Riese: Kingdom Falling

A prequel to the Syfy web series, this novel serves as an origin story for Riese, an orphaned princess wandering her former kingdom, which has been overthrown by religious radicals who venerate machine technology. Cox writes for the newcomer to this multi-media narrative universe, but it is clear that in many places the story would be more meaningful for someone already acquainted with later events. The action occurs both in a frame story set in the present-day of the Reise universe, as well as in extended flashbacks to the protagonist’s youth at the time of the upheavals which lead to her change of fortune. Given the author’s background in television, it’s not surprising that the story reads like a long, possibly two-part, TV episode, with fairly predictable outcomes consistent with genre tropes. The world of the novel is liberally peppered with tellingly broad and sometimes oddly inconsistent references to familiar Earth culture, although Cox takes care not to specify a time frame or even the name of the world on which the action takes place, going so far as to set a scene in an orrery, but refer to the sphere representing the planet on which the characters stand simply as “the world.” The primary entities in play during the flashback narrative are Reise’s kingdom, Elysia, a hegemon with a level of technology and battle ethics on par with medieval Europe, but with vastly more progressive sexual politics; Nixie, a troubled and newly belligerent land to the north whose technology has recently advanced to that of the high Renaissance; and the Sect, a religious order offering Steam-era technological aide to Elysia in exchange for proselytization rights and influence at court. Elysia is described with a strange mix of Earthly references: its name harkens to the afterlife of Greek heroes, while its capital Asgard, Riese’s companion wolf Fenrir, and the games warden Tyr (among others) all take their names from Norse myth. Nixie could be named for either the water creatures of German lore, or the vacuum-tube display technology. The Sect awaits Ragnarok, the Norse end times, but worships a goddess called Sonne (based on the Germanic root from which sun is derived) and in an unusual twist on solunar gender convention, reviles her evil brother, Lune (from the Latin). As a whole, Cox can only be faulted for the familiar predictability of the action, while Ryan Copple and Kaleena Kiff — Riese’s creators — shoulder the blame for creating what amounts to a fantasy world with a thin veneer of steampunk menace.

Riese: Kingdom Falling by Greg Cox
Middle Grade Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
281 pp.
Published 2012
ISBN 978-14424-2969-7
$16.99
Fantasy

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