The last days of the Roman
Republic (a tale very familiar to most of us) are retold through a fantasy lens
in the new series The Aven Cycle. The
premise of the alternate Rome in which much of this story is set (called “Aven”
because Remus succeeded in founding it on the Aventine Hill) is that some
individuals have been born with magical powers (divided into nine elements,
although some of these mages have talents with more than one of the nine).
Though honored, these individuals are barred from ascending the full cursus
honorem, to avoid
too great a concentration of power. The main characters of the book include
three sisters thus gifted with magic, the Vitellae, as well this world’s Caesar
equivalent, Vibius Sempronius Tarren.
The manner in which the
authoress modifies the actual history to fit this fantastic element is
generally plausible & interesting. The
leges tabulae magicae, laws the Aventans have devised to deal with magic,
ring true to how the Romans would have handled such a situation (though the
Latin doesn’t sound quite right to my ear). The magic employed by the Celts
operates on a different system from that of Aven, which seems appropriate and
raises hopes that unusual spellcraft from yet other lands will make it into
future books in the series. There are a few points on which it would be easy to
quibble: Morris associates each of her magical elements with one or more gods,
for instance, and it is tempting to argue a few of the correspondences, but this
is highly subjective.
Depiction of the political scene
is of mixed quality. On the one hand, the author cuts between the schemes of
Sempronius, the plotting of his Optimate rivals within Aven, and the intrigues
of their mutual Celtic foes, which adds variety and allows us a more complete
view of the plot as it develops than is granted to any of the characters. On
the other, I did feel at the time of reading this that the author’s sympathies
lie a little too openly with the Populare faction: at times it seems that the
fears of the Optimates that the mos maiorem is being eroded or that the ambitions of
Semprionius could lead to dictatorship are presented as pure paranoia or a
pretext to retain their own hold on power, when history proved the same fears by
their counterparts to be well founded. Also, Ocella, a Sulla equivalent,
features prominently toward the beginning, while no version of Marius is
reported anywhere, making it look like past misdeeds were all on one side.
The personal & romantic side
of the book is focused mainly on Latona, one of the Vitelliae, although there
is again a sub-plot among the Celts. In each case, Morris takes pains to draw
how past experiences influence her heroines in the present. While I still
didn’t understand or agree with every decision the characters made, this did
create enough investment in the characters to hope they would be able to find
happiness. These threads also revealed more depths to the characters male
romantic interests. I only wish that the authoress had seen fit to create an
Optimate romance as well to balance the three parts of her narrative and to
show another side to these schemers in the Senate (one could argue some early
scenes with Ocella fill this role, but these certainly did not showcase the
tenderness of the dictator).
Overall, this promises to be the
start to an entertaining series.
If this appeals to you, you may
want to check out the website of the authoress at https://cassmorriswrites.com/.
