Customer Reviews

Witch Ember

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
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Legend says that in the days when gods walked the earth, the god called the Trickster Man stole a Stone of Power. To cover his crime, the god ground up the stone, put it into some flour, and baked it into bread for First Ancestor to eat. But in his haste, Trickster Man did not grind the stone pieces fine enough. There were still pieces big as a piece of sand. Some were still the size of pebbles. When the time came for the first people to be made, they were created using pieces of the First Ancestor. Therefore, each person has at least a tiny speck of the Stone. Those who carry one of the bigger grains can do minor magic. Those who carry a pebble sized piece became powerful shamans. Of course, the people who could not summon power grew to fear the rare people who could. Thus, the people with magic are hunted down as witches and burned.

The story opens with the main character, Esmeree, being around the age of six. She is a street urchin, trying only to survive among the magic-fearing people of the Seven Kingdoms. Esmeree carries a big stone (a.k.a. witch ember) within her and tries to keep anyone from finding out about it. However, Esmeree must learn to use and control the ember's sorcery before she is declared a witch. Should that happen, Esmeree would be turned over to the Inquisition, tortured until she confessed, and then publically burned.

Lady Andelliza learns of Esmeree's ember and begins to tutor the child in magic. Old Myrdd, one of Esmeree's few friends, mentors her in ways that may one day help the child marry well above her station.

By the time Esmeree hits puberty, knowledge of her ember has leaked. She is continuously on the run, simply trying to survive one more day. Esmeree must master her ember before she is captured by the Inquisition, the Superbus Tyrannus Valven, Primate Klemm and his army, or even the notorious Fée.

**** This is a thick novel. Consider yourself warned. Having said that, let me add that once I got into the story, I could not put it down! In a few sections of the novel, as Esmeree's story unfolds, you meet Sir Guiromélans. He is a Raven of the Seven Kingdoms, one of the elite. (Think of him as a paladin of God.) I do not believe I give anything away by mentioning him since the second novel, "Raven", has already been released. By including the Raven within Esmeree's tale, I feel as though I already know him. Watching Sir Guiromélans, a paladin, struggling to deal with his honor and beliefs in order to decide whether Esmeree, a witch, is evil or not was very intriguing. Of course, to the church it does not matter whether the girl seems evil or not. (Have stone, will burn.) No, there is no real reason for me to even mention this paladin to you at all. But I cannot help myself. The author does such a masterful job, in the sections Sir Guiromélans is mentioned, that I came to know him as well as I do Esmeree.

As for Esmeree, author John Lawson may start this girl out at a very young age, but by doing so he makes sure that the character keeps her wits sharp and learns quickly. Toward the end of the novel it dawned on me that several of the small tales told to Esmeree, as well as some words of wisdom handed down to her early on, make more sense than I ever could have imagined. All-in-all, this is a well developed story that fans of fantasy will highly enjoy. I heartily recommend it! ****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Author John Lawson brings us "Witch Ember"; a gritty, dark fantasy set in a creatively crafted world where people are born with tiny shards or `embers' which lend them magical powers. Esmeree, the primary character is born with a large piece of this ember, and unknowingly possesses tremendous powers; however she is also unfortunately an orphaned child of `the Mill' where she grows up knowing only the horrors of prostitution, drugs and violence. Her role models are an assortment of unsavory adults, with only one or two creditable souls to help her survive. She is also surrounded by a collection of youths who are also part of this dismal, dirty world. Her greatest aspiration is to become a more refined, personal prostitute/concubine for the city's richest; it is her sheltered view of the world and her ignorance of her own power and potential that makes her ambition so limited. You watch her grow, and with it, her world as well. It starts focused on the mill and its scurrying, grimy inhabitants and broadens slowly as the story goes along. You learn as Esmeree learns.

You will find that Esmeree is a plucky character, and she successfully carries the reader through this very thick novel as she overcomes each terrible experience, and slowly begins to discover who she is, where she must go, and the extent of her `ember's power'. She is thoroughly likable, and despite how casually she perceives the trauma of her daily life, she has an honourable sort of soul, and she makes others around her better as well.

The author did a commendable job showing Esmeree's personal growth, and wrote a believable world imbued with the same political and faith-based upheavals as our own. The detail in this book is broad and you can get lost in it occasionally. It is a dark, coarse sort of book, I will not fail to mention that. The sexual content is explicit and without sugar-coating, and the violence is graphic and vivid. Those of you that are squeamish may not care for the content of Witch Ember.

As a reviewer, I do have some criticisms of this unusually tidy, well-put together novel. The author obviously enjoyed interspersing his many invented words into the book. He definitely took his time to create a world complete with its own dialects and slang. You can't miss these words; they are all italicized and infused with a pröfusion of symbols to make them appear exotic. Frankly, as a reader, all it did was make it distracting. This was really unnecessary and it does nothing for the flow of the book when you constantly have to stop, flip through the index, find the word and its meaning, and then find where you left off. And doing it again and again (for it is a sizable index) really just made me want to put the book down and go read something less arduous, like War and Peace. It nearly ruined the book for me, and that is a lot considering that this is a really good book. I think the language was overdone, and unnecessary for a story that can carry itself perfectly well without it.

This is definitely the neat, seamless work of a technical writer. I usually tend to look for errors and such when reading, as do the other reviewers here at Odyssey, and despite the symbols and the distracting language, I could find little to pick apart when it came to the quality of the writing, the cleanliness of the manuscript, and the author's ability to keep you riveted even through the slow bits and the index references.

I have to give Witch Ember five medallions. ONLY because I think it's a notable work of self-published writing, BUT if I were feeling less generous, I'd take a half or whole medallion away just for the time I had to spend looking up words.

Witch Ember by John Lawson is an extraordinary work of hard core Science Fiction/Fantasy. Intricately detailed, I found this novel reminds me of Dune by Frank Herbert in so many wonderful aspects.

Esmeree is a wonderful character with so many different traits that you can actually envision her in a 3-D format. She is top and foremost a witch/sorceress but doesn't realize this in the beginning of the book. Her character is developed slowly and the author is very dedicated to every detail of her.

The story starts out with Esmeree as a young child who has no parents and is left to be captured and work in the mills. Being on the bottom of the ladder so to speak really makes each little life action a hard learning experience. Esmeree knows that she is different from the other young children but doesn't exactly know why at first. It doesn't take long however for her to realize that what makes her so different has to be from her birthmark.

As time goes on in this novel, Esmeree's character develops right before our eyes over a matter of days, weeks and years to becoming a quite intelligent beautiful young woman. All of this comes at a large price that is most difficult for her to pay. She is used, abused, beaten and near death mores times than you can count. In fact, with all that Esmeree goes through it makes her a very strong character and she deals with what life throws at her with the highest of precision. Not that it doesn't knock her down a few pegs here and there but what she learns from this is hard and quite often inhuman.

The storyline is so rich that you really must read this a bit more slowly so as to not miss one single tidbit of what might be going on. It is brutal, sexually explicit and down right scary in some spots. Makes you really think about things that go bump in the night or about those stories you were told as a child to make you cautious and aware of everything and everyone around you. There is no childhood innocence here.

There are many other characters in this novel for periods of time, richly detailed and strategically used for their purposes. Some are extremely close to Esmeree and some are very alien. All are dangerous in their own ways but learning from them is worth the danger. They enrich the story tremendously.

The author gives us a world of bitter reality, harsh abusive lifestyles, greed and lust which make this some place I would hope to never see in my dreams let alone while I'm awake. With all this said I would have to give this author high kudo's for such an impressive masterpiece.

John Lawson has created an intellectually stimulating challenge to the senses in his first novel, Witch Ember. Modern readers may find themselves increasingly desensitized to violence and atrocities propagated relentlessly by the media, making the novel with true shock value a rare commodity. Look no further; the stimulation desired is practically overflowing from between the covers of Witch Ember.

As the life of Esmeree progresses from an orphaned street child into a hardened young witch with powers beyond even her own comprehension, the reader is introduced to a medieval universe where warring territorial factions enslave, rape, dismember, and murder anyone who strays within their grasp. Homicidal species terrorize the general population and magical warlords create a constant state of chaos. Esmeree's greatest ambition is to become a rich noble's sellāria: basically a paid mistress. It is a dark world with little hope and populated with individuals following the most primal of instincts.

This is a comprehensive fantasy world created by a very talented technical writer. Witch Ember is the first in the series, with The Raven as a sequel. A prequel and concurrent release are in the works, according to the author's blog. While The Raven is in my "to be read" queue, I'm interested to see how it compares to Witch Ember, as it will be a chronicle of the adventures of the knight Guiromélans, and I have become quite attached to fiery Esmeree. The novels are not compact light reading. At over 480 pages, Witch Ember may seem daunting to the casual reader, but once absorbed into the story, it is difficult to put aside. The author provides a glossary at the back of the book for defining his own invented terms, which is very helpful in correlating relationships.

Of course, the subject matter will be offensive to more sensitive readers. Lawson's characters are put through incredible amounts of torture and humiliation, and children are no exception. Because of the anarchic state of the civilizations, moral lines are blurred in areas and completely erased in others. The only hard rule is to do whatever is needed for survival. Prepare to be jolted.

I've read this book three times now and it never fails to lock me into the story. It's a story with depth and character that you just don't find on the shelves these days. I'd say you're missing one of the best books out there if you haven't picked it up yet.

Buy this book, read it, and tell your friends about it. Even better, buy it as a gift and share this wonderful tale. They will thank you for it.

This is not your typical run-of-the-mill fantasy book. This book is one of those that you can hardly put down until you finish the last page. Truly a wondrous book! I've read it once already, I'm in the process of reading it a second time! A must buy.

This book takes the reader on a adventure seldom matched in fantasy novels. It kept me interested through to the very end. I honestly couldn't put it down! I can't rave enough about the story ... it pulls you in and you feel the emotions, both good and bad vividly and in full color. There are no 'down times' to give you a breather ... it forces you one after another into the fast paced danger and thrills that fill it! 5 stars, Mr. Lawson!

Robin

I don't typically read fantasy as they all seem to be cut from the same mold; however Witch Ember caught my curiosity. It was recommended by a fantasy fan who said it was different. Well, he was right.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story. Dark and creative. The languages and games that John creates are well thought out. The characters really come alive as you start to feel yourself following the main character through her travels.

If you want something different. Something a bit out of the norm, this book is for you. If you like the cookie-cutter reads, then this one is for you as well. It'll let you see that there is another side to writing.

And so the story goes that in the days when gods walked the Earth, a Stone of Power was stolen by Trickster Man. To conceal his crime, he smashed the stone into tiny pieces and baked it into a bread he made for his friend, First Ancestor. Later, when it came time for the God Wejwej to create the first people, they were created from the various parts of First Ancestor. And because First Ancestor had consumed a Stone of Power, a little piece of that stone, along with it's accompanying power, was contained within each person. Most people carry just the tiniest speck or grain, while others like powerful sorcerers and wizards have one of the bigger grains, or even a pebble.

And then we have Esmeree...

We're introduced to Esmeree at around six years of age as a young homeless girl forced to work in the mills for her survival. The world in which she lives is hard and cruel, and most similar to medieval England or Tolkien's Middle Earth, or possibly some combination of the two, with Fey creatures, trolls, night stalkers, and other warrior-like creatures thrown in. The author did a terrific job of creating this fantasy world, with enough description and detail to really pull you in and make you believe you're standing right in the middle of it.

Esmeree has her own piece of stone residing within her as well, a rather large one within her chest. And though she doesn't yet fully comprehend the power lurking there, she feels it's constant tingle and knows enough to keep it secret as she learns more. Through the teachings of various people in her life, she eventually comes into her power and becomes a powerful witch herself. But unfortunately, once that power is brought to the attention of higher ups in the church and government, they will attempt to use it to their own ends.

The Medianist Church--which controls the magically-barren lands of the Seven Kingdoms and the Palpi city-states including Cliffs Reach where Esmeree lives--believes that only men have the mental capacity to carry these sacred embers, and that any female possessing them has surely gone mad or turned to a life of evil and witchcraft. They look upon witches in the same way they look upon the hostile Fée invaders from the magical lands beyond, and both are treated to torture and execution at the hands of the Inquisition, sometimes even at public displays held on festival days. This is definitely patriarchal dictatorship at its worst!

But upon reaching puberty and attaining her goal of becoming a sellaria, a paid mistress to the richer men of the city, Esmeree has unknowingly become a pawn in the Church's plans to discover others with stones. Everything Esmeree has learned so far in her life is in defiance of the Medianist ways, and headstrong as she is, she's not about to start conforming now, even if it means her life is on the line!

Witch Ember is a rich and fulfilling fantasy novel which takes place in an alternate universe. As mentioned above, the world crafted within these pages is extremely well thought out and detailed, as is Esmeree's character, who we follow for about 12 years of her life. The author manages to pull you into this world with his vivid descriptions of both time and place. And the action and violence, which at times captures the worst of human cruelty, can be quite brutal, but fortunately stops short of gore. In creating this unique world, the author also created its own slang and dialect local to the various regions, so you'll find many unfamiliar terms scattered throughout. Fortunately, these new terms appear in italics and their definitions can be found in a comprehensive glossary at the back of the book.

At 480 pages however, this book is not for the faint of heart. Taking me just over four weeks to complete, not counting the few weeks I had to put it aside so I could get a few other things out, I found myself happy to return to it, having grown quite fond of Esmeree. A word I like to use when describing books like this is "dense", referring to the fact that the reading is rich and detailed, like a thick, heavy syrup, which you tend to slowly savor, as opposed to light and fluffy, like a souffle, which goes down quicker. When reading these dense books, I definitely find myself reading slower than I would otherwise lest I miss something, and my one criticism of this book to that end is that there were many times I found the use of the new words, and having to look them up, counterproductive to its reading. Because of the richly detailed world that was painted before me, and the way I found myself pulled into it while reading, coming across a bunch of unfamiliar words would often disrupt that flow and yank me back out. I'd then look up the words in the glossary at the back and reread the relevant passages, replacing the foreign words with their English equivalents so that I could get back the same flow from it. Even if some of the words were discernible by context and didn't require looking up, I still found it disrupted my flow to have a foreign word inserted in the middle of all the English.

To this end, I thought it might help if the author introduced new words for the first time via a footnote at the bottom of the page, while still including the glossary for later look up. Though as another reviewer pointed out, the new language may not even be necessary. Sure it added a little bit to the feel of the place, each place having slightly different words for various common people and things, but I really felt that the created world was so richly drawn anyway that it wouldn't lose all that much without it. At the very least, the author might consider lessening its use in future books if I'm not the only reviewer who felt the overall delivery could be slightly enhanced without it. It would also make it a much easier read when attempting to read in bed or on the eliptical machine. ;)


[...]

While browsing through some of the comments on the titanic "Song of Ice and Fire" epic fantasy series I bumped into a recommendation for this book as being a model for a leaner and even more adult fantasy saga. And by adult, I mean serious, ofttimes brutal adult themes involving child abuse, set in an imaginary world, but under circumstances sadly not absent in our world today.

Well, whoever you were, thanks for the tip. This book is well written, tight, thought provoking and very imaginative. I won't hash over the details you can read in some of the fine reviews here, but I would add that one of the things that I appreciated most about this novel is the message that, all horrors of life real and imagined notwithstanding, love of creation and love for each-other are paramount.

Though this is a pretty expensive book (virtually self-published and possibly too racy to be found in many libraries), I would urge you to take a chance on it if the reviews you read here peak your curiosity.