Jeffrey Overstreet, Auralia's Colors (WaterBrook Press, 2007)
About 10 years ago, my wife and I moved back up to Seattle after having lived in Arizona for a few years while I (unsuccessfully) attended grad school. As we got ourselves settled back in to life in the Pacific Northwest, I met up with someone else at church who was also interested in the intersections of faith and art and who was working on a fantasy novel. We chatted and got to know each other a bit, but then my wife and I moved on to another church and I kept in touch with Jeff only tangentially, bumping into him on chat boards and whatnot. Jeff went on to become a movie reviewer for one of the largest Christian monthly magazines and maintains his own movie-review blog (and has also written a book on the topic of movies and faith). I? Well, here I am.
So it was with much joy that I heard that Jeff had found a publisher for his fantasy series, and not some fly-by-night vanity label, either. But I was also a bit hesitant: I know of too many friends who think they have what it takes to write a good story, but who really don't. I jumped on the opportunity to review Auralia's Colors, Jeff Overstreet's first novel, but I was worried I might have to pan a friend's hard work. (And longtime readers of GMR know I'm not afraid to report when a book is badly written, even when it results in an author getting all up in arms about it.)
I'm so pleased to report, then, that Auralia's Colors is one of the best fantasy books of 2007, reminiscent of Patricia McKillip, but more so.
The story takes place in the imaginary world of the Expanse where four Houses (i.e., kingdoms) rule, and where fantastic creatures roam the land. The story focuses on one of the kingdoms, the weakest of the four, House Abascar. Twenty years ago, the mysterious Queen Jaralaine, in a move to make Abascar strong once again, declared that Abascar would henceforth be in its winter (figuratively speaking) and all color would be removed from the city. All would dress in drab colors, reflective of the weakened state of the kingdom. Then, after a sufficient time, when all the artists and craftsmen had created colorful items for the kingdom (which the king would take and put in the cellar of the castle at Abascar until the appropriate time), the Spring of Abascar would commence and Abascar would know glory once again. Only Queen Jaralaine disappeared shortly thereafter and the Proclamation of the Colors never happened.
Move forward a few years and two Gatherers (lawbreakers who are banished outside the city's walls) discover a babe abandoned in the footprint of some creature. They take her in, nourish her, and she grows up to be the mysterious Auralia, who has strange powers associated with the production of colors -- colors which are illegal during Abascar's wintering. Auralia, however, doesn't hold much by the strange laws of Abascar and so she creates a beautiful cloth meant as a gift to the king of Abascar. Things go awry, however, since she is breaking the law, and before all is said and done, the balance of power among the four houses is forever changed.
Overstreet's use of language is beautiful and lyrical, reminiscent of Patricia McKillip's elegant prose. The book starts out slowly -- to be honest, it took me a few attempts before I really got into the book -- but once it gets going, it's a page-turner, and that not just for the lovely writing: Overstreet gives us a story that we want to see to its end, but that we also do not want ever to end.
Auralia's Colors is the first of a projected four-book series. I've no idea where the series will go from here, but it's definitely a series I'll continue to follow.
