Back in high school, I used to read a lot of fantasy of the Tolkien-lite variety– mainly various “Dragonlance” books or anything involving dwarves, elves, or the shorts you’d read in “Dragon” magazine. It was not brilliant stuff, but it was comforting– and when I was that age, there was a certain comfort in reading stuff set in a familiar fantasy universe, where elves were snooty pretty tree-huggers, dwarves were burly gruff dudes with Germanic sounding names, and everyone started their adventure in an inn with buxom but feisty barmaids.

But after a while, I tired of the same kind of schlock, and I looked for other fantasy authors who were different, and who were not writing stuff set in the same old Ye Olde Western European D&D-esque setting. Well, I discovered Tanith Lee and later Neil Gaiman; but for the most part my fantasy reading dried up, since it seemed that decent fantasy authors with a unique voice where few and far between.

My stable of reliable fantasy authors is somewhat larger now– over the years I’ve become a fan of Jack Vance, Clark Ashton Smith, Ted Chiang, Guy Gavriel Kay, and GRR Martin. But so many fantasy books seemed inaccessibly dense and tedious, and were, God forbid, in the forms of trilogies or something even longer. It’s hard for me to keep up enthusiasm for a narrative when it continues for books and books. (I admit, I even have this problem with Martin.) Hence my love for Lee and Gaiman; they write lots of one-offs. But they don’t stint on their world-building either, their prose is well-crafted yet engaging, and their characters are always memorable, believable and with rich emotional lives.

Now, I think I’ve found another author who can write wonderful, distinctive non-cliched fantasy as well as any of my favorites; and that’s Vera Nazarian. She was giving away copies of her fantasy epic “Lords of Rainbow” on LibraryThing in exchange for a review, and I bit, because I’ve enjoyed her work in the past. It took me a while to get to it, but once I started reading, and I adjusted to her style, I devoured it in days.

“Lords of Rainbow” is really an amazing book. It’s very much in the vein of Jack Vance’s or Tanith Lee’s high fantasy, with a heaping helping of C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry stories. It takes place in the decadent, complacent city of Tronaelend-Lis, run by pleasure-loving but ineffective Regents in a world almost completely bereft of color. It follows the adventures of the lady sellsword Ranhé, who is shortly hired by haughty and idealistic lord Elasand who is on his way to the city for a mysterious errand; once in his service she finds herself embroiled in politics of the highest order, as well as involved (or is she?) with an insolent blond assassin. She then embarks on a quest to save the city from evil invaders, and to possibly even bring the gods of color back in her gray world. There’s romance, war, quests, gods and demonic adversaries aplenty, but all written in a way that’s compelling and utterly unique. While it touches on a few tropes that can be found in “Lord of the Rings,” such as the Regent for Life, Rightful King Returns, and Evil Overlord tropes, the feeling of the novel is much closer to the the (highly literate) fantasy pulp writers of the 1930s and 1940s, which is a welcome change from the usual ISO standard fantasy setting– plus I’ve never seen another writer tackle the ambitious concept of a world without color. It sounds like it could be cheesy, like “Pleasantville” with magic, but it’s not; it’s actually rather seductive.

It’s hard to believe a gray world could be so colorful, but Nazarian succeeds with lavish description and a fine eye for detail. I loved the decadent city in which it was set, with its hedonistic palaces, mauve-lit brothels, and archaic and half-forgotten religions. It was very reminiscent of the cities in Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique, in its arcane magic, obsession with pleasure and genial corruption; but the difference here was that Tronaelend-Lis, in the end, is rescued from itself. It was interesting to see that the whole story takes place in one town, but it doesn’t feel boring or stifled. Too many fantasy stories try to follow the “Lord of the Rings” template too closely, and often have their characters rather pointlessly wandering to and fro. Here, the setting is focused, and all the characters, as they live in the same city, are interconnected– and how minor characters can make a difference.

Speaking of characters, the characterization, which verges on a bit of ‘telling and not showing’ at first, becomes very strong. Fantasy is rife with ‘strong female characters’ who are pretty much just sword-wielding Mary Sues with urple eyes and glose hair; but Ranhé is a marvelous heroine, resilient, unpretty, highly competent and yet emotionally stunted. She’s never had sex, and she is miserable and insecure about her body. Here’s an excerpt about halfway through, when Ranhé, depressed over her boss’s lack of interest in her, is in the city’s red-light district, debating whether or not she should hire the services of an erotene (which is what high-class professional sex workers are called in this world). Little does she know that the erotene she finds is not exactly who he says he is:

Ranhé’s guts sank in a curdling terror of indecision, then again decision. She focused on extraneous detail, wildly, saw the metal trim of the street lantern across the street, watched the curve of the scarlet orb, the geometric shadow thrown by each of the columns, the swirl of silk and satin in the skirts of the woman passerby. She saw the small flying insects circle the glowing orbs, then land, and upon touching the surface of the orb, burn and go up in a faint milky smoke. The scent of their burning wafted on the night breeze, and then was again gone, to be replaced by the sweet perfume and tea and spice scents of the district.

The first one of them that is male, the first to pass those doors . . . Now. . . .

The ornate doors of the House of Erotene opened, simultaneous with her thought. Two forms came out, both wearing the Guild cloak. The first was petite, a woman.

The second was a man.

Ranhé felt the world go still all around her, and a pang of sickness pierced her innards.

The man, tall and striking, wore no hood. He turned to speak privately to the woman before him, and his long pale hair spilled forward, like the sun. He wore his cloak carelessly, and his hands were without gloves. A carriage rolled up to the curb, and the woman, turning to him for an instant—Ranhé could see her pale flash of face and a smile—proceeded to go down the stairs, and then the carriage.

The man did not go to assist her, only stood watching, and then nodded at her just before the carriage drove away. His arms were folded before him in a confident pose, and he swept the street with his bored gaze.

Ranhé stared at him, mesmerized. And for that reason, because she had been so incredibly focused, so still in the sea of moving people, his moving gaze stopped, and he saw her.

He saw her, a motionless island, across the street.

And he became still.

Ranhé felt herself moving. It was as if a sudden external force was controlling her puppet body from without, as she stepped away from the curb and crossed the street, and at one point was nearly run over by a moving carriage.

“Out of the way, blasted fool! Watch out!” the driver yelled out, taking her for a man.

Ranhé swayed almost drunkenly out of the way, and ignored the angry carriage driver. Like an automaton, she finally crossed to the other side, and stepped onto the walkway at the foot of the colonnade.

The stairs appeared so incredibly steep before her as she stopped for an instant, looking at the House—it was in that instant a monolithic temple of pale marble—at the burning orbs above her head, the symbol of the spiraling blossom.

And she looked up at the form of the tall man with the sun-hair, who stood like a cruel unattainable god of the House at the top of the stairs, observing her, his silhouette obscuring the light.

There was a madness in her temples. Blood pounded, and yet her forehead was like ice.

Ranhé, moving as though in a dream, felt her feet moving automatically, her knees bending, as she climbed each stair, the longest flight of stairs in her life. When she was at the top, just before him, she stopped, her head lowered.

And then, because she had always been brave fearless Ranhé, she forced herself, like one condemned. She gathered her last remnant of pride, and looked up at him, looked into his eyes.

For a moment, the world fell out from under her feet, and then resurged to meet her. She saw a face, a pair of lazy eyes, somewhat slitted, apparently bored—and yet somehow familiar. Where had she seen these eyes before? (Vera Nazarian, “Lords of Rainbow,” Kindle edition.)

A few caveats. The first half of the story was not quite as focused as I would have liked, since it takes pains to introduce various characters around Tronaelend-Lis. At first I was wondering where this was going, but take heart, dear reader– it all has a purpose (not dissimilar to “American Gods,” in how numerous minor gods are introduced throughout, even though they seemingly at first have no connection to Shadow, the hero). A little patience is needed at first, but there’s a great payoff at the end.

Also, this is not a story that one can just read on autopilot; the prose takes a little attention. The style is definitely on the Vancian side of things, in that it’s ornate, stylized, and at times somewhat arch; that– and the odd use of italics– takes a bit getting used to. But once I did, I found it to be a rich, immersive read that reminded me of a vibrant tapestry, filled with color, incident and pathos. The emotions in this story are all cranked up to 11 in this; I may have described other stories as ‘operatic’ before, but “Lords” is truly operatic– and epic.

This isn’t necessarily to everyone’s tastes. It’s a long, quirky– and occasionally weird– book that takes a lot of conceptual risks, but for me, I found it a breath of fresh air. If this sounds like your cup of tea, I’d highly recommend it.

“Lords of Rainbow” is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Indiebound.

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