Masques

I mentioned during my Twilight review that I had read the debut novels for most of my favorite authors, except for Patricia Briggs. The reason for this is simple: the debut novel in question, Masques has been out of print since 1995. Copies of Masques sold on Amazon and Ebay for over a hundred dollars. The author and her husband kindly set up a web ring to loan out copies of their own, but as they had only two available and the waiting list was over a year long, it never seemed likely that I'd get a chance to read it.

However, this year Ace Fantasy was kind enough to finally offer a reprint, and later in the year the sequel, Wolfsbane, will be printed for the first time. Technically, this version of Masques is not a true debut novel. Patricia Briggs was offered the chance to reedit the novel with over ten years of writing experience behind her. Naturally, she took that offer so the current printing of Masques is a more polished narrative. However, the original storyline and writing is largely intact.

So, I will now happily give you a review of Masques by Patricia Briggs.

Cover Art by: Melanie Delon.

So. The first question anyone reading this will ask: Is this book worth over a hundred dollars?

As usual, I'll refer to the writer's trinity, Setting, Plot, and Character.

Setting:

This novel first presents the world which reappears in the later novels When Demon's Walk and Steal the Dragon. The world is interesting and well worth being revisited. Several countries are mentioned, such as the kingdom of Reth which supposedly was founded by escaped slaves and Sianim, which fields an army of mercenaries.

The world is somewhat simplistic in this novel. We only see the mercenaries and Reth, with mentions of a few others as side notes. The places that are developed are intricate and interesting, which is all anyone can ask for. The setting doesn't quite have that quality of almost being a character itself the way some places in her later books do.

Character


As usual, this is where Patricia Briggs shines. The protagonists, a mercenary woman named Aralorn and her companion, rather obviously called Wolf, are interesting and their interactions are fun to read. It is a little too easy to guess Wolf's true identity, though.

The villain is nicely chilling. You can see in him the precursor to Briggs' later charming, utterly evil villains such as King Jakoven in the Hurog novels. His defeat seems a mite underwhelming, but then the preview for the sequel gives hints that maybe it wasn't as complete a victory for the good guys as it might appear on the surface.

Plot


The plot is a little standard, but still fascinating. A charismatic magic user has taken over the kingdom of Reth from its rightful ruler, the prince Myr. Our heroes Aralorn and Wolf, each for reasons of their own, agree to help him take it back. And that's where the standard part ends.

The interesting twists to the plot come from the reactions of the characters. The sorcerer Geoffrey is not a hated tyrant. People love him. In point of fact, Aralorn is attacked at one point by one of her friends for speaking ill of the mage! It is interesting to see how an evil, twisted man could take control of an otherwise shining kingdom. The villain's charisma and powers of persuasion make it clear why people would follow him and obey his dark whims.

So, would I have paid over a hundred dollars to read this?

I'm not sure, honestly. I enjoyed reading it. I haunted my local bookstore until this reprint came out. If I'd had the money to buy the original off of Amazon I most probably would have done so. Then again, I would have done so purely to say I owned every book by one of my favorite authors, rather than for the merits of the book itself. 

If you're a fan of fantasy and adventure, of books with strong heroes and great twists, pick up Masques. If you're not a fan, pick it up anyway and you might well become one.