(courtesy Penguin Books Australia)
Valley releases 10 September in Australia via Penguin Books. (ARC provided by NetGalley)
When you’re reached the end of a gripping fantasy trilogy, where the stakes are high and the fate of multiple characters and narrative arcs hang precariously but meaningfully in the balance, sticking the landing is all but a necessity.
For the most part, that is precisely what Valley by Stacey McEwan does, following instalments one and two of the trilogy, Ledge and Chasm, which introduced us to a world in which winged creatures called Glacians, a mutated form of humanity who ruled the land they oversaw with violent terror, and the humans of Terrsaw, most of whom live in a sweeping valley presided over by an authoritarian queen, Alvira and some of whom, for reasons that soon become monstrously clear live on a snowy, near-barren ledge high up on a mountain.
Why a couple of hundred humans live a dog-eat-dog existence in snowy wastes far from their compatriots is the result of a twisted peace play by the royalty of Terrsaw which brokered a deal whereby the Glacians, who see humans as little more than easy to get at prey, would leave those in the valley alone so long as they had an easy access to other people.
Quite what they do to those people must be left to the reading of this atmospherically rich trilogy but suffice to say, the way in which one transported (against their will) village is taken high atop a mountain for a terrible hardscrabble existence, where they are constantly at each other’s throats in a desperate battle for survival, is a blot against the collective souls of the people of Terrsaw, even if most of them are unaware what has happened and why.
Soon, Dawsynm Ryon and the others – Tasheem, Rivdan, Hector, Salem, Esra and Yennes – will need to wake the rest. They will need to begin the journey to the Chasm’s end.
Dawsyn prays another end exists at all.
As we rejoin the characters of this engrossing trilogy, which sports an imaginative mythos, highly original world-building and compelling characters, the people of the village have been supposedly saved by “folding” them – think Star Trek transporters but using magic, not science – into the chasm below the mountain where one of their own, Dawsyn Sabar, reasonably newly imbued with magical powers (she has good and bad magic in constant, straining balance) is claiming to lead them to safety.
After fifty years atop their ledge, the villagers are, for the most part, eager to get on with their new life, happy to follow her but with food and drink supplies running low, and some within their number all too happy to tell Queen Alvira and the King of the Glacians where the escaping villagers are, getting away is not going to be easy.
It’s at this point in the novel, that Valley gets a little lost, both narratively with Dawsyn guessing that the way she is going is the right way – it’s a little more complicated than that and in involves some well-intentioned deception, and the burden of near-messianic leadership – and emotionally with the story stuck in the same “woe is me” groove, but the novel recovers quickly as supernatural powers mass around them and far more mortal souls come riding in, seeking to take away the villagers’ freedom before it has barely begun.
While the chasm wandering section of Valley does feel a little prolonged, McEwan has so masterfully crafted her characters and so well put the set pieces into play that the novel soon recovers this slight wobble, and we go running pellmell into a final act that is absolutely worth the payoff.
So, sticking the landing wise, Valley delivers.
Quite how it delivers must, again, be left to the reading, lest spoilers ruin the final run to the finish line, but what can be said is that McEwan gives us a resolution which ticks all the romantasy boxes without feeling like the inherent tension in the will they-won’t they succeed storyline is leached away and all too predictable.
In fact, while much of what the average reader of the trilogy have likely longed and hoped for comes to pass, McEwan masterfully manages to deliver without ever making it feel like Valley is simply a wholly expected and rote final act.
In fact, while much of the narrative does go the route you expect, key parts of it manifestly do not, and it’s this clever ducking and weaving and twisting that grants this conclusion a real freshness and vitality, but also an emotional punch that you might not see coming.
The difference does not lie in the enemy, for the enemy has rarely varied. No. The difference lies in the company she marches with, for while forfeiting her own life has never worried her, the thought of losing theirs is a price too high.
It’s that ability to make Valley feel like a well-earned but imaginatively original ending to what is a very fine trilogy indeed that makes reading it feel less like exactly what you expect, and something akin to a surprise package where the pieces you wanted are put in place but not even remotely in the way you imagined.
It means that you are kept on the edge of your seat the whole way through, which is quite the accomplishment when everything is pointing to narrative piece A slotting neatly into B and then C etc; McEwan has always demonstrated an ability to make this genre her own and it’s on full, arrestingly involving display in Valley.
We get to see where all the characters end up, and most importantly, at least as far as rom-com part of the story goes, where the grand love affair between Dawsyn and her heroically good Glacian partner, Ryon, finds its final, true home.
There are, in the end, a lot of moving parts and characters to account for and deftly folded into the grander, bigger narrative, but McEwan manages it adroitly and with real feeling, and by the time you reach the end of Valley, you feel as if you are emotionally and narratively satisfied and not simply by the bare minimum ticking of boxes which some other fantasies might attempt as they try to wrap things up.
Valley is far from a case of doing the expected and the predictable, and for the greater part it not only sticks the landing but gives you one of the more satisfying conclusions to any trilogy you may have read, ending things in such a way that you feel justified in reading the three books and investing so much of yourself in the fate of Dawsyn, Ryon, their chosen family and the land of Terrsaw itself.