Book Review: The Storm Lord

Book Review: The Storm Lord by Tanith Lee

Raldnor has long known he was different from the other children in his Southlands village. They are fair-skinned, he has dark skin. They can speak mind-to-mind to supplement their words, he appears to be mind-deaf and mute. They seem unruled by their loins, while Raldnor has entire seasons where he is consumed with sexual lust. He has made no friends here. And now that his foster mother is dead, nothing ties Raldnor to the village.

Now must Raldnor leave the home he has known, and seek his true heritage and destiny. The destiny of…the Storm Lord!

This “adult” fantasy novel is the first of the Wars of Vis series by British writer Tanith Lee (1947-2015.) After the critical and sales success of her breakout novel The Birthgrave in 1975, DAW Books was more than ready to publish this volume in 1976.

The book actually starts with Raldnor’s conception. Rehdon, Storm Lord of the Vis, is out hunting in the plains of the Southlands which his people have conquered. Rehdon has a severe case of blue balls as it is the Vis rutting season (and yes, making the dark-skinned people have “bestial” sex urges is pretty skeevy) and he hasn’t gotten laid recently due to the queen’s pregnancy. He sees the priestess Ashne’e of the local snake goddess shrine and decides to have his way with her.

Ashne’e for reasons of her own agrees, though it’s made clear that her consent isn’t required from Rehdon’s point of view. She uses her advanced mental powers to ensure that she will conceive from the act, and supposedly sexes Rehdon to death. (In reality Rehdon’s treacherous advisor Amnorh gave him a drug to weaken the heart; any major exertion would have done it.)

Now politics comes into the situation. Vis law of succession is clear that the last male child conceived is the true heir. Amnorh cannot just kill Ashne’e while she is carrying a potential heir to the throne. So he rapes her to create doubt about whose child she’s carrying (there’s a lot of rape in this book) and carries the priestess back to the capital city of Koramvis.

Val Mala, the Queen of Vis, is not well pleased by this development, as she had just wanted her husband dead for the purpose of being regent for her upcoming child. What follows is some traditional wicked queen scheming, as Val Mala sends her handmaiden Lomandra to tend to/spy on Ashne’e, only to have Lomandra bewitched by the priestess. Raldnor is born prematurely and supposedly dies shortly thereafter, as shown by the severed little finger Lomandra presents to her mistress.

In reality, Lomandra smuggles the child to safety with the help of the one likable character who has appeared so far, both of them dying to deliver the baby to not the intended destination, but a random village with them not able to tell the villagers what’s going on. Ashne’e dies as well. Thus, even if Val Mala suspected the truth, there’s no way to track down the kid.

Ignorant of his heritage, though he knows he’s of mixed blood, Raldnor grows to young manhood in the isolated town.

Reading this book, I got the distinct impression that Tanith Lee cynically aimed it for a particular audience: Young men who feel like outcasts in their own society, who don’t get laid nearly enough/at all, and are convinced that it’s not because of their personalities, but because their true greatness is hidden and they need some sort of kickoff point to show their real potential.

The skeeviness is not helped by our protagonist’s attitudes towards sex. Having consensual sex with girls from his village leaves Raldnor frustrated because it takes so much time and negotiation, and the act leaves him feeling hollow. Rape is more physically satisfying but has a bitter aftertaste of guilty conscience. He reaches a more acceptable to him compromise with paying prostitutes, and (once he’s got some temporal power) accepting the come-ons of court ladies. (One lets Raldnor know she’s carrying his child and his response is roughly “are you trying to trick me into going exclusive with you?”)

Eventually Raldnor meets his soulmate, his half-brother King Amrek’s new bride Astaris. She has a personality disorder that makes her think no one outside herself is a real person–except now Raldnor, whose mental powers are now awakening in response to her. Amrek and Raldnor don’t know about their relationship, so the king had made our protagonist a trusted captain of his guards and put Raldnor in charge of Astaris’ security detail. Oops! Cuckolding ensues and Raldnor has to have his death faked to escape.

Other content issues: The “persecution flip”, where the pale-skinned, light-haired people are oppressed by the dark-skinned, dark-haired people, brings up some uncomfortable stereotypes. Queen Val Mala goes around in whiteface because she thinks it makes her more attractive. King Amrek starts a genocide against the Southlanders. There’s blatant homophobia (the culture of “boy-lovers” practices child sacrifice and is even more misogynistic than the main Vis culture.) A thirteen year old girl is depicted as deliberately seducing a middle-aged man.

Good stuff: Tanith Lee has a gift for lush, steamy prose that gets almost hallucinatory at times. The female characters, despite their story roles, have interior lives, rare in this kind of book (even if we do get confirmation that yes, the thirteen year old really did seduce the middle-aged man deliberately.)

Plus, about three-quarters of the way in, the author pulls the rug out from under the type of story it’s been so far. Raldnor finally learns his true heritage and comes into his full awesome mental powers, leading a rebellion against the corrupt Vis overlords–and is hijacked by the snake goddess who has been orchestrating events all along for her own purposes and goals. For most of the ending, Raldnor is nothing but a puppet. It’s…a bold narrative choice.

Recommended to, um, people who’ve read everything else by Tanith Lee, just to say they’ve seen it all. She put out much better stuff.