Honeyed Words: Sebastian by Anne Bishop

Sebastian by Anne Bishop · 2 May 2007

I know, it wasn’t on the list of books I might talk about. But, I’ve been sick this week, and the one bonus of being sick is that I have time to read.

I discovered Anne Bishop in what I consider my best random airport-book purchase ever made. I’d severely under packed reading material, and by the time I was ready to come home, I’d devoured everything that I’d brought. Fortunately, I spied The Black Jewels Trilogy and spent a lovely trans-Atlantic time becoming acquainted with Anne Bishop’s first series. I enjoy this trilogy so much that I’ve probably read it ten times, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy with a healthy dash of sensuality.

Unfortunately, Bishop’s second trilogy, the Tir Alainn series, didn’t live up to my expectations. So, when I first heard that Bishop had published the first book in a third series, I didn’t rush out to buy it. Fortunately for me, my sister caved. The past weekend she lent me both Sebastian and Belladonna, the books comprising the Ephemera duology.

Sebastian reminded me much more of the Black Jewels Trilogy than the Tir Alainn Trilogy did. Like in the Black Jewels trilogy, the characters in Ephemera live in the boundaries between light and dark. In The Black Jewels trilogy, the characters embrace darkness as their religion, and darkness has nothing to do with evil. In fact, in the Black Jewels trilogy, those who have forgotten the ways of the darkness are the evil ones.

Like she did in The Black Jewels trilogy, Bishop makes a distinction between “dark” and “evil” but unlike the world of The Black Jewels, in the world of Ephemera, evil does come from the dark. Light is the epitome of good; dark is the epitome of evil, and both are necessary. In Bishop’s Ephemera, light and dark wage battle in the hearts of Ephemera’s inhabitants. In Ephemera, the desires of the heart shape the landscape of the world, and it is a Landscaper’s job to balance the petty jealousies, insecurities, and ill-wishes that are part of human nature and to return the landscape to harmony.

As in the Black Jewels, Bishop fills the book with a cast of strong women and strong family ties. She writes these characters and their sharp and sassy dialogue very well. Intelligent, and talented (yet not cocky), caring and fierce, women everywhere will warm to Glorianna Belladonna and her mother Nadia.

But the character focus of the first book is nominally Sebastian, a half-incubus who’s still trying to come to terms with not being human, learning about his role in the maintenance of the Landscape called The Den of Iniquity, and discovering some of the less obvious traits inherited from his wizard father.

I thought that too little attention was paid to the growth and development of the title character. He’s an incubus; he’s supposed to live for sex, especially for the emotions that he can glean through visiting the sexual dreams of women. Although Sebastian is only half incubus, I feel it was too convenient that he didn’t wrestle with his biological instincts as he developed a relationship.

There was no regret and no doubt, just a flippant musing from Sebastian when he voiced that he expected his new love-interest, Lynnea, wouldn’t tolerate infidelity. (I mean seriously, I’ve seen human men more worried about monogamy, and they’re just fighting testosterone). But, I believe Bishop picked Sebastian as the main character as a device to set up the underlying plot and to introduce the real star of the series (Belladonna, title character of the next book) and not because he was a title character in his own right.

The story of Sebastian is set against the larger story of the return of the villain, the Eater of the World. This is no multi-faceted bad-guy, “It” is pure evil (and also a nod to the Stephen King character of the same name).

Here, Bishop’s world theory also seems a bit hypocritical. Belladonna, the most powerful Landscaper of her era, recognizes that darkness is an inherent, and even necessary part of life in Ephemera. In fact, we learn that it’s Belladonna’s joint heritage as a being of the light and the dark that gives her unique powers to shape the world instead of just care for it like other Landscapers. Yet, the dark beings of Belladonna’s heritage are shunned and portrayed as irredeemable.

Bishop’s treatment of the main villain didn’t bother me as much as her treatment of the other dark purebred demons. “It” is portrayed almost as a natural force gone wild. I think it’s fair to say that all readers can appreciate the difference between a gentle rain and a hurricane, and agree that one is beneficial and the other is not. “It” is like the hurricane, concentrated evil, constructed for no other purpose than to suck the light from the world.

But I believe that the more sentient, less constructed beings should have been more developed, or left out. Bishop introduces multiple classes of historic light and dark based figures that I felt added little to the overall plot. While I believe her intention was to shed mystery upon the origins of “It,” and the true loyalties of some of the factions, I found that the overly obscured relations detracted from my enjoyment of the story. As I said, I’d rather have read about how Sebastian adjusted from being a sex demon to a one-woman man.

Although I’ve been ripping into it here, I did enjoy Sebastian. Bishop’s treatment of a world shattered by an ancient war and the beginnings of the next chapter in that war were a unique play on the traditional good versus evil theme of fantasy. Her characters are lovable, if not entirely believable, and the plot comes to a satisfying conclusion (while obviously being a set up for the next book it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger like many series books do). My critical comments are based in my love of her first trilogy, and in holding her current works to the same standard.

Anne Bishop, Ephemera, Fantasy, Good Versus Evil, Light and Darkness, Romance, Sebastian