Fifty Shades of Black

I just finished reading Liane Merciel's "Nightglass."  This is a "Pathfinder Tales" fantasy novel, meaning it takes place in Paizo's "Pathfinder" fantasy role-playing game (FRPG) world known as "Golarion."  Of course, you will probably expect this to suck; after all, it's just there to sell a product, right?  Just like the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoon show was a show-length commercial for plastic toys, right?  But many of these "Pathfinder Tales" novels feature excellent writing, characterization, and stories. 

I confess that I am not an impartial judge, because I already like the "Pathfinder" FRPG.  If you can't stand the trappings of "Dungeons & Dragons," you probably won't like this novel; the novel features swords, fantastic humanoid races, wizards, and monsters.  If you can get past that hurdle, there is another hurdle: the first 100-odd pages describe oppressive life in an evil kingdom beholden to a dark, alien deity from another dimension.  If that isn't unappealing enough, this kingdom's ritual torture and disfigurement is graphically described through several chapters; this was the big hurdle for me, and the inspiration for my review's title (a reference to the popular sadomasochistic romance novel "Fifty Shades of Grey," except "Nightglass" removes most of the masochism from the equation). 

Ugh!  How horrible!  Yet, it was still better than reading Ray Bradbury's "R is for Rocket."  But I digress.

Like bicycling up a hillside, after lots of agony, the book eventually starts to let up and things get less unpleasant and more interesting.  The challenge is to get to that plateau.

The novel is ultimately a story of character development and a quest for redemption in a world full of painful choices.  Our protagonist is a boy with magical talent; he is tested for this, he tries to deliberately fail, but his deception is revealed and he is whisked away to a sadistic boarding school for spell-casters, where he makes friends with other kids who get magical training beaten, lacerated, and punctured into them. 

You may recall I mentioned 'a dark, alien deity from another dimension' above.  This other dimension is known as the Plane of Shadow, and it's something of a twisted version of the 'real world' of Golarion, populated by ghostly beings who have no real lives of their own and hunger for human emotions and/or physical sensations; and if joy isn't available, they are delighted to induce pain and misery as substitutes. 

Similarly, this magical boarding school part of the novel is a twisted version of Harry Potter's time in Hogwarts school: our protagonist is whisked from a comfortable home life to an institution of gruesome horror; one where Ron Weasley casts spells at the cost of his own flesh (every time he casts a spell, a little piece of his body dies and starts to rot away); one where Hermione Granger has a brother who can't keep up with the lessons and the brother is irrevocably possessed by (consumed by? zombified by? sacrificed to?) a ghostly Shadow being, causing her in turn to be consumed with vengeance against the teachers who run the school; and like Harry Potter, our protagonist is tremendously gifted.

Later on, the story mirrors relations between the Native Americans and European conquerors; stone-age natives are living on barren land with a valuable mineral deposit, and a much more technologically sophisticated empire wants that silver.  It's a story that has played out over and over again, but is retold here with swords and magic. 

In the final analysis, the story becomes a fascinating exploration of how to preserve one's soul despite a lifetime of painful choices.  It's also an examination of morality in a world without moral absolutes; in short, what choice can one make when every option causes misery to someone?  Our protagonist is no hero; he clings to a sham of morality because he is disgusted by what he does, and the only thing saving him is the fact that he is surrounded by people who are even more horrible. 

I have said a small number of kind words about this novel, but there are lots of good reasons to not read this novel.  I don't like sadomasochistic material: I think that day-to-day life contains plenty of pain and misery to go around.  I would recommend this novel to almost nobody I know.  If you find the torture and mutilation in this novel to be entertaining, please seek help from mental health professionals.  Please take this review as a warning I never got, and one the cover blurb should have provided.