This latest novel from the Australian SF author Sean McMullen starts off with a simple if protracted siege on another world (apparently a fantasy setting but as we learn later, actually SFnal).

Unfortunately for the forces of Emperor Warsovran, they learned their siege craft from the very best and the very best happen to be the people living in the very city they are besieging. No problem, the forces of the Empire have recovered Silverdeath, a mighty weapon forged by a god.

It is true nobody with a say in its use has read the documentation on it yet but what could possibly go wrong? This begins a sequence of events that starts with the utter destruction of an ancient and beautiful city and proceeds from there to death on a biblical scale, all this before the plot proper has actually begun.

By the time the various protagonists have realised the extent of the problem presented by Silverdeath, an entire continent has been seared clean of life. Emperor Warsovran has survived, he still controls Silverdeath, he has plans for one of the unburnt continents and he is reasonably sure he knows how to use Silverdeath safely now. If not, there are other continents.

In most author's hands what follows would be a tired 'chase the plot coupons' fantasy novel. In McMullen's hands we are given a diverse cast whose personal agendas are such that co-operation between them is highly contingent on what is happening at the moment.

Everyone agrees that Warsovran must have Silverdeath taken away from him. Not everyone agrees that it should be destroyed. Silverdeath can grant rejuvenation as well as death and several characters are extremely interested in that aspect of Silverdeath.

The first being the former king, Druskarl, whose testicles were removed in a dispute. Others, such as the fiercely dogmatic Metrologan priestess Velander, are determined that victory is not enough but must be achieved at in a moral way, which is to say moral as defined by a not particularly imaginative (although quite bright) fanatic.

At least Velander is applying local solutions to the problem, however counter-productively. The vampire Laron is originally from France and he tries very hard to apply principles of chivalry that he arguably does not really remember clearly or truly understand after centuries of exile since the primary day to day result of his code of behaviour is that he tries very hard, although not always successfully, to eat only rude people or the dull.

To complicate matters even more, Princess Senterri is in Diomeda, the city Warsovran occupies after fleeing his scorched continent. Senterri finds the occupation rather dull. She spices up her letters home with tales of action and adventure which leads to a very puzzled occupying force receiving letters from Senterri's family demanding the release of a princess the occupiers had no idea was even in the city.

Worse, by the time action is taken to find and return her, the young lady has fled the city only to be captured and sold into slavery. Her family, whose armies are on the march to Diomeda, are not likely to be understanding. Senterri's story only reconnects with the mainstream of the Silverdeath Problem near the end but the events her lies put into action complicate matters through out the book.

Eventually, the lost princess aside, the various actors convert on Diomeda, Silverdeath and a resolution I won't spoil aside from commenting that this may be the first time I have seen belly-dancing used successfully to oppose weapons of mass destruction.

The plot does not race forward but each side-track and digression is entertaining in its own right.
I did not expect to like this book. For one thing, I have only read one previous book by McMullen, 'The Centurion's Empire', and I thought it ended very badly. For another, the title seemed strongly reminiscent of hokey Extruded Product Fantasy and I don't care for most fantasy, let alone the Velveeta Fantasy books that litter bookstore shelves.

I discovered on reading 'The Voyage of the Shadowmoon' that I had misjudged it entirely. While it certainly can be read as fantasy (and honestly, I'd like to see the explanation that makes the SFnal explanation for why magic works on this world make sense) it is in no way the inept and derivative work I was expecting. In fact, this is the best book I have read so far this year.

Its strengths include a plot which is complicated but no more than the author can handle, a large cast of characters who despite being on various contending sides are presented sympathetically, even when they are tragically wrong. Unlike other books I could name, the plot ends at the final page.

While we might follow some of the characters in a later book (I'd certainly give it a look), the crisis this book was written about has been resolved by the end, avoiding the Scylla of plot truncation in the service of sequels on one hand and the Charybdis of a hastily composed resolution crammed into one tenth the number of pages it required on the other.

This book is just the right length for the plot, with the correct number of characters and a thoughtfully chosen pace. Buy this book. Buy it in hardcover and if you can't afford it in hardcover, get your library to buy it in hardcover.

James Nicoll