Dark of the West
Dark of the West
Now it’s only me and the colourless plane ahead. He tries a sudden roll, wings trembling with a rookie’s grace. I roll as well, still on his tail, and mimic every move he makes. Left, right. Back and forth. His strategy’s nonexistent. He tries to wiggle his wings, like it’s some kind of message, and I hesitate. Time to end this pointless game. I dive a bit lower than him, a feigned surrender, giving him a moment to look around in confusion, then open my throttle and surge upwards again, attacking from below. The rebel plane can’t outrun this. There’s not a chance. I fire at the undercarriage with my cannon. Bright flames shoot from the plating as I pass beneath and away, pieces of metal pelting me, and the little fighter goes into a spin much too steep. There’s a violent shudder through its body. Stalling. The right wing tears off, giving into the pressure. Black smoke erupts from the burning engine, thick and ugly.
Get out of there, I tell him over my shoulder. Hurry the hell up.
A flash of orange, bright as noon, explodes five hundred feet below me. Flames streak through the air. I stare, hand still on the trigger, watching with some kind of terrible fascination as it plummets for the sea in a mesmerizing storm of colour and scattering metal.
Dark of the West is the first book in a fantasy series set in a World War I-inspired world. Athan is the son of a general who is conquering territory in the east. Athan trains to be a pilot but wants nothing to do with his father’s wars. The General visits the kingdom of Etania, ostensibly to pursue an alliance with the Queen. Athan is brought along, under cover, and told to get close to the queen’s daughter Aurelia and get information out of her. Aurelia and Athan fall in love, but Athan never reveals he is the General’s son.
The General sends troops to the South to quell a rebellion, and Athan is required to join them and get his first battle experience. Aurelia learns about the rebels’ cause and the potential ties that her mother, the Queen, has with the rebel leader.
Athan and the General return to Etania for Aurelia’s birthday; unbeknownst to Athan, the General has planned a coup, accusing the Queen of murder. Athan tries to rescue Aurelia from the fighting, but Aurelia is determined to save her mother. Aurelia’s brother regains control of the kingdom; the General pretends he was just saving the Queen from protestors, and the two love birds are separated again when the General takes his troops home.
Dark of the West introduces a complicated world full of deceit and betrayal and two characters who are drawn unwillingly into the political quagmire. With a plot full of spying, alliances and backroom deals—inspired by European history—, this first novel is intriguing but often confusing and hard to follow. The narration alternates between Athan and Aurelia’s points of view, and, particularly in the beginning, the frequent shifting is frustrating and unnecessary.
Athan is the more interesting and well-drawn of the two protagonists: youngest son in a family of warmongers, he deliberately hides his talent for flying so he won’t be chosen for his father’s air force. But when his father threatens to send his best friend to war without him, Athan reluctantly passes his flying exam and joins Top Flight so he can protect him. Athan’s complex relationship with his father and older brothers is well-developed and interesting, and descriptions of flying and aerial combat are engaging action scenes.
Aurelia has less personality and voice; she has no particular goals other than to escape marriage to an older ambassador seeking her hand. Her narration is often descriptive or informative with little plot. Neither Athan nor Aurelia have a significant impact on any of the events in the story: they are observers and pawns in the games the adults are playing. Their romance is convincing but ultimately irrelevant.
The writing is long-winded and wordy. There are lovely descriptive passages, but a great deal of time is spent describing the political machinations of characters other than the ostensible protagonists, without ever adequately clarifying the stakes. Dark of the West would have been better at half its length.
Dark of the West, a unique setting and an opposites-attract forbidden love story, will appeal to YA fantasy readers, particularly those who like military stories and court politics.
Kim Aippersbach is a writer, editor and mother of three in Vancouver, British Columbia.