This month’s recommended read is a book by Canadian author, Victoria Goddard, who has written numerous interlinked novels and novellas set in her Nine Worlds Fantasy universe. Dr Goddard is an author who delights and infuriates me in equal measure so it has been quite hard to pick an example of her work that I can whole-heartedly recommend. My choice has fallen on The Return of Fitzroy Angursell (2020), which is the first volume in a series called The Red Company Reformed. In the second volume, The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul, we are shown some of the same events from a different viewpoint. Both volumes are available as ebooks or rather expensive paperbacks.

Goddard’s stories range across nine very different worlds, five of which were once part of the Empire of Astandalas. This empire was ruled by golden-eyed, black-skinned emperors some of whom were powerful magicians. Pivotal to Goddard’s fictional universe is the sudden magical cataclysm known as The Fall of Astandalas. This mysterious event caused huge physical damage and loss of life. Travel between the worlds became difficult or impossible for a while and their joint chronology was fractured. In some places time has moved faster than in others (and, yes, this is as confusing as it sounds). The one hundredth and last Emperor of Astandalas, Artorin Damara, has reigned in Zunidh for over a thousand years though only thirty years have passed elsewhere.

At the start of The Return of Fitzroy Angursell we discover that Emperor Artorin has left his suffocatingly formal court to embark on a quest to find someone to take over his magical responsibilities and become Lord Magus of Zunidh. His quest involves recovering three magic mirrors which may help to reveal his destined successor but Artorin is more interested in rediscovering the person he used to be before his family magic separated him from his friends and forced him to become Emperor. The quest begins in a fairly traditional manner with Artorin entering the tomb of the First Emperor of Astandalas to search for one of the mirrors among the grave-goods. After an ancient curse is awoken, he thinks better of this and adopts a more random approach to questing. The loosely disguised Emperor borrows a bicycle and starts to wander around the remains of his empire. For reasons of his own, Artorin is amused when some of the people he meets take him to be the notorious poet and outlaw, Fitzroy Angursell.

Artorin uses his magic to assist three locals to set fire to their swamp, meets a gigantic Fen Spirit and hitches lifts on a flying boat and a floating forest. After being mistaken for one of his divine ancestors, Artorin assists a pair of star-crossed lovers. This leads him to meet the local Master Smith, who turns out to be Masseo, one of the lost friends of Artorin’s youth and a fellow member of the band of adventurers known as the Red Company. Artorin quickly persuades Masseo to join him on a new adventure in an unexplored jungle. There they discover the Last Free City of Zunidh which is suffering under a terrible curse placed it on it by one of Artorin’s ancestors. After an exhausting battle with this curse, Artorin and Masseo randomly cross into another world only to find themselves in exactly the right place to encounter another of their old comrades, Jullanar, who is in the middle of trying to divorce her obnoxious husband.

The three friends travel on together and soon encounter a fourth member of the Red Company, the famous swordswoman and scholar, Pali Avramapul. Long ago Artorin fell in love with Pali at first sight but she is now angry with her old friend, feeling that he never told any of them the truth about himself. There are quarrels and misunderstandings and Artorin discovers that some of his actions as a desperately lonely young prince are still having extraordinary consequences. Can the Red Company ever be reformed to help Artorin find an heir to his magic and his own freedom?

Goddard is a brilliant world-maker but not a consistent one. Her Nine Worlds stories seem to include every element she enjoys from myth, legend, Fantasy and Science Fiction, whether they fit well together or not. The various series set in her worlds differ in style and tone, even though they have characters in common. So, for example, her swashbuckling Greenwing and Dart stories combine a vaguely 18th century background with a bizarre mix of criminals and cults, mythical beasts and wild magic; her The Sisters Avramapul novels are fast-moving fables set in archaic societies where the gods still interfere in human lives, while The Lays of the Hearth-Fire with their heavy-handed theme of good government, are more like a Fantasy version of The West Wing. The two volumes so far published in The Red Company Reformed are light on plot but offer in-depth character studies. One thing that all the series have in common is a tendency to leave their readers both bewitched and bewildered. Very often some vital piece of information that the reader needs in order to understand a story isn’t imparted until two books later.

Due to the chronological confusion created by Goddard and suffered by her characters, it is not easy to say which of her novels should be read first. On her own website (www.victoriagoddard.ca) Goddard suggests that new readers should start with The Hands of the Emperor. I wouldn’t normally contradict an author about their own work but in this case I must. The Hands of the Emperor has many good features but it is ridiculously long (over 900 pages), slow-moving and repetitive. In my opinion, Goddard is an independent author in dire need of a stern editor, so I fear that this particular novel would put off more readers than it attracts. Goddard doesn’t care about the normal rules of storytelling and almost gets away with it because her obvious enjoyment of her own creations makes her unique fictional universe very appealing.

I’ve chosen The Return of Fitzroy Angursell as an entry point to this universe for several reasons. It is a relatively short novel with enticing chapter titles such as In Which I Raid a Tomb and In Which I Fail to Fly, told in the distinctive voice of the Emperor himself with much self-deprecating humour. As a narrator, Artorin earned my gratitude by carefully explaining many of the strange things that have happened to him during his long life. If you read this novel first, you will have a fighting chance of understanding what is going on in the rest of Goddard’s books. Normally, I wouldn’t give away major plot elements because it would spoil all the excitement and tension in a story, but Goddard is more about surprise and enchantment than excitement and tension. There is, for example, remarkably little narrative tension when Artorin and Masseo are held in the cursed city by its hostile inhabitants. What you do get is atmosphere – a strong sense of the corrosive effects of hatred and isolationism and an equally powerful sense of hope when ancient wrongs on both sides are forgiven. The coincidence-strewn plot of The Return of Fitzroy Angursell meanders through vividly described landscapes and is full of unexpected delights such as the eccentric floating forest and a brief encounter with an awe-inspiring Tiger-spirit.The two types of magic in the story – schooled and wild – are well worked out and both shown in action as practised by the Emperor.

Emperor Artorin is one of the most interesting and likeable of Goddard’s characters and far more entertaining than the saintly bureaucrat, Lord Chancellor Kip, who is the central figure in The Hands of the Emperor. In these anti-colonial times, some people will probably think it wrong for Fantasy authors to write sympathetically about Emperors. Let me reassure you that Artorin has spent his reign encouraging his Lord Chancellor to devise a much more just, democratic and diverse form of government for his multi-racial empire. This allows Goddard to expound her own political ideas at great, and to me rather tedious, length in some of the novels. Thankfully, in The Return of Fitzroy Angursell we just get to see some of the reforms – such as the payment of a basic income to all citizens – in action. This leads to a rather an amusing scene in which the Emperor discovers that even he can claim the universal stipend at a local post office. How nice to live in a world where there are still local post offices.

One unusual thing about this book is that the main characters are all in their 60s – or their 1,060s in Artorin’s case. His old friends aren’t aware of what Artorin’s life as an untouchable Divine Emperor has been like and can’t easily understand how the joyous anarchist they remember has become a dour authority figure who shrinks from physical contact. This gives real depth of feeling to the latter part of the novel. Goddard provides a complex magical explanation for for Artorin’s actions but she could just as easily be writing about any group of devoted friends who meet again after the lapse of many years. Ardent young revolutionaries often do become respected members of the establishment once they come up against the realities of life. Compromises are made as responsibilities are assumed. The four members of the Red Company whom we meet in this novel have all been living responsible lives but now that they are of an age to retire they are ready for new adventures. Can they recapture the ardour of youth without sacrificing the wisdom of age? It is a question of particular interest to older readers such as myself. If you find yourself fascinated by the Red Company you may want to explore the rest of Goddard’s Fantasy universe – especially if you are the kind of person who enjoys doing giant jigsaw-puzzles. Until next month….

Geraldine