Review: A Magic of Nightfall by S.L. Farrell

A Magic of Nightfall (US, UK, Canada) is the second volume in the Nessantico Cycle trilogy by S.L. Farrell. Picking up twenty-five years after A Magic of Twilight (US, UK, Canada) it continues the story of Nessantico – city and heart of an empire in peril. This series embraces epic fantasy, utilizing rather than subverting clichés to tell a great story.

The empire of the Holdings is coming apart – Firenzcia has seceded from the Holdings, there is war across the sea with the Westlands, and even the Concénzia Faith has split with rival leaders declaring that they are the true Archigos. With a twenty-five year gap between volumes, A Magic of Nightfall feels different from A Magic of Twilight – more mature and darker. Some of the same point-of-view characters are followed, new characters are introduced and others are killed. Turmoil reigns over it all.

As with A Magic of Twilight, politics rule A Magic of Nightfall and set it apart from most of epic fantasy– very few attain the sophistication here that would have Machiavelli spinning on his (albeit dead) head. In the course of A Magic of Nightfall, 6 heads of state die – due to natural causes, assassination, combat, and even suicide. In all this countless shifting factions are in play – allying, betraying, conquering and dying. Through all this there really aren’t all that many true battles – the politics themselves more than suffice.

As with his previous effort, the characters, which really are at the center of the book, are generally realized rather well. Even when surrounded by seeming larger problems, there’s a human touch at work – mourning for a lost lover, the advent of new love, infidelity, guilt, rivalry, madness, and hope. Some are better realized than others and almost all character development seems to stop just short of how far it could have gone and others serve as a mere plot device to deliver an important event to the reader. Through it all, the characterization does its job – the reader cares to know what happens next.

As with my review of A Magic of Twilight (at BookSpot Central), A Magic of Nightfall suffers from its use of what I’ll call jargon. Names, titles, places and other things are loaded down with apostrophes and other combinations that are somewhat confounding to the English-speaking tongue. In many ways I find this an enjoyable distinction, but there is no denying the negative effect it has on the pace of the book. While the glossary and appendices at the back of the book help, they can’t speed up the pace or ease of reading. Along these same lines, this book weighs in with a hefty 585 pages that actually seem longer than that.

In reading A Magic of Nightfall, the aims of Farrell become clearer for the Nessantico Cycle. This is the story of a city as much as anything – the first book is twilight, the second nightfall, and the third will be dawn. Another way of looking at this is that we are seeing the decline, death and rebirth of a great city. I find this an interesting approach that I’m mostly enjoying – but I do have some issues. The city of Nessantico, the central focus, doesn’t come alive enough – I’d love to see its personality take over, for it to be the binding character of it all. Instead, Nessantico really is just a setting, with the focus on the people. Now I do enjoy the focus on the people, but the connection of these people to Nessantico isn’t strong enough to bring it all together and to match Farrell’s vision. I love the aim, but the execution comes off only about half-cocked.

As I hinted at above, Farrell doesn’t really do anything new with this book – it’s not what I’d call ‘gritty’ and I can’t say that it aims to subvert the genre in any way, it simply utilizes an epic fantasy setting to tell a story. They key is that it’s a good story and that it’s well told. Farrell’s work seems to get passed over too often and too easily because it doesn’t strive to be on the cutting edge of epic fantasy – do yourself a favor and don’t fall into that trap.

A Magic of Nightfall chronicles the events of Nessantico’s decline through its people and politics. The middle book of the three-book Nessantico Cycle, it is a self-contained story-arc in a series that will conclude with the forthcoming A Magic of Dawn. I highly recommend this series to fans of epic fantasy – particularly fans looking for strong political workings. 7/10

Related Posts: S.L. Farrell Interview
Point of Interest: My review of A Magic of Twilight at BookSpot Central (FantasyBook Spot) was blurbed by Daw for A Magic of Nightfall and the paperback printing (this is only the second time I’ve been blurbed that I’m aware of).

S.L. Farrell Answers Questions 5

Author S.L. Farrell has written numerous fantasy novels and short stories as well as science fiction novels under the names of Steven Leigh and Matthew Farrell – I leave it to you to put together what his actual name is from all those pseudonyms, though apparently “hey you” often suffices. He is probably best known for writing the Cloudmages Trilogy – Holder of Lightening, Mage of Clouds, and Heir of Stone. His most recent book is both a stand-alone and the beginning of a new trilogy – A Magic of Twilight (review) begins The Nessantico Cycle with A Magic of Nightfall expected in March, 2009 and the concluding book, A Magic of Dawn sometime in 2010.

Farrell moonlights as a professor and musician and I’m very happy that he has taken the time to answer Questions Five.


1. Trips to Ireland and France have inspired the books that you have become best known for – what sort of book would a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee inspire?

SLF: I’ve been to Gatlinburg, I must confess. Heck, several of my ancestors are of Appalachian background (Kentucky, mostly). While the Great Smoky Mountains around that town might inspire someone to a compelling story of Appalachian struggle, or perhaps a thrilling, politically-charged novel about the evils of mountaintop-removal mining, Gatlinburg itself screams “Tourist Trap!” I could not get out of that town fast enough -- mostly because of the gridlocked traffic down the main street.

Gatlinburg might inspire a dystopian novel where the entire Earth has been turned into one gigantic souvenir shop for galactic travelers. There, Bobby Curmudgeon is a lowly clerk, selling tickets for the submarine tour of New York City (now largely underwater since global warming raised the sea levels), and dreaming of quitting his job and going Out: a futile dream since the Great Corporation which now owns the Earth and operates all the concessions only pays minimum wage to its workers...

Somehow, I have the feeling I’m not Gatlinburg’s target audience.

2. Name one thing a pretentious literature professor will hate about A Magic of Twilight.

SLF: Well, it’s fantasy. All genre fiction, especially fantasy, is crap. By definition. Unless it’s “magic realism.” Then it’s OK. (I hasten to add that this is what your pretentious literature professor would say, not me...)

The semi-humorous thing here is that I am an English professor. I teach Creative Writing at a local university -- and believe me, I’m well aware of the general attitude of literature professors toward the type of fiction I like to read and write. I was at a conference once where one colleague from another university came up and asked if I’d written anything myself. I told him that, yes, I’d written published some novels and several short stories. He was very interested then, and asked if he might have read any of them. “Not unless you read science fiction and fantasy,” I told him.

His whole demeanor changed at that point. “Oh,” he said in a voice dripping with disappointment. “I once had a friend who wrote a novel -- a real novel; you know, with genuine literary merit. He couldn’t get it published. Then he wrote a mystery, and the novel sold well and since then he hasn’t written anything except that mystery garbage.”

“Yeah,” I told him, “it’s terrible to actually make money from what you write, and have people actually read it.”

At that point he sniffed and walked away. Didn’t come to my reading later that afternoon, either...

3. Please describe one reason A Magic of Twilight would inspire a reader to strip naked and run screaming into the desert?

SLF: “So many viewpoints! So many viewpoints!”

Well, I don’t know that the number of viewpoint characters would make anyone strip naked even if they did run screaming into the desert. I wrote some of it naked, though, I’m pretty sure. Heck, I’m writing this naked right now. You can tell because the cats are pointing at me and laughing.

And I suppose it would depend on how close you were to a desert at the moment. From where I am, it’s a long run to the closest desert.

4. What other peculiar qualities of A Magic of Twilight should readers be aware of?

SLF: I’m a strong believer in ‘gray’ characters: very few people (in my experience) are either pure saints or entirely evil people. Even the best person has faults; even the worst person has sympathetic qualities. So don’t come looking for “good” vs. “evil” black-and-white conflicts here. You won’t find them. Instead, I think you’ll find an assortment of very interesting, twisted, and realistic characters.

And I do use ‘foreign’ terms and titles now and again. Hey, these people don’t speak English, after all. So expect to have to learn a few new words every once in a while. But you’ll figure it out -- you’re all smart readers or you wouldn’t be reading this kind of stuff!

5. Why should A Magic of Twilight be the next book that everyone reads?

SLF: Because if you don’t, you’ll be responsible for my being unable to pay my bills, and my wife and children will starve.

Seriously, Twilight’s received some great reviews. Kirkus said it had “Considerable charm and appeal...“ Publishers Weekly claimed it was a “...rich and complex story. “ Charlene Brusso at Black Gate contends you’ll be”...happily blown away by the gorgeously detailed setting and intriguing characters. Then there's the tangled knot, knitted up of at least seven different kinds of treachery. All told, this is a fantasy novel to settle down with for a nice, long time...” Drew Bittner of SFRevu said “The craft of world-building has rarely been put on display so ingeniously."

And George RR Martin called it “...a delicious mélange of politics, war, sorcery, and religion in a richly imagined world peopled with a varied cast of haughty lords, scheming courtiers, beggars, priests, heretics, zealots, spies, assassins, torturers, tarts, and seductresses.” How can you resist that?

Actually, I think it’s a pretty good book myself. I would hope you’d enjoy it -- so head off to your local bookseller and grab a copy!

And thanks for the chance to pop in and answer a few questions, Ken! It was a blast!

A Magic of Twilight by S.L. Farrell

Well, I am actually an associate reviewer for FantasyBookSpot even though I only write about 4 reviews a year for them. My latest review for FBS is A Magic of Twilight by S.L. Farrell. Now, go and read it - it's a book that will likely appeal to many who read this blog.

Take the political intrigue of various factions of church, state, subjugated peoples of an empire, and religious heretics in a Renaissance setting and combine with magic and a well-realized fantasy setting and the result is A Magic of Twilight by S.L. Farrell, the first, yet stand-alone, volume of the Nessantico Cycle. (full review)