Title: |
Tuyo |
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Author: |
Rachel Neumeier |
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Category: |
Science Fiction / Fantasy |
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Rating: |
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Date Reviewed: |
March 8, 2023 |
Neumeier constructs a fantasy landscape with two different environments. On the north side of a river is the land of the Ugaro - nomadic, barbarian tribesmen who live in a frozen terrain of ice and peaks, the snow apparently never melts there. Sometimes an especially deadly cold front called a "fengol" will descend upon the land, freezing anyone who is not protected and insulated. The Ugaro are light skinned, short but burly and powerfully built. On the south side of the river (I don't recall if the river was ever named) is the land of Lau. The Lau are tall, thin and dark skinned; theirs is a land of dry arid landscape, with farms and towns and civilization. It was an unexplained mystery how two such different climates could exist on either side of a narrow river (the river is so unimposing that it can easily be swum across). There isn't any hint of magic dividing the land, keeping all the cold on one side and all the heat on the other bank - the reader is meant to just accept that this peculiar climate is how the land of Tuyo works. The front cover depicts this strange ecosystem. The Ugaro fear sorcerers, and rightly so. In Tuyo, powerful sorcerers have the ability to read your mind, place false memories into your head, make you see illusions, or compel you obey their every command. A powerful sorcerer can apparently do all of these things to many people simultaneously. The most powerful sorcerers can control an entire army over large distances. How the sorcerer can exercise these powers is never explained, there are no spells nor exhaustion nor magic devices nor supernatural aides. The sorcerer seems to want something to occur, and it does. Weaker sorcerers can do "cantrips" such as start a fire or they can heat or cool the air over a small area. The hero of Tuyo is Ryo, a Ugaro barbarian of the inGara tribe. Ryo has been left behind by his fleeing tribesmen - they are about to be overwhelmed by the superior Lau troops, and so the Ugaro offer a sacrifice to their enemies - take this victim, known as a "Tuyo", and let the rest of us escape. A Tuyo can be killed in any manner that the superior force desires, though hopefully it will be mercifully swift and his skull will be returned so it can sit on the same shelf alongside the skulls of his ancestors. But the Lau general, Lord Aras, does not kill Ryo, instead he makes him a special guest. For the next 200 pages, Aras and Ryo talk and apologize and make oaths and explain and apologize some more. Even worse, everyone in the Lau army talks this way (and later, when we meet up with some Ugaro barbarians, they talk in the same tiresome manner). Everyone is so damn empathic and trying to make themselves clear and working through unintended insults and on and on. It is quite tedious. Although there may indeed be a society that talks like this, it does not lend itself to snappy dialogue. Rather than being captured by an army of Lau soldiers, it seems as if Ryo has been captured by an army of therapists and counselors. For some reason, Lord Aras spends hours and hours every evening talking to Ryo. Aras has been tasked with searching for a mighty sorcerer who is said to be prowling the borderlands - so shouldn't he have bigger concerns than one unimportant barbarian? One thing that annoys me in novels is when the villain acts in a way that makes no sense except to throw up obstacles for the protagonist. I feel Tuyo was guilty of this flaw, as I shall explain in the spoiler section. A believable antagonist ought to be work to his/her own goals, seeking to advance whatever evil scheme they have in mind. When I read about a villain acting in a manner that apparently is merely to thwart the hero, I think that is lazy plotting by the author and I don't enjoy it. Tuyo disappointed me; I will not search for the next book this series. I think I will skip Neumeier's books in the future. |
