TRUDI CANAVAN Maker’s Curse: Millennium’s Rule Book Four. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Trudi Canavan provides a suitably epic final instalment to her Millennium’s Rule series with Maker’s Curse.
‘All you can do is make sure you only have enemies because you are a good person.’
The bestselling author of four previous series, including the Black Magician trilogy and the Age of the Five series, returns with a great conclusion to her latest, Millenium’s Rule – a fantasy series with a science fiction twist. Trudi Canavan has always included diverse characters and this series is no exception – not everyone is white, for example – and one story strand directly confronts racism and sexism.
The first book in the series, Thief’s Magic, introduced the two main characters, Tyen and Rielle, and their respective worlds at opposite ends of the cosmos. Throughout the series, the transitions between these two characters’ stories are handled smoothly. There’s just enough suspense for the reader to worry a little bit about Tyen when the story moves on to Rielle, for example. The transitions become shorter as their separate plots become more tense, continuing the delicate balance between suspense and pay-off. Rielle and Tyen don’t meet until the second book, when their somewhat complicated friendship becomes a central aspect of the rest of the series.
The world-building is also very detailed, with a scientific approach to magic as a resource that can be depleted. A few of its uses are also grounded in science: it’s clear to the reader that pattern-shifting, for instance, is the altering of an organism’s DNA with magic (though the term DNA is never used). On Tyen’s world, magic has been used to drive an industrial revolution. But there’s one big catch to these technological advances: the magic used to power the Empire’s many machines is running out. This illustrates the environmental theme running through the series, with other issues relating to overpopulation causing conflicts between entire worlds as societies compete for space and resources.
In Thief’s Magic, Tyen unearths an ancient, sentient book in a buried tomb during a routine archaeological expedition. This talkative book was once a woman called Vella, whom Tyen hopes to somehow restore to her original state. However, his concern for her welfare and safekeeping puts him on the wrong side of the powerful Academy.
Rielle lives in world where the use of magic is forbidden to everyone but priests, as magic belongs to the Angels. The corruption common in the ranks of the priests is revealed as unfortunate circumstances force Rielle to seriously contemplate using magic, despite the inevitable price.
Trudi Canavan vividly evokes her characters’ daily lives, more so than many other fantasy writers. For instance, throughout the first book one can’t help but hope that Rielle will get to live a normal life, worrying about ordinary things like money and politics, even though she’s clearly destined for greater, more magical (and more tragic) things. There’s attention to detail in this series, and to consequences: simply eliminating one key troublemaker doesn’t necessarily fix everything, for example, when the problem remains of how to put a society back together. The details are also often a source of humour, as in this from Maker’s Curse:
The city of Turo stank, as only a metropolis without good plumbing could stink… And yet, at night the city was breathtakingly beautiful. All walls were rendered with a pigment that retained light, and once darkness fell the city glowed a slivery blue. Turo needed no street lamps, and no dark corners existed for thugs and thieves to ambush their victims from. That didn’t mean no crime existed, of course. Successfully tricking money out of others was a source of pride among the citizens.
In book two, Angel of Storms, the Raen, the most powerful sorcerer and ruler of all the worlds for over a millennium, returns, closing the school of magic that Tyen has made his new home. According to an old prophecy, Millennium’s Rule, the Raen is overdue to be overthrown by a Successor – a sorcerer of similar power. Whether or not this conflict is fated and inevitable is a key question for the characters. Tyen gets caught up in the rebellion against the Raen’s rule, and has to decide how far he’s willing to go to restore Vella.
Meanwhile Rielle has made a new life for herself in a distant land, weaving tapestries and replenishing the world’s magic with her creativity, only to get caught up in a war. Her Angel of Storms returns, offering her a place as an artist in his heavenly realm.
It was such a relief that, for a change, the handsome, ancient and enigmatic being didn’t fancy the young female main character.
In book three, Successor’s Promise, Tyen is confronted by his worst nightmare, the creation of war machines using mechanical magic. He attempts to find weaknesses in these new machines and to follow the path that will do least overall harm to the people of the worlds. Rielle tries to protect Quall, a boy she has rescued, but begins to wonder if they can ever travel far enough to be safe.
And so we come to the final book, Maker’s Curse, which provides a suitably epic and satisfying conclusion. It begins with a thorough, yet organic, recap which takes places as Rielle travels around restoring magically dead worlds in her new role as the Maker:
‘We thank you… for your gift, and promise to do only good and kind deeds with magic.’
Good luck with that, Rielle thought, then reminded herself that good intentions that failed some of the time were always better than accepting and embracing the dark side of human nature.
Unfortunately, this great task means that she is far too busy to search the worlds for clues about the ancient prophecy known as Maker’s Curse or Maker’s Ruin, which warns that a maker cannot become ageless or the worlds will be destroyed.
Tyen continues to try to find ways to nullify war machines and set up his own school of mechanical magic. But when a new threat emerges, more dire than anything they could have imagined, Tyen and Rielle both have to reconsider their vows to avoid killing in order to save the worlds.
A key question throughout the series is what one is willing to do to protect a loved one or, worst of all, for the greater good to maintain peace and order throughout the worlds. There are a lot of hard choices, particularly whether or not to meddle in the affairs of other worlds when there’s a risk of making situations worse instead of better. The series also deals with science fiction themes, such as the inevitability that new technology will be used to make weapons. Like the technology stemming from it, magic itself is both a blessing and a curse and equally terrible things are done by people who believe it to be strictly one or the other.
There’s also the question of whether transferring a consciousness to a new body would even be possible or would just create a new person who has the same memories, rather than a continuation of the original person’s consciousness. The challenges and implications of trying to copy and implant an entire mind are examined throughout the later books in the series.
Overall, this is a very enjoyable series and the final instalment does not disappoint with some terrific but completely plausible twists that have been cunningly set up throughout all four books. It’s very insightful and hard to put down.
Trudi Canavan Maker’s Curse: Millennium’s Rule Book Four Hachette 2020 PB 544pp $29.99
Amelia Dudley studied plant biology and currently works as a tutor. She is the proud auntie of many nieces and nephews. In her spare time she reads, gardens, draws, paints and doesn’t get to do enough writing.
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