rianne Stolwijk. I read the Dutch sample provided on the author's website to get a feel for the translation. It looks like a more direct translation to me. The tekst of Hydrhaga deviated a bit more from the literal Ducth original. It's hard to compare the two as Bound in Darkness is better written, but from reading the original Dutch I got the impression Stolwijk is more used to translating technical texts rather than fiction. There is a fine line between literal meaning of the word and the author's intent. I think taking a bit more liberties with the text would have improved it. It's a matter of taste though. Stolwijk clearly has a good grasp of the English language and translating fiction always involves elements that can't be captured in the grammar and vocabulary of a language.

Lilith is on the run. She is desperately trying to escape her master Kasimirh, a magician forcing her into a life of servitude and violence to realize his religious ideals. While trying to steal food, Lilith is caught and in the fight that follows she nearly kills a man. The brother of this man brings her before the king of the nation of Merzia to face his judgment. To pay for her crime she receives a flogging and has to work off her debt to the king after he compensates the brothers for their loss and trouble. Placed in the care of the magician Ferhdessar and the head of the palace household Ghalatea, Lilith is safe from her former master for the moment but once again a prisoner. Kasimirh is not going to let his subject escape though. War is about to engulf Merzia. Another confrontation with her former master seems inevitable.

Once again Ten Tusscher picks a young woman as main character. Where Lumea appears to have had a reasonably happy childhood, Lilith's has been one of abuse. It makes the book a lot darker than Hydrhaga. The title of the novel is clearly fitting in that respect. Despair, guilt and paranoia are always close to the surface. Lilith's behavior follows a pattern seen in many victims of domestic abuse. On the one hand she fears Kasimirh and wants to be free of him, on the other he gives her the attention nobody else seems to be willing to give her. It results in a strange kind of dependance on him, one she spends the entire novel trying to shake.

There is a decidedly violent side to Lilith's personality too. She is a shapeshifter and can change into a powerful dragon. As such, she was very valuable to Kasimirh, whose dreams of world domination in part rely on her strength. She has been forced to wreak havoc on many a village in the past, killing countless innocent people in the process. The guilt of this weights heavily on her. It's one of the aspects of the story I had a problem with. Throughout the novel Lilith is being manipulated, tricked and forced to do certain things which results in the death of many people. At one level it is obvious that she would feel responsible for that but on the other hand the author is careful always to make sure the real blame lies with someone else. Lilith has quite a volatile character, it wouldn't seem that unlikely that she would make a genuine mistake at one point. The tragedy of many people who are forced to fight in a war is that they are both victim and perpetrator. I think Ten Tusscher didn't quite get the most out of her character here. The real tragedy is somehow always one step removed from her.

That being said, she is a much better developed character than Lumea. Ten Tusscher clearly put more thought into this character. More planning is something that is obvious in all aspects of the novel. I'm not sure there are people who can write a trilogy organically but Ten Tusscher clearly didn't intend to. She has a plan, the story has a clear direction and she completes the novel in what is both a natural break in the story and a hook for the next novel.

The worldbuilding takes a bit of a backseat in the novel. Ten Tusscher describes the religious roots of the conflict briefly and shows us how the political structure of Merzia works, but everything else remains in the background. There is an intense focus on the characters and the relationship between Lilith and the two manipulative magicians in her life that doesn't allow Ten Tusscher to get too descriptive. At times it makes the conflict seem a bit simplistic but especially in the scenes seen from the point of view of Ferhdessar hint at much more depth. Ten Tusscher leaves herself a lot of avenues to explore in the next two volumes.

After reading Hydrhaga I had adjusted my expectations for this novel a bit. Bound in Darkness is such a step up in quality however, that the novel turned out to be a pleasant surprise. So much so in fact, that I wonder if Ten Tusscher didn't do herself a disservice by having Hydrhaga translated. She might have been better off by starting with Bound in Darkness. Ten Tusscher seems to have found her stride in this novel. It is a solid start to the trilogy. Pick this one up and you'll be hooked for the entire series.

Book Details
Title: Bound in Darkness
Author: Kim ten Tusscher
Publisher: Alter Ego Press
Pages: 279
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Paperbacl
ISBN: 978-94-907-6747-1
First published: 2010

Hydrhaga - Kim ten Tusscher

Like in the English language world, Fantasy is a bit of a niche market in the Netherlands. The Dutch language market, with some 23 million first language speakers, is nowhere near large enough to support full time Fantasy writers. As a result, very few works of Fantasy originally written in Dutch are published in what would be considered a professional fashion in the English language world. The obvious answer for authors with ambitions of making a living as a writer is to get their works translated, with the English language as the big prize. Unfortunately that market isn't very open to translations. With so many native speakers clamouring for attention, shouldering the additional cost of a translation simply isn't worth the effort for a book that is not certain to sell. So what do you do to get a foot in the door? Have the translation done yourself. Thomas Olde Heuvelt has recently tried this approach and it has gotten him two spots on the Hugo Award shortlist. For some, it may be worth trying.

Getting a Fantasy novel in Dutch published is not impossible however. In the area between self publishing and traditional publishing quite a lot is happening in the Netherlands. One of the publishers operating in this area is Uitgeverij Zilverspoor. They have an editorial process, art direction and a nice website but with print runs more likely to be in the hundreds than thousands and a persistent lack of their books showing up in the brick and mortar book stores, it is unlikely any of the people involved are actually making a living this way. That doesn't seem to dampen their ambition though. Recently they launched a new imprint, Alter Ego Press, which publishes English language books. So far the number of titles is limited but I think it is an initiative worth watching.

One of the authors who had her books translated is Kim ten Tusscher. Her Dutch bibliography currently contains five novels, two of which have been translated into English. The author kindly provided me with review copies of the English language editions. The first one is Hydrhaga, a standalone Fantasy first published in Dutch in 2008. The translation was done by Judit Coppens, a name I haven't come across before. To get a feel for the translation I also read the fourteen page sample of the Dutch edition of Hydrhaga provided on the author's website. It looks like this new English edition also included a bit of rewriting. It is not a one on one translation of the text on Ten Tusscher's website. From what I can tell the translation has been done by someone with a knowledge of the English language that far exceeds mine. The prose is not stunning but it does do justice to Ten Tusscher's writing.

The story's main character is a young woman by the name of Lumea (moon symbolism is a motif in this novel) on a journey towards the mysterious city of Hydrhaga. Drawn by the promise of a carefree life, freed of the traditional role her society is trying to force her into, Lumea arrives in the city of Omnesia (which indeed seems to have forgotten part of its history). Nobody is willing to help her get to her final destination however, until she meets the mysterious Elion. Together they manage to find her destination, but things turn out to be quite different from what Lumea imagined. The city hides a secret that will quickly turn Lumea's hopes and dreams sour.

In this novel, Ten Tusscher is looking for the strong female lead that seems to defy so many authors in epic fantasy. In a way she finds her too. Lumea grows throughout the novel. She is barely mature and somewhat naive early on in the novel, but gains confidence and maturity as the story progresses. She is, all things considered, an interesting character. What I did have issues with, is the fact that her motivations mostly revealed to the reader long after her actions. The reason why Lumea left home for instance, doesn't come up until the halfway point of the novel and even then it is only partly explained. How she managed to convince her parents to let their barely adult daughter go on a journey to a far away city that doesn't appear on any map on her own, is almost entirely glossed over.

What bothered me most about Lumea is the apparent contradiction between her adherence to the traditional religious beliefs of her people, her sadness at the disappearance of traditional cultural values,  and resistance to being placed in the traditional role of women in her culture. What her culture deems to be her place in society may not stem from its religion but usually these things are interlinked. On the one hand she is one of the few of her generation who sticks to the bond with the land and the connection to nature, on the other, she is something of a revolutionary. Not that these two things are mutually exclusive but Ten Tusscher doesn't manage to unify them in Lumea. Too often she swings from conservative to liberal views or from a pacifist attitude to determined to swing a sword. At times it made me feel that Lumea's character development was driven by the needs of the plot, rather than an attempt by the author to create a complex character.

The worldbuilding is in Hydrhaga is curious as well. It presents the reader with a strange mix of technological development. On the one hand there are airships and submarines, but riding on horseback is still the way to get around on land. Force fields and robotics have been developed but gunpowder or any other form of explosives are absent and fighting is done with swords. It is as if the novel can't quite decide whether it wants to be pseudo-medieval fantasy, steampunk or something else entirely. A clear sense of what is technically possible or an explanation for some strange omissions is lacking. In terms of worldbuilding, the novel is messy.

After finishing the novel I didn't feel like I had read a book that is going to storm the bestsellers lists. Hydrhaga feels like a very organically written piece. The need to find out what comes next and to get to the end of the story overshadow the structure of the tale and the consistency of the world and its characters. Especially later on in the book there is a sense of urgency in the writing that will make the reader want to keep going until the final page is turned. Readers looking for this kind of tale could do worse than pick up this novel. For the more reflective reader, Hydrhaga is less successful. The more reflective reader will see the cracks in this novel however. There is no doubt about the enthusiasm Ten Tusscher shows for writing and the Fantasy genre in particular, but there is some room for improvement in terms of structure, plotting and characterization. I'll be looking at her second novel, Bound in Darkness, in a few weeks time. It'll be interesting to see how she develops.

Book Details
Title: Hydrhaga
Author: Kim ten Tusscher
Publisher: Alter Ego Press
Pages: 206
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-94-907-6737-2
First published: 2008