Having finished this book yesterday, I continue with my series of reviews of the novels I read during my breaktime at work. This time the book is The Night Parade by Scott Ciencin. Another Forgotten Realms novel, this one is part of the Harpers series which ran to 16 novels in all. Each book in the series detailed an agent (or sometimes more than one) of the semi-secret organisation called the Harpers, a force for good in the world. This novel, is the 4th in the series, and was published in 1992. I bought it when it first came out and while I started reading it, it creeped me out and I put it down and didn't look at it again until about a week ago, when I was needing a new book to read and didn't have the money to buy a new novel. I saw it on my shelf and figured, I might as well give it a read.
The heroine of the book is Myrmeen Lhal, a seductive warrior woman who after being widowed, has inherited rulership of a powerful and wealthy city. Life is good for her, she has a small army of lovers and suitors, her people adore her and she wants for nothing. Yet she feels empty, as this excerpt from the start of the book shows:
It had been the storm of course. The haunting sounds of the rain had brought back momentsthat were better left forgotten. Better to concentrate on more pleasant memories,such as the young sculptor's touch as he had expertly worked her tender flesh for the past ten evenings,as if he were attempting to make her into one of his highly regarded works of art.Across the room lay a present that he had left for her: a bust of the ruler wearing her most wicked expression and little else. Behind her was the huge, round bed they had shared, topped with teal and black silk sheets that had been wrestled into unnatural formations by their efforts. On the floor lay a pile of black and gold pillows that had been tossed from the bed in a frenzy that continued to delight Myrmeen when she thought of it. The chamber was lined with several sculptures and paintings; many were abstract works of expression and all were joyous celebrations of life and love.
She clutched at the thin black sheath she wore as she hugged herself and sighed. Her life had turned out better than she had ever believed it would. She would not allow herself the ridiculous indulgence of self-pity. For as long as she was able, she would push away the growing realization that for all her wealth, for all the dreams she had made real, her life was hollow and empty.
Into her world comes her ex-husband Dak who informs her that the daughter she thought dead at birth 14 years ago was in fact sold to slavers. Gathering a group of her old Harper allies, she sets off to find and recover her, travelling to the distant city of Calimport, a vast arabian styled metropolis, with huge slums surrounding grand palaces and temples. It is here that she encounters the Night Parade, a truly ghastly collection of nightmare monsters, thought by most of the people of the Realms to be mere superstition.
Recovering her daughter proves to be the easy part, getting away with her though is far harder, as the creatures do not wish to leave alive witnesses who can testify to their existence, especially do-gooders like the Harpers, who would be more than likely to return with a far greater force to stamp them out. The book still creeps me out, in the most part because of the Parade creatures, which are grotesque, each one unique in its deformities and abilities.
The story time and again gives Myrmeen and her allies a chance to simply get away, and time and again they continue their battle, knowing that if tey got away they would live, but at the cost of untold thousands of other lives. The main villain is compelling, Lord Sixx, a humanoid figure with a set of six eyes in each limb, as well as the front and back of his torso. His clothing is designed with holes so that all of his eyes can be seen at all times!
I'm going to give this book 4/5, it is good and I enjoyed it, Myrmeen is a heroine that it is easy to understand and identify with, she is a mother willing to do anything to recover and keep safe her child. The book loses a point though because it doesn't really feel like a Realms novel, the Night Parade are like something out a Clive Barker novel and they don't fit all that well into the shared world. Still that's my only gripe.
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