It finally happened! I finally read the second book after The Vagrant! "It's been 84 years" since I read the first one of this trilogy by Peter Newman.
The plot of The Malice takes place many years after the The Vagrant. While Vagrant and Harm are still alive and well raising their goats (all descended from their original companion), the new sword-bearer is Vesper; the baby the two men saved in the first book. Vesper is a teenager now and discovers that the sword, The Malice (Gamma's sword), has been calling to Vagrant to wield it again and continue its mission. However, raised on her Uncle Harm's stories of their heroics, Vesper is the one who answers the sword's call and endeavors to take it south to The Breach.
Newman did an interesting swap with this book of the trilogy: the first was all about the two men and their mission to go north whereas this book is all about two women, Vesper and Duet, and their mission to take the sword south again. While confident, stubborn, and committed to the mission of the sword even though she is only a teenager with little to no real world experience, I did not find Vesper to be a mary sue. She is often second-guessing herself, terrified of the tainted world around her and desperately optimistic even when she knows that they could die at any turn. Even though she has Duet there to protect her, Vesper's constant ability to find the silver-lining in everything they encounter and infectious desire to fulfill her role as the sword-bearer is often what keeps Duet going.
Duet's character is fascinating. Newman calls them a Harmonised: two halves of the same whole, split and merged into two bodies that work in tandem with each other. Unfortunately, early on in the mission, Duet's 'twin' is killed protecting Vesper and the sword. What follows of Duet's story is the slow unravelling of a soul that was linked but no longer and her trying to cope with that loss all while trying not to lose her mind so that she can remain Vesper's protector as she vowed to do. This all comes to a head near the end of the novel when they finally encounter The Yearning. I won't spoil what happens though, but it was a bit heartbreaking.
A good chunk of the comedic relief of The Malice comes in the form of their own goat companion. Just called The Kid, the spunky goat often gets them into trouble, but he feeds Vesper's optimism about their mission because the Kid is more vulnerable than the humans, and yet he still doesn't let anything get to him in the dark, tainted world they're traversing. He chases mutated bugs, eats the crazy tainted vegetation and generally keeps the mood up with his hilarious fainting spells when he gets himself into a spot of danger.
The Malice also has many returning demon characters from the first book, obviously because they're demons and aren't subject to the decay of time. The pieced-together former Seraph Knight, Samael, is back with a special mission from The Man-Shape. Antagonist demons Gutterface, the Backwards Child, and Hangnail are also back and are pitted against each other in a search for The Malice by the Demagogue who wants to seize some sort of ruling power over the demons. Samael barely escapes this coup and ends up teaming up with Vesper and Duet for a time.
Newman does a good job of keeping the landscape and story familiar to readers of the first book by having Vesper navigate her way south by remembering and visiting places that Harm spoke about in his stories about their previous journey north. While the landmarks still exist, they're different now due to the passage of time. Vesper being the sword-bearer brings hope to some of the remaining human cities and even sparks an uprising in one!
Throughout the story, the reader gets more and more accustomed to the fact that The Malice has a mind of its own—a plot point that was hinted at in The Vagrant, but not explored as much. Vesper's perseverance to make it south to The Breach has a lot to do with the how much she herself believes in the goal and mission of the sword and doing the right thing for the world. Vesper doesn't really want to be a hero, nor does she think she is one; she just wants to do the right thing by humanity.
A key event happens at the end of the novel that I don't want to spoil, but it leads really well into my assumptions about what is going to happen in the third book. So now I am really eager to read how Newman concludes his uniquely grotesque tale of a post-apocalyptic demon-invaded world. Why did I take so long in between book one and two?!
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I'm hoping to read The Seven before the end of the year, or perhaps early in the new year. Plus, this book will finally end off my well-worn and many years used Book Journal. I've been using the same one to make notes on my reading since the end of 2017. I currently have space for 4 books left in it. Three will be Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, and the final fourth space will be for The Seven. I'm sure to do a post about the stats of my Book Journal when its all wrapped up and finished. Watch for that one!
