Warning: Black Ice is dangerously readable! (A Cavern of Black Ice - J.V. Jones)

Member Name: English Lady

Product:	A Cavern of Black Ice - J.V. Jones
Date:	29/01/06 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great plot, great characters, great read.

Disadvantages: For some, maybe it's a bit too dark.

A cavern of Black Ice by JV Jones gives itself away in it's title. It is dark and it is cold. Now, those two words are rarely ever used in a positive light, but here they are.

Raif Severance and his Brother are members of the Blackhail clan. They hunt, mine, farm and exist in the cold, wooded places called the bad lands. They're out on a hunting trip when they disappear from camp for a while, however when they return it seems everyone, including their father and the clan chief have been killed. The thing is, there is next to no blood shed and the brothers fear magic was involved. After preparing the bodies for their journey to the next world they travel home and found that Mace Blackhail, the Clan chief's stepson had beat them to it and has told the remaining clan a different version of the tale which makes him the hero. Raif stands up to Mace here, accusing him of involvement in the clansmen's death, and this seals his fate. Once Mace becomes clan chief he manages to ostracise Raif, purely because he continues to stand up to Mace, challenging his power.

Raif leaves the clan, his brother and his sister and travels with his trader Uncle; Angus. Angus is far more than meets the eye, he is wise and knowledgeable beyond the bounds of a simple traveller and tradesman. Raif is erased from the clan stone, a grave consequence that means he no longer belongs. He has been reject by his clan and by his family and can never got back to his birthplace ever again.

Asarhia March, known to most as Ash, is the luckiest girl alive, or so it would seem. Abandoned outside Spire Vanis, a massive, dark city she is adopted by the overlord, Penthero Iss. She lives her days in luxury, but she is trapped. Her maid is spying on her and she has no privacy at all. Her adopted father is also far too interested in when her first period will arrive, and so she plots her escape.

Two seemingly unconnected characters are introduced in this novel and you know they will end up meeting each other in the end. Raif rescues Ash with his Uncle's help and they find out she holds some very powerful magic. She is a Reach. She connects with another world, a hell world where the monsters and ghosts want to escape and cause havoc in the Northern Territories. Ash has no control over this power, she has to find the Cavern of Black Ice to expend her power safely, without opening a doorway to the other, evil world.

JV Jones was born in Liverpool in 1963 but now lives in California. She is a very good fantasy author who's main focus is on her characters and their surroundings. This doesn't mean her plotlines are weak, far from it, but you will find them intrinsically tangled up with character description and scene setting. She opens up a whole world of pre-industrial clans who survive off the land and their own wits. Through her eyes we see forests, woods, rivers and ice plains as well as streets and houses and palaces of bustling cities. JV Jones creates a whole new world in this book as well as telling a damn good fantasy tale, No wonder it takes nearly eight hundred pages to do so!

This novel is the first in the Sword of Shadows trilogy, the third book of which has only just been written. According to her website (jvj.com)it needs editing and proofing before it will come to the market, which as I am nearly finished with the second volume, is not good news, I don't want to wait.

A cavern of Black Ice, spends a lot of time setting the scene. I suggest reading it in bed, or in front of a roaring fire as it gets very cold at times. The author's description of the ice and the chill really will make you shiver, I can guarantee it. The setting is bleak, the times are bleak and the characters outlook on life is often bleak, however this is not a depressing novel. It is, however, very dark. Death, mutilation, torture and bodily functions all feature in minute detail and if you have a disposition that means you can't sit through an episode of ER, I would recommend steering clear of this particular book and author.

No character is purely good, everyone is tinged with evil. This makes the story very believable, as we all know life isn't all black and white, it's got several shades of grey in between. On the other hand there is good in everything also. Maybe it is because I am an optimist, but all through this story I found hope. Even the Villains, Iss and his Captain of the guard Marafice Eye have their good traits. The book seems to explore and expose the fact that villains aren't pure evil and heroes are not pure good.

Love, faithfulness, honour, dedication, kindness and belief all interweave through Jones's beautiful, flowing language lifting this novel from being completely dark and depressing to something inspiring. So inspiring that you will not be able to put it down. This author has a gift; a gift that makes her so very readable. Her use of language is poetic but it's also simple. The sentences flow together easily, you'll not have to pause to look up a word in the dictionary, but you will not feel the language is too basic, either. Combine this with her character development skill and her imaginative plotlines and you've got the perfect mix for a well written novel.

If I have a slight grumble, it's only this. Sometimes, when she is deep into describing something that she feels is very important, she uses the phrase "Like a…" far too much. Her similes are always spot on and illuminating, her sentence structure just needs to vary a little more in places, but that is a teeny-tiny nit-pick.

JV Jones is very much a writer in the style of David Gemmell and in the same field as Robert Jordan. In my opinion she's pretty much on a par with Gemmell and vastly superior to the ever twisting, all description and no action writing of Jordan.

Read the below extract, and judge for yourself:

"The screaming of the wind woke him before dawn. The fire was long dead, and the temperature in the shelter had dropped below freezing. Ice smoke hung in the air above Raif's body, like a small piece of his soul. He lay still for a while and listened to the wind, like Tem had taught him. The high- pitched whistling told of air forced through mountain passes and needle-thin fissures in rocks. The undertone of white noise, a sound as soft as a mother shssing a baby to sleep, spoke of ice. The wind was full of ice."

You can pick up a new paperback copy at Amazon for just £3.05 and you can see copies going on eBay for as little as 25p.

It's cold, it's dark and it's full of hope. This is earth bound inspiration,common contradiction, an intriguing paradox.

A cavern of Black Ice is a heroic fantasy must read.

Summary: 1st book in the sword of shadows trilogy