Part One: What I thought of the story:
Children of Rhathan by Jonathan Fesmire is the story of a dual, Garum and Vayin. Duals are hated by almost everyone and, if discovered by the wrong person, could very well be killed. Garum and Vayin are brother and sister who share the same space in the physical world. They have the ability, through dual magic, to switch from the dual world to the real world. When we first meet them they haven’t mastered the ability to take items with with into the dual world and, as a result, they have to share the same cloths, which is kind of comical to me because there is no way I’d want to share the same cloths with my sister.
After trying, unsuccessfully, to steal a ring they are rescued by the good witch Jevya who knows they are duals and offers to teach them how to use their dual magic. Unfortunately, Jevya has an evil brother who wants to use the duals for his own purposes. The majority of the book is the of the twins running away from Jevya’s brother, meeting people who they fall in love with, people who want to do them harm, and people who want to help.
In other words, it’s a pretty typical fantasy story.
It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the story, I just wasn’t inspired by it. The idea of the duals is an interesting one and one I would loved to have explored more. As it was I felt we only explored the surface of the dual world. How exactly does it feel to be in the dual world? What does it feel when your sister or brother, in the real world, is having sexual relation with someone? Are there any homosexual issues the duals need to work out? In the start of the story is seemed they had all that worked out but, as a reader, it was distracting wondering how they came to that conclusion. Maybe it’ll be explained in a sequel but I felt it needed to explained sooner.
Another problem I had with the story was I didn’t feel connected to the characters, I never really got the sense they were in any danger, maybe because I never really bought the bad guy as a threat so, when he threatened the twins I just felt ‘ho, hum.’ He was a generic, crazy bad guy with really no personality except being a crazy bad guy out to kidnap the twins. His motivation was pretty clear, and his history was interesting, but he really wasn’t.
I did have more than one moment where I needed to raise my eyebrow, mostly involving the love story parts. I did find it believable the man Vayin fell in love with rejected her when he found out she was a dual, not really because she was a dual but because her twin was a man. That would probably be my, and about 95% of the men’s, reaction to it. I did, however, find it a curious creative choice that the one love story that did work was between two duals. This story had an underlining message about racism and I found it an odd message that the only couple who did get together were of the same race. Now, please, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Johnathan planed that, as a writer myself I know how you make a creative choice without thinking about stuff like that. I think it would have be much more interesting if she wasn’t a dual and she had to find it within herself to love them both, even if one was a woman.
Again, the ideas of duals is a really interesting one that I don’t think Jonathan fully explored in the story, and I think it’s an idea that needed to be broadened. Make the bad guy chasing them a smaller part of the over all plot, make the twins and how they deal with everyday life a bigger part. I kept asking myself questions that I really would loved to have had answers too.
Part Two: The Narration
Johnathan read the story as well as any other Podiobooker I’ve listened too. Like most it’s a bit hit or miss between different chapters but, on the whole, his voice wasn’t bad. I do wish he would have somehow found a way to distinguish between the voices, especially when the twins were talking to each other. Sometimes it was very confusing to figure out who said what, especially in some of the more chaotic action scenes. He did get better as the book went on and it got less confusing to figure out who was talking.
Part three: Conclusion
Children of Rathlath felt like it needed one more draft to flesh stuff out, to help bring the world to life and add another dimension to the characters. I think it suffered from what a lot of fantasy books suffer from, which is the idea that the only solution to any problem is magic. The duals needed magic to switch. They needed the magical help from all their friends to escape. They needed magic to finally defeat the bad guy at the end. They were born from magic. . ect. But, maybe that’s the fault of the genre and not the story. Would I recommend it? If you like fantasy and you want to listen to another fantasy story then sure, why not? If you’re looking for something different, something that adds a new idea to the fantasy field then you might want to skip it. It’s an interesting story, it just doesn’t move too far away from its fantasy roots.
