# The Legend of Eli Monpress (omnibus edition)



## Boneman (Jul 14, 2012)

The Legend of Eli Monpress is a curiously seductive tome: something that seems a far-fetched idea, even for fantasy, quickly becomes an acceptable, enjoyable ride that adds layers of plot and characterisation so seamlessly that you barely notice. Those worried about info-dumps will have no problem with Rachel Aaron – she concentrates on the characters and brings their backstories in by very slow degrees, allowing us to be swept along by the action of the present day she skilfully narrates. It’s as though you’ve walked into a film part way through, and the strength of the characters, and the wonderfully magical surroundings don’t make you question: ‘what happened before?’- you just want to sit and soak it up. 

Eli Monpress is a thief, possibly the greatest thief of his age. This is a well-worn trope we’ve seen in many books. But Eli is also a wizard, and a fairly unique one at that. He can talk to the spirits – not the dead, but the spirits of any object. In the opening chapter, we see him awaken the spirit of the huge oak door to the prison cell he’s held in, reminding it that it used to be a tree, and convinces the door to push out the nasty iron nails that hold it together so painfully. This is just a preamble to Eli succeeding in his self-appointed task of kidnapping the King and holding him to ransom, aided and abetted by the spirits of the castle walls, who give up their secrets to Eli, when he asks nicely. 

Because Eli has an ambition, besides acquiring precious objects and wealth: he wants the reward for his capture to rise to one million gold standards. When we first meet him, it’s at a lowly twenty thousand, so we know there’s a long journey ahead. The Legend of Eli Monpress contains three books in one volume and a further two are due out shortly (so there won’t be years to wait - an overused trope by some authors/publishers in my humble opinion). There’s no explanation from Eli for this ambition, and I’m sure it will be revealed in the later books. I half-expect him to hand himself in, claim the reward, and then escape...

Opposing Eli is the Spiritualist Court – wizards who control spirits of fire, water, lava and so on, and work for the good of mankind. Naturally, there’s a rogue wizard or two to liven up the story, but Eli’s particular nemesis is Miranda Lyonette, a spiritualist (again, in the sense that she works with the spirits of all things, not talking to dead people) sent by the Court to apprehend him. Although she manages to get her hands on him once or twice, things never seem to go as planned, and she invariably ends up helping him in the name of the greater good. And Eli travels in the company of a master swordsman and a girl who contains a demonseed – the greatest threat of all, if it awakens, and becomes a formed demon. As the books progress the threat becomes ever more likely, and we do move between the pov of all of them, as their stories unfolds. This perhaps, is the only distraction within the trilogy, as we often leave a thrilling sequence mid-scene to see what other characters are doing. Since the books are written in close 3rd person, there really isn’t another way to carry it through successfully, unless the author resorted to characters recounting to each other their thoughts and side-stories, which wouldn’t work, with the amount of furiously exciting action that goes on as each book comes to its climax.

There is tremendous humour in Aaron’s writing, which doesn’t threaten the storytelling by trying too hard. She’s handling some complex plot threads, and the humour comes as a character issue, which adds to their arc, rather than a clumsy attempt to make us like her hero. I found the balance just right: Eli Monpress is hugely likeable, and Miranda is a sympathetic opponent, who you know is going to continue to be important in the books to come. Aaron’s world is painted with an assured hand, and her descriptive prose is concise, even if she does go overboard a little with character descriptions. And watching over her world are the Shepherdess, the Weaver and the Hunter – looking down Olympus-like on the lives of mortals below. There’s a special relationship between Eli and the Shepherdess, the origin of which hasn’t been revealed yet, but he’s not too happy with her and always rejects her offers of help, even though it would work to his advantage. 

Published by Orbit, the trilogy is almost 1,000 pages long, and £12.99 is a good price for an omnibus edition. I’m looking forward to the concluding books, and hoping for a truly epic climax.


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