The Will of the
Wanderer is a 1988 fantasy novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the
first in their Rose of the Prophet
trilogy. Here, a god demands that two warring clans unite through marriage to
combat a larger threat.
The Arabian setting is a breath of fresh air in the fantasy
genre, which is obviously dominated by Tolkien-influenced analogs of Europe—although
all the characters here are, for some reason, still explicitly white. The
writers’ desert world is vividly described—it really comes to life—and the
swashbuckling action fits the setting well.
But the writers take these Arabian sensibilities and go way
over the top with them. The Will of the
Wanderer is a sitcom, a romantic comedy largely devoid of romance (it’s not
very funny, either). Nearly every character is conveniently clueless; nearly
everyone’s response to most any development is an emotional knee-jerk
overreaction or something comparably ridiculous. The world is thoroughly
populated by cartoon characters, mortal and immortal alike. This can make it
hard to invest in the dramatic proceedings.
The plot, which operates on two levels—one with the gods and
one with the humans—works well enough, although it gets pulled down by all the
aforementioned frustrating buffoonery, without which nearly all the conflict
would be satisfactorily resolved by the end of this volume. Moreover, the silly
tone the authors use to handle their gods, faith, and religions might come
across to the reader as mocking of real-world religion and its establishments,
whether intentional or not.
In sum, then, The Will
of the Wanderer is a passably entertaining but frequently irritating novel.
I won’t be continuing with this trilogy.
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
