Charlemagne's Champion

by Gail Van Asten

Determined to serve in Charlemagne's hand-picked regiment, Roland takes his chance on victory over the power-hungry Lord Ganelon, who has vowed to silence Roland's victory song

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical

295 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1990

Reviews

[Jean Triceratops · Rating 2 out of 5]

[I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See more at forfemfan.com]

Roland, witch-born and a bastards besides, is an outcast among the young noblemen training for Charlemagne's court. Terrified of his supernatural heritage, he single-mindedly and almost perversely works in the service of the king, hoping his sacrifices for Christendom will save his soul.

Standing between Roland and the king is Lord Ganelon, King's Champion. Lord Ganelon is jealous of the king and loathes Roland, for he knows a secret: Roland is the offspring of none-other than Charlemagne and Charlemagne's sister!

Ganelon uses his position as master of the young noblemen in training to subtly ruin Roland's training and relationship with his peers. As Charlemagne begins to show interest in Roland and attempts to raise him above his station as a witch-got bastard, Ganelon's loathing becomes pathological. He will see Roland doomed.

It's weird to read a book where there's almost no one tolerable. Roland isn't even an anti-hero. He's not likable despite his flaws or someone you root for even though you're not sure why. He's cruel, proud, headstrong, desperate for glory but contemptuous of everyone sans the king. Don't believe me? He shrugs as literal babies are bashed to death against a building, confused why others find the act distasteful. It's war; bad things are necessary in war.

Some might be sympathetic due to his past. I wasn’t. He felt very familiar to me: the sort of man you must be very careful to turn down for a date because he is filled with rage and looking for an outlet.

This example is appropriate because Roland is a raging misogynist, even by the standards of 700AD. It's also funny because he would never ask a woman on a date. Roland is akin to the modern-day "Men Going Their Own Way" group. Ie, he's a gender separatist and wants nothing to do with women, ever. Not because he's asexual or gay; early in the novel, it's made clear he lusts after women's bodies. No, it's because women are all temptresses, villainous whores, and untrustworthy witches. Better to live celibate than entangle with such treacherous creatures.

So, as I said, everyone is awful and cruel, and the plot is mostly "everyone is awful and cruel, but maybe Roland will be able to thrive despite this due to his skill at killing."

My utterly subjective hot-take is that story, plot, and characterization were sacrificed or forgotten for the sake of "tension." I don't love easy tension, but I try to review books against what they're trying to achieve rather than my ideal book, and I can't discount Van Asten on this one. There was teeth-grating tension aplenty.

Less subjective is my take on the technical writing.

Charlemagne's Champion opens with so much repetition: the king rides to the top of the hill, where his horse is winded from riding to the top of the hill. Then, atop the hill, he waits and watches as his lords gain the hill behind him. On the summit of the hill, they converse before he dashes away from them, down the opposite side of the hill. The lords sit there on the hill, shocked at his behavior.

Is it the worst thing ever? No. Does the repetition add anything other than a bunch of words? No. Does it read like the author spit these first couple pages out over a weekend and then never revisited them in earnest? Yes.

Perhaps it was a fluke, I said to myself, a last-minute addition that didn't get the luxury of multiple editing sweeps. Stranger things have happened.

But the stupid technical problems continued. One sentence offered two point-of-views. There were always an endless string of prepositional phrases and bits of information that weren't necessary ("the king stood on the stairs of the castle near the back entrance at the place where the West wing and the East wing touched and watched the lords sparring").

And then, there was this monstrosity:

"Slowly, with concentrated effort, [Roland] walked across the inner bailey toward the stables where he quartered himself.
Oliver, reaching the corner that lead to the tower of the keep where his chamber was located, responded to an urge to stop and look back. [Roland] still stood there. Alone... He watched the boy walk slowly across the bailey.

From the first paragraph to the second, we jump perspectives. The first is from Roland's; the second is from Oliver’s. I don't love a fluid POV, but that's not a deal-breaker. You also see an example of all the extraneous prepositional phrases and asides. However, the real problem is that we go back in time when we shift to Oliver's POV. In Roland's sentence, he crosses the bailey. Oliver's POV starts with Roland still standing in the bailey.

Sometimes, breaking the rules adds something to a scene, highlights something jarring or critical. This is not one of those moments. It's, at absolute best, first-draft material, where you say to yourself, "I should figure out whose POV this should be covered in ... I'll get back to it."

If you've read many of my reviews, you know these sorts of sloppy problems bother me enough to make me quit reading. Countless closely-grouped technical issues appear as if the author didn't care enough about their book to edit it properly. And if they don't care enough to put that extra time in, why should I suspect that the rest of the novel is well-written, well-thought-out, and worth my time?

It's been said that my reviews can be a little exacting. I don't disagree that I'm after brilliant obscure vintage sci-fi and fantasy, and about as blunt as a brick to the head when I feel like a book falls dramatically short.

Similarly, I agree that I'm far pickier about grammar and writing structure than the average reader. I almost wish I weren't, but I've edited so many manuscripts that obvious missteps practically stand out in red text.

But the comments about my being too demanding echoed in my head and got me thinking. I take a bevy of these sloppy mistakes as "bad omens," as it were—but how do I know for sure unless I finish one of these novels? Take The Wizard's Shadow . The missteps in storytelling didn't negate the merit of the story it was telling. Perhaps missteps in technical writing wouldn't—and shouldn’t—be the end of Charlemagne's Champion.

Things almost immediately picked up. A supernatural element touched the story in the form of a snowy owl seemingly keeping an eye on Roland, even on travels of hundreds of miles. When the owl disappears, but Roland meets a priest with wide, dark eyes and snow-white robes, I had to know the connection.

And then there is the mysterious sword that appeared as if meant for Roland's hand: Durandal. Dark as night, and with a handle in the shape of a comely woman, others pain if they try to wield it. The dark woman of the handle is occasionally said to look hateful or suddenly cunning. This further intrigued me; the sword is fascinatingly more than a sword.

These supernatural elements were (finally!) paired with the regular appearance of a likable character.

Lord Oliver de Montglave is kind to everyone, even Roland. Not just when others are watching, or when Roland is on his best behavior, either. He's kind to Roland, full stop. It becomes clear that their destinies are somehow intertwined.

I started to "trust" the novel around this time. We have a kind character chipping away at Roland's worst qualities—hinting at a redemption arc—and a touch of supernatural every few chapters to keep me guessing.

The plot of Charlemagne's Champion is mostly Roland fighting the Lombards, fighting the Saxons and the Vikings, or fighting the Moors*. There's little to his storyline other than his service to Charlemagne, his stark fear over women, and—after so many pages of malice toward him—an eventual friendship with Lord Oliver that became so intense it rivaled the bro-love of Nancy Springer's Madbond series.

It all looked like it worked, though. Somehow this was all going to tie together; was the supernatural trying to help Charlemagne's bid to unify the continent under "The One True God" or the opposite? Or was the supernatural trying to peel Roland away from Charlemange and get him to accept the birthright of his witchy powers that he foreswore so many years prior? And was Oliver there to save Roland? I had to know.

I was already penning my concession speech in my head: "dear reviewers of my reviews. You're right. I've been too harsh in my critiques..."

Then, on page 192 of 295, I knew I would finish Charlemagne's Champion dissatisfied.

While Roland sleeps, Durandal the sword sprouts legs, transforms into a proper woman, and goes on a bit of a walkabout, but returns to sword-form before Roland wakes up.

First off, we're 65% of the way through the book. It's a little late for the introduction of significant supernatural events. This is several factors "more" than updates about Durandal's facial expressions or hints that there's a connection between the owl and the priest.

If this is a legitimately magical world, where dramatic supernatural events can happen that will impact the plot, we need to see that sooner. Like, common advice would be within the first two or three chapters. Otherwise, it feels contrived, convenient, an author having written themselves into a corner and grabbing the impossible so they don't have to, ahem, edit their story to find a logical progression.

I mean, say I'm overly critical all you want, but few things are more universally considered damning in a book/movie review than the term "deus ex machina."

But, okay, the sword is maybe a literal woman, perhaps a witch or something. Sure, it's sudden, but how did I know that it meant I wouldn't get a resolution for what most intrigued me: the intersection of the supernatural and Roland's service of Charlemagne?

Easy. If there were a solid plan for the supernatural elements, that scene wouldn't have come out of left-field. It would have felt like an unpredictable and yet somehow inevitable continuation of the supernatural storyline. Instead, I felt like I were reading an entirely different novel.

So when I finished the book and had no freaking idea what the sword, owl, and priest had to do with anything, I wasn't surprised. I could see the usefulness of having them as characters—to ensure the plot stayed within the bounds the author wanted—but the motive or intended outcomes of those supernatural creatures? Mostly lacking, and what is knowable has nothing to do with the primary plot. It's a couple-page, poorly fleshed out diversion.

I closed Charlemagne's Champion disappointed, but confident in my "bad omens." Even on nit-picky things, repeated lack of care seems to be a reasonable metric to expect a general lack of care.

This is a brutal review, to be sure, but I feel compelled to reiterate that had the supernatural elements come together in a satisfying way at the end, this review would have been the concession speech I was planning in my head. I think this is one of the fundamental difficulties with stories featuring an unlikable protagonist. If the plot doesn’t wrap up in a satisfying way, no amount of decent—or even good—writing will save it. And Charlemagne’s Champion did read well during the middle parts of the book, but it absolutely needed a strong ending to uphold that value.

If Gail Van Asten’s other books feature more likable protagonists, I’d be interested in giving them a try.

*So, uh, as you might expect, the depiction of the Moors is not particularly kind. I'd give this a pass if the POVs were exclusively of those from Charlemagne's lands—it'd be unreasonable to expect them to have an unbiased view of their enemies. We do get Moor POVs, though, and these uphold the values Charlemagne's ilk ascribe to them. They're cunning and treacherous and proud of their treachery. You get the idea.

I know historical-inspired fantasy often uses the Moors as the primary, and entirely corrupt, enemy. This smacks of subconscious racism to me. There were other enemy groups of different backgrounds and different religions and a penchant for warfare ... and yet they're never so vilified as the Moors.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books. I could definitely see it as a movie. Maybe someone will write a screenplay.

[Sunni · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really didn't like this one. I tried so hard to get into it, but had to always force myself to read it in hopes that I would finish it and be able to start on something else. The characters were dispassionate and boring, cruel and heartless, thoughtless and confusing. I don't think I took anything valuable away from reading this novel.

[Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited for this, as any novels concerning the Matter of France in the English-speaking world are as rare (if not more so) than the translations of the original source material. However, it seemed that the only new or fresh idea here was to "bring things down to earth" by reducing the Christian ideals of the poems to hypocrisy and making sure that the forces of paganism were the only real power at work in the world. Contrast this with Poul Anderson's masterful tension between the Christendom and the old gods in "Three Hearts, Three Lions" and "The Broken Sword", and you'll find that "Lions" is a far more worthy use of the Matter of France by an Anglophone author. Further, there was apparently no new idea for characterization except to engage character assassination. Roland, Charlemagne, Oliver, Turpin, Thierry, even Roland's legendary sword, Durendal - all are made pretty unpleasant in one way and another, and it's Ganelon of all people who is given some balance toward positivity from the original, while all the paragons are dragged into the mud so far as to render them unrecognizable. A poor way to update, to be sure.

The world building make little sense - it's not clear if Durendal and Turpin hail from Greco-Roman paganism or are something else entirely. Their motives, besides malevolence and anger in the former and meddlesomeness and inscrutability in the latter, are never clear, nor are their destinations. At least Lovecraft's inhuman, unknowable god-monsters didn't care to talk to people - these two have similarly alien motives, but they also seem to want to confuse you. Roland's return from the grave makes little coherent sense either, but at least we know what he wants out of life (or what comes after).

Roncevalles draws our attention as it lurches ever nearer, as I hoped it would help make some redemptive sense out of things, but it's gone in a flash of admittedly effective battlefield horror and pain but little else.

Gail Van Asten does have talent as a writer - she has a painterly way of making visual images appear (her strongest gift), and she has a good grasp of high-flown, Victorian-flavored Jacobean/Elizabethan vernacular, and her depictions of early medieval life don't ring with outrageous inaccuracy. But she has a tendency to overuse ellipses that cut in way too early in internal monologues (substituting what I guess is pure emotion for showing us what's going on), and by my beard, if I hear any version of Roland described as "grating" out his words again, the book is going in my clay pigeon thrower.

One gem herein - Oliver's advice to Roland that true generosity requires a person to receive graciously as well as give graciously. A point of true worth, if not worth buying the book over, since this wisdom also may be found elsewhere.

Skip this one. A disappointment. My true score is about 1.5 stars.