My friends know that I’m not an huge fan of fantasy, but I really loved everything I read by Kyell Gold, and so I approached this new book with mixed feelings. In the past I recommend all Kyell Gold’s books to my friends, but some of them, that I knew are fantasy lovers, I directed to the Volle’s series, the story of a spy fox who in the previous two book and one short story looses a lover and finds another one, Streak. Volle is not exactly my type of romance hero, it’s true that in the end he finds his place in a long-term relationship with Streak but to arrive to that he passes many adventures and beds. So, truth be told, I was not expecting for Shadow of the Father to be really romantic, I was expecting again a lot of adventures and yes, maybe a love story, but not really center stage.

As in all the classical fantasy series, the role of main character passes from father, Volle, to son, Yilon. At the beginning of his story, Yilon is a quite young, but he has already met his companion, Sinch. Due to the young age of Yilon and Sinch, at first their relationship is more that of friends then lovers. When they have sexual intercourses, they are more a mutual comfort, and the output of all the repressed energy of two young males, more than something driven by love or even by desire. The relationship between Yilon and Sinch will grow with them, as they come to their adulthood, so their relationship will mature, and Sinch will turn from best-friend, to lover and life companion. Unexpectedly, Sinch has a really important role in the story, somewhat even more important that Yilon himself.

As for the setting of the story, it’s at the same time strange and familiar. Obviously, being a fantasy tale, the time and place can’t be familiar, and the author decided to start (and finish) the story, with a punch in the gut to the reader, with Yilon who is eating locust like they are candies. Such a strange thing… but it’s really so strange? In the end, there are place in the world, where you really eat insects like that. So it’s like that, the reader moves from the odd feeling to be in a stranger place to the familiarity of the medieval setting (or at least familiar if you like to read historical novel). Other than being populated by anthropomorphic animals instead of people, this fantasy is not so different from any other historic novel I read; and more you read, more you forget that you are reading of animals, the author blend his characters in the story and make them “ordinary” for the reader.

Last thing I noticed, it’s the lack of ostracism for Yilon and Sinch’s homosexuality; the trouble is that they are of different breed, Yilon a fox and Sinch a mouse, not that they are of the same sex. All the “usual” issues linked to a same-sex relationship are here all irrelevant. First of all, even if Sinch was a woman, it would impossible for them to breed. Second, it’s not even a problem: an issue like having an heir, to mate inside your breed, it’s not something linked to who you choose to be your life companion. Mating, having an heir is a “practical” thing that you solve in the “heat” of the moment (pun very much intended). Hear is something passing, to share your life is something completely different.

I realize that I didn’t speak so much of the story… well, probably it’s since the story in itself it’s nothing without all the wonderful details and language the author enriched it with. It’s not simply the plot that made the story, it’s the whole package. As I said, when you start to read Shadow of the Father, you soon forget that you are reading of animals acting like humans, and you loose yourself in the story. What will follow is the classical life journey of two young boys towards adulthood, and that is an eternal story.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CYETXY/?tag=elimyrevandra-20