TITLE: Shorn
AUTHOR: Larissa Niec
PUBLISHER: Mercury Retrograde Press
RELEASE DATE: October 1, 2008
WEBSITE: http://larissaniec.com/main/shorn

PAGES: 336
ISBN: 9780981665403
PRICE: $16.95 (pb); $5.00 (ebook)

Shorn, by Larissa Niec, is a standout piece of fiction, especially from a small press. Niec’s prose is rich, evocative and gripping. She has created a rich and interesting world that she describes with a deft hand. Without much exposition or outright explanation, I soon had a sense of how the culture and cosmology of her world worked. The biggest criticism I might level against the book is that it is clearly the first in a series. After the last page I felt as though I had only read the opening act of a much larger tale, with no sense of satisfaction after the first book.

The tale is set in the fictional realm of Avelos, where disparate clans are united under a single High Chieftain. In ages past, a winged race known as the Avelune betrayed the clans and had to be struck down. Since then, anyone born with the markings of the Avelune have their wings shorn off and are forced into servitude. Jhared Denaban, trained to be a soldier, is one such Shorn who has many hopes pinned to him. His teachers raised him in a nurturing environment, hoping that a compassionate upbringing would tame his inborn sins. Political leaders want to see him fail so that he can be used as a weapon against the High Chieftain. And there are Shorn who pass on old tales of the Avelune that paint them in a more heroic light. They wish for Jhared to join their cause and help them steal their freedom. Through this, Jhared must pick his own path.

Parallel to Jhared’s point of view is that of Nemiah Gabriana, High Priestess of Avelos. Since an uprising by an earlier High Priestess, the High Chieftain has broken the church and turned the High Priestess into a puppet of the clans. But Nemiah sees visions of chaos that will soon strike Avelos, bringing pain and suffering to everyone. She must find the strength to force a solution in the face of those who would distrust any ambition on her part.

Avelos faces a double pronged threat as the story continues: The first is the threat of war with a neighboring kingdom; second is a destructive and unnatural wind that creeps through the land and leaves death in its wake. Some people believe the two are related, while others do not.

These narrative arcs weave together to build a compelling world to immerse yourself in. What I thought the plot was going to be at the beginning was not what the plot was shaping up to by the middle of the book. My initial thought when I reached that point was, “It took this long to get to the actual plot?” But I was mistaken. The entire book, in fact, was a build up to a bigger plot. There are some smaller personal plots that come to a tentative resolution for both Jhared and Nemiah, both internally and externally, but that got lost in the scope of the larger story. I really had to think to remember if there had been any sense of resolution for anything.

As much as I enjoyed Niec’s writing, the unsatisfying ending sticks with me. There is no indicator for when the next book will come out, though Shorn was originally published three years ago. Since they’ve given the series a name, I’m going to guess that the author didn’t intend just two books. This makes the hope of resolution in book two seem faint. If you want engrossing prose, you will love this book. If you want a tight narrative structure that stands on its own, you may be disappointed.