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language: English
country: South Africa
year: 2019
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
series: Mkalis Cycle, #1
dates read: 12.4.26-21.4.26
I enjoyed Kerstin Hall’s The Border Keeper, first and foremost because it just has good prose. I would describe it as “dreamy”, appropriately for a book set mainly in a series of Otherworlds. Hall’s descriptions are both vivid (sometimes lush and sometimes unsettling) and not-quite-real, combined with compellingly-drawn characters.
the book follows a man named Vasethe, who has traveled to the house of the Border Keeper — currently known as Eris — an immortal entity who guards the border between Ahri, the realm of the living, and Mkalis, the realms of the dead. as Eris guides him through Mkalis in search of someone, it becomes apparent that she has enemies who are moving against her, though to what end neither she nor Vasethe can clearly perceive. the plot of the novel is made up of a series of excursions into Mkalis as Eris and Vasethe travel between several of its realms to try to unravel this mystery.
I was compelled the entire time I was reading; I do have to say, though, that there’s something a little bit insubstantial about this book. to some extent I think this is an issue of length: I think it probably should have been 50-100 pages longer in order to both more thoroughly set up the revelations near the end and give them a little more space. as it was, the end felt, uh, a little brisk. good, still, but it didn’t have the emotional impact it was clearly intended to (and that I wanted it to have). that it’s also kind of a story about Getting Your Family Back did also undermine the ending a bit.
the strengths of the book are its descriptions and its characters: Vasethe and Eris are each individually interesting, and their interactions add depth to both of them. the supporting characters, even those who only appear in a few scenes, are also memorably portrayed — and not only the inhuman ones like Lanesh, seemingly a human child encased or trapped within the transparent shell of a giant crab.
I also was really struck by (and really enjoyed) the way Hall handles her world-building, which is mainly through offhand comments, allusions to aspects of the world(s) beyond the narrative proper. this broadens the sense of the novel’s world(s) — it has a sense of travel in common with, for example, A Stranger in Olondria — and it also lets Hall imply the structure of her setting without belaboring it. even by the end of the book certain details are not fully clear, but they are clear enough for her purposes.
it’s a quick, fun read, and I’ll be looking forward to reading the sequel at some point soon.
moods: adventurous, emotional, tense