Title: Song in the Silence
Author: Elizabeth Kerner
Year Published: 1997
Genre: Fantasy, romance
Serialization: First of trilogy, can be read alone
Rating: 5/10
Premise: Lanen Kaelar has dreamt of roaming far and wide to explore the land ever since she was a young girl. More importantly, she has dreamt of meeting the mythical great dragons of Dragon Isle–so different from the dumb, cattle-like ‘dragons’ on the mainland–and bringing their wisdom and knowledge to the human race. Their song calls to her, and she yearns to understand what drove the great dragons to self-exile.

When her remaining family, her cold and stoic father, passes away, she leaves care of the homestead with her cousin and embarks on a journey to find a ship that will brave the legendary Storms to arrive at Dragon Isle, in the name of collecting the precious healing leaves that will only grow on that island. Unfortunately, she unwittingly traps herself with the harvesting party of Marik of Gundar, a shadowy figure from her mother’s past who deals with demons, and who may very well have a claim to her life.

So it’s a good thing that the great dragons do exist.

Review: I first read this book probably about eight years ago, at the height of my pulp fantasy phase, and immediately proclaimed it my favourite book ever. I’ve been looking for it in bookstores for a long time (for some reason, it never occurred to me to just order it online) so when I came across it in a used book store last weekend, I couldn’t resist picking it up.

I remember thinking eight years ago that the book was perfect, and that there wasn’t a single thing I’d change about it… I’m certainly glad my tastes have evolved from where they were eight years ago. Don’t get me wrong; I still really enjoyed reading it. It just wasn’t perfect.

The narrative style was as interesting as I remember it to be, at least. The book is written in first-person, but the perspective switched around from character to character, which is pretty much the biggest violation of the “show, don’t tell” rule I can think of. While it was sort of neat to see the thoughts of the different characters, this narrative style makes the entire story progression rather clumsy; there was no subtlety of emotions, no sense of suspense, and any foreshadowing that did take place was far too blatant to be mysterious. Writing the same scene from the perspectives of multiple characters makes for a good writing exercise; I’m not sure it makes for a very good book.

I enjoyed Kerner’s dragons, and there was just the right amount of detail put into the lore behind the races in her world. (One of the reasons I drifted away from pulp fantasy was because I realized I relished characterization, not world-building, so too much detail will actually turn me off a world.) I like the idea of the dragons communicating telepathically, and that the telepathic communication cannot be used to transmit lies. I liked the idea of a healing sleep, of lesser dragons whose souls were stripped from them, and of the mating dance. So I wish a bit more time had been spent building and establishing the dragon community and the dynamics therein, instead of just focusing on the romance between the Lanen and Akhor, the main dragon protagonist.

Which reminds me: I understand that the author set out to write a romance novel, and that the attraction between Akhor and Lanen is a pretty big motivating factor behind a lot of the events that unfurl, but it’s a little misleading to set up a character as being adventurous and no-nonsense, before having them turn around and fall irrevocably in love. Given that Lanen resigned herself at the young age of 24 to spinsterhood and describes herself as plain and manly, there should’ve been at least a little bit of internal conflict concerning her speedy descent into cloying nicknames and eternal declarations of affection. If the point of this change of attitude was to transmit a sort of “love comes when you least expect it” message, it could do with being slightly more opaque. If that wasn’t the goal, and I don’t think it was, then it needs to be more believable.

There’s not much else to say about the book. The main plot itself was fine. A little predictable in retrospect (and not just because I’d read it before), but I appreciate how difficult it can be to come up with original fantasy plots within the constraints of the world that Kerner had built. Some of the more shadowy details from Lanen’s past were well-spun, and would’ve been better served had they emerged as clues and allusions rather than in a gigantic narrative from the man who essentially acted as her surrogate father for twenty years. The villain was villainous enough, if a bit one-dimensional (more development of his demon contractors would’ve fleshed him out a lot more).

All in all, it was an easy and entertaining read, but now I’m not sure what to do with the copy of the book that I’ll probably never pick up again. Sell it back to the used bookstore?