Sharrukin's Palace

Code of the Communer (Book One of Shadows in the Wildwood) by Kai Greenwood

Overall Rating: **** (4 stars)

Code of the Communer is the first book of what appears likely to be a series titled Shadows in the Wildwood, by Kai Greenwood. I found it to be a flawed but still very readable work of dark fantasy, set in a world much like our own about ten thousand years ago.

Code of the Communer has several viewpoint characters, but the core of the narrative follows Caida and Fingle, young-adult siblings belonging to a hunter-gatherer people who call themselves simply the “Ten Tribes.” Despite her youth, Caida is a “communer,” a shaman-like leader. Her authority derives from her ability to commune with the godlike patron of the Ten Tribes, a spirit called the Long Walker.

Unfortunately, the Ten Tribes have come under intense pressure from a more sedentary people called “the Settlers,” and are no longer able to follow their ancient nomadic lifestyle. At the beginning of the story, Caida’s band have suffered from several violent confrontations with the Settlers. As far as they know, they may be the last survivors of the Ten Tribes.

Despite her private doubts, Caida leads her people northward. They cross a narrow sea to reach a land called Maerida, where the ancestors of the Ten Tribes may have originated. Her tribe tries to return to their old way of life in the new land, but they quickly learn that their ancestors had very good reasons for abandoning Maerida. What follows is a story of human folly, natural terrors, and competing gods that had me turning pages to the end.

The setting for the Shadows in the Wildwood intrigued me. It’s clear that the geography is loosely inspired by our own world at the end of the last glacial age. Caida’s people begin in what we might recognize as central France, and Maerida clearly resembles Britain (complete with the presence of wide coastal marshlands, still connecting it to the continent). Characters openly refer to an ice age that is still retreating. At this point it appears to me that the geography and human cultures of the novel are only inspired by European prehistory, but the resemblances were strong enough to keep my inner world-builder interested.

In fact, the world-building in Code of the Communer is probably its strongest feature. Kai Greenwood clearly belongs to the “show, don’t tell” school of fantasy writing. The reader is thrown into the world without a compass from the very first lines of the story, and the mysteries of the world are a strong incentive to keep reading. Many of those mysteries are still outstanding at the end of this first novel, which encourages me to look for the next books in the series.

That being said, Code of the Communer could have used the attention of an editor before publication. The level of copy-editing errors, odd word choices, and inconsistent prose style is just high enough that I was pulled out of the story at multiple points. I’ve seen far worse, but a writer of Kai Greenwood’s obvious talent would be well served by a bit of editorial assistance.

Overall, I enjoyed Code of the Communer, had no trouble getting through the story, and am eager to read more. Recommended for anyone who might enjoy a dark-fantasy tale inspired by human prehistory.