‘The Infernal City (An Elder Scrolls Novel)’ – Greg Keyes (Del Rey)

There was once a time when Greg Keyes was one of those authors where I would pick up anything with his name on it. This was pretty much all down to his ‘Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone’ series, a set of books that I found absolutely enthralling... up until the final book. ‘The Born Queen’ had a lot of good things going for it but it felt that Keyes had grown tired of his own series and just wanted to wrap things up as quickly as possible. He did this by throwing entirely new concepts into the mix (none of which were really hinted at prior to the final book) and the end result felt a little too confusing to me to be really effective. When I’ve got the time, maybe a re-read will clear things up...?
In the meantime, Greg Keyes has gone from ‘I want to get hold of everything that he has written’ to ‘I’ll still read his work but the boundless optimism about it isn’t really there anymore’. When a review copy for Keyes’ latest work, ‘The Infernal City’, came through the door I figured that it was a good time to see if any of that boundless optimism could return. It didn’t but I’m not entirely sure that’s Keyes’ fault...

Forty years after the Oblivion crisis, the land of Tamriel is in mortal danger once again. The floating city of Umbriel passes over the continent and where its shadow falls the dead rise again...
While Umbriel crushes all resistance some people are still determined to take a stand against it, all for reasons of their own which may have nothing to do with the ultimate fate of Tamriel. Will their efforts be enough though...?

As far as that last question goes, the answer is ‘maybe...’ ‘The Infernal City’ is the first of two books and leaves plenty to be resolved in the next book. Everything is left hanging rather nicely in fact and I really want to know how this one ends for our heroes. It was a bit of a shame then that the first half of the book felt like a real struggle to get through, especially as it’s only a mere two hundred and eighty eight pages (which isn’t a lot of room to have things go slow!) Is this Keyes’ fault though...?

I’ve never played the ‘Elder Scrolls’ games and Greg Keyes has written a book that’s very much aimed at fans of the game. It looks like, due to the size of the book, Keyes decided to keep the background information to an absolute minimum and leave people like me to play catch up as best they can. The plot does carry things forward but only to a point. What is a Khajiiit? You don’t really find out until a lot later on. What is ‘The Organism’? You never really find out much other than it (them?) is some kind of governing body. And what is the deal with the city trees? If you’ve played an ‘Elder Scrolls’ game then you’ll know already. This book isn’t so accessible without that prior knowledge... The flow of the tale was very much interrupted by my having to get my head round these new concepts. If I’d played the game then maybe this wouldn’t have been an issue...

A lot of ‘The Infernal City’ is also about introducing the characters and getting them into position for the next act (it’s very much half a book in this respect). Again, this works very well but only up to a point. It’s interesting to see characters such as Prince Attrebus and Annaig develop over the course of the book. You may have seen this kind of development before in other books (spoiled prince becomes... anyone?) but Keyes gets inside his characters in such a way that you find yourself along for the ride anyway. There is a lot of this kind of introduction though and there were times when I found myself just wanting the story to get a move on and go places! It does eventually but then it’s cliff hanger time and a wait for the next book...

It is a lush and rich world that the story takes place in and Keyes does show this off to great effect. Again, you may feel that you’ve had a drink in the ‘Foaming Flask’ one too many times (all fantasy worlds seem to have a booming alcohol industry) but Umbriel, its lethal kitchens and the alien Sump are worth spending time in though. The thing is, this can come at the expense of the story progressing...

As I said earlier, ‘The Infernal City’ reads very much like half a book with characters being introduced only to be set up for events in Book Two. I’d also say that it’s most accessible for fans of the ‘Elder Scrolls’ scenario; casual readers might find it a little difficult to get into. Decent characterisation and a couple of nice cliff hangers mean that I will be back for the second instalment though; hopefully things will pick up then...

Seven and a Half out of Ten