Karavans
Jennifer Roberson
DAW Books, April 2007
ISBN 0-7564-0172-0
Review by Doranna Durgin.
Karavans is Roberson's first release in several years, and has been long awaited. As the introduction to a new series and a complex new world, this book has a heavy load to carry. It introduces Alisanos, a sentient forest with a tendency to travel without notice. This tendency wouldn't be such an issue if entering the forest didn't change humans to something else entirely...or if its recent quiescence hadn't allowed the humans in the vicinity to grow complacent, running their summer karavans along a route that has developed far too close to the deepwood. (A karavan is the same as a caravan; the reason for the unique spelling is unclear.)
Even with signs of the impending change, a group of desperate people try for one more karavan across the wilds, hoping to escape a war-torn land. Davyn and Audrun (and their children) push hard to join a karavan that doesn't want them, following the advice of a diviner who urges them to make sure their new baby is born across the border. Guided by Rhuan — a man of a mysterious magical race — and by Ilona, the karavan's rare true diviner, they defiantly secure a place in the karavan. But Alisanos is awake and ready to move, the strife of war reaches out to interfere with the karavan, and even Rhuan is more than he first seems.
To some readers the pacing may feel slow because of the introductory nature of the book. A factor in whether it works for a you as a reader may be whether you accept that it is the first book of a major series and go with it. And though Roberson mixes this new world's set-up with plenty of action, readers expecting a complete story arc in this first volume may be disappointed. Still — even as one who generally doesn't appreciate that structure — I found the book deeply satisfying as a whole, with enough resolution to provide the sense of closure I expect and enough story left to tell that I'm looking forward to the next volume.
In sum, Karavans is a gloriously written novel that introduces a unique and deeply envisioned world complete with richly detailed settings and fully fleshed characters. If you're like me, you'll fall in love with them, hate them, worry about them, and wish you could give one or two of them a good kick in the posterior. And when you finally lift your attention from the pages, you'll be dazed to discover you haven't actually been traveling beside them along Alisanos.
