Book Review: The Promise of the Child by Tom Toner

The Promise of the Child, Volume One of the Amaranthine Spectrum by Tom Toner, Gollancz.
(I have received an advance copy of this novel from Orion Books to allow me to review it ready for publication of the paperback edition on the 13th of October 2016.)

A province where silver really does grow on trees is just one of the places which Tom Toner takes the reader to in this rich novel. (The local currency is made of silk.) There is also a civilization where artificial bees made with gold airframes are a sign of ostentation. Tom Toner isn't lacking in imagination.

After a Prologue set in fourteenth century Bohemia, the novel is set roughly twelve thousand years in the future, where humanity (or at least the semi immortal Amaranthine) have colonised a "firmament" within about twenty light years of the "Old World" (Earth). They have found planets with breathable atmospheres, (composition like that of the young Earth) but no sign of any life originating other than on Earth. An incredibly ancient spacecraft found frozen in the rings of Saturn turns out to have been crewed by Dinosaurs, also from Earth. The Amaranthine (divide and) rule over a number of races however: the dozen or so "PRISM" species of intelligent (and generally small) primates living on various planets and habitable moons, and the giant Melius, who are supposedly the genetically engineered offspring of the Amaranthine themselves.The Melius mostly live on the Old World. Many Melius are servants of the Amaranthine. The Melius also share the Old World with intelligent birds, who are servants of the Melius.

The novel is composed of several separate plot threads seen from the point of view of various individuals of various species, including Corphuso, a PRISM scientist and inventor of a mysterious machine known as the Soul Engine. Several parties plot to gain possession of the Soul Engine and its hapless inventor, not stopping short of large scale military actions and simple skullduggery in their efforts.

Most Amaranthine live in "Vaulted Lands" that is, planets hollowed out with an artificial sun at their centre to act as small Dyson Spheres. One of these habitats is deliberately destroyed, and the Amaranthine face a real threat to their power and even existence. The Amaranthine are traditionally ruled by their oldest individuals, and because they are only semi immortal this means that their rulers tend to be dangerously close to senility. However, there is one, Aaron, seen in the fourteenth century prologue, who not only appears to be older than any of the "Perennials" but also seems to be unaffected by any form of senility. After centuries of his standing near to those who rule, it seems to be time for Aaron to take over the reins himself and save the Amaranthine, but this doesn't seem to be his chosen course. He still prefers to chose someone else and help them. There are also rumours that Aaron does not have a shadow.

A Melius "Lycaste" lives a fairly blameless life by the sea, but is inveigled into going on a disastrous shark hunt by his friends and then finds himself apparently murdering a government official. He goes on the run and ends up, through a nightmare adventure and drumhead trial, in the Melius second city of Vilnius just as a Melius warlord prepares to attack it in the latest phase of a long running civil war. Aaron is also in Vilnius, and the plot threads, like the novel's characters, converge on the city. There is a huge battle as PRISM armies invade from spaceships even as the Melius fight each other, but the Soul Engine may prove more significant than that.

The Promise of the Child is an absorbing and accomplished novel, and it argurs well for the rest of the Amaranthine Spectrum when it appears.


The link at the top of this review goes to the Net Gallery page for the novel. This one goes to the Amazon page for the novel.

PS:
While you are here, feel free to look around the blog.