The Reign of the Departed

May 28, 2018
This ambitious but flawed first installment in Keyes’s High and Faraway series veers into puzzling and convoluted territory without enough backstory to keep it anchored. After attempting suicide, Errol Greyson wakes to find himself trapped inside a wooden body, his human form lying comatose in the hospital. His spirit has been married to the automaton by Aster Kostyena, who’s compelled to restore her father’s cursed memory and needs Errol’s help to travel to the magical Kingdoms and find the water of health. Joined by a cast of mystical characters, Aster and Errol traverse the dangerous terrain, narrowly evading the Sheriff of the Marches and a number of his allies as he pursues them in hopes of settling his own debt. Romantic side plots inundate Errol’s story line; this contrasts bizarrely with repeated depictions of underage female characters being sexually assaulted, and with the introduction of a pedophilic antagonist. Keyes (Lord of Souls) often deliberately withholds vital information, but this tactic breeds more confusion than interest in reading further, and most readers will give up and drift away well before the end.

June 1, 2018
Aster and her mage father have gone as far as they can go, to where magic itself is very weak and death is final, unlike in other high and faraway kingdoms. Her father suffers from an amnesia that makes him increasingly dangerous to Aster, and to himself, so this 17-year-old, with knowledge of a few worthwhile incantations, sets out to find the water of health that she hopes can restore her father. She enlists Errol, lying in a coma, to animate a life-size wooden puppet to find Veronica, a teenager who has been dead for 30 years. Together Aster, Errol, and Veronica will travel back into the kingdoms in search of a giant with all the answers. All excellent journeys include discovering more about yourself than you can imagine, and that holds true for the growing band of adventurers Aster gathers together. Keyes is a master of world building and of quirky characters who grow into their relationships in unexpected ways. Fans of his Age of Unreason and his Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone fantasy series will want to get in on the ground floor of the High and Faraway series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)