Synopsis
Guilt will always call you back…
Rhona is a faithful servant of the country Jémoon and a woman in love. Everything changes when her beloved sets the ravenous Vulture goddess loose upon the land. Forced to execute the woman she loves for committing treason, Rhona discovers a profound correlation between morality and truth. A connection that might save her people or annihilate them all.
You are a lie…
Varésh Lúm-talé is many things, most of all a genocidal liar. A falsity searching for the Phoenix goddess whom he believes can help him rectify his atrocities. Such an undertaking is an arduous one for a man with missing memories and a conscience set on rending him from inside out. A man whose journey leads to Hang-Dead Forest and a meeting with a Vulture goddess who is not entirely as she seems.
Review
“Be still, said the tree. Be as the souls you seek.”
Luke Tarzian’s novella The World Maker Parable made it’s entry into the world confidently, set on a trailblazing course through the indie community.
The World Maker Parable, by self-published author Luke Tarzian, is a prequel novella to his full-length debut Vultures. Set in the same world as Vultures, this novella is the first in his Adjacent Monsters series. I ended up reading Parable before Vultures and it worked out just fine. If you asked me what I loved about this novella, my answer would be everything. A full 10 because I can’t find a single thing that didn’t work for me. I’m grateful for writers like Tarzian who dare to take risks, challenging readers to move beyond the comfort of what is familiar.
Parable is best approached knowing very little about the characters and plot so these details will be limited, sorry folks! Parable deals with concepts that I think everyone struggles with to some degree or another; life, death, failure, guilt, grief, the passage of time, your decisions and what they mean for you and the people around you. Tarzian takes these concepts and plays with them, stretching them out within his symbolism and characterization.
“There was a profound correlation between morality, truth, and the lies one told oneself.”
The characters are some of the most original I’ve come across and I am very impressed with how well the setting, characters, and symbolism tied together. Told through timelines that weave back and forth, we follow the perspective of two main characters. The novella begins with Rhona, a loyal sword to her country, leading her beloved to be executed due to the role she played in freeing the Vulture goddess. The second perspective we follow is that of Varésh Lúm-talé, a god-like being, a builder of worlds who is seeking help from this same Vulture. I was immediately taken by these two characters as soon as they appeared on page. Rhona and Varésh are about as unreliable as you will find in a novel. Both haunted by past choices, their minds were an ocean of thoughts, crashing and tumbling, wearing down mental and emotional barriers that were kept in place.
Tarzian imagined an all consuming dreamscape the likes of Poe or Morpheus. In a world rife with tension, this dark psychological fantasy is laced in horror and existential dread. The setting became increasingly complex as different sections were introduced. The use of duality (life/death, light/dark, creation/entropy, destruction/evolution) and symbolism were my favorite parts. Tarzian has this extraordinary way of writing that envelopes you inside the story, and this is where he shines. There were moments of harrowing situations, emotionally charged narratives, and bizarre-blurring of realities. It’s dark yet at times penned in this beautiful, ethereal way.
“This must be what it feels like, what it looks like when guilt manifests, she thought, pushing back tears. Ghosts of yore, harbingers of sorrow, bannermen for a lady of woe. They were her legacy, and what an awful thing that was.”
You’re always learning something novel while the plot is building. Just when you think you have it figured out, there is another layer that unfolds, creating plots within plots that are paced out perfectly. What at first felt like a smaller, contained story in its own dimly lit corner of the world ended up being much larger in scale. Parable strikes that perfect balance of giving enough information to begin unraveling the details while still being able to stay mysterious to the very end.
The World Maker Parable is a devastatingly beautiful piece of art. It’s exactly the sort of dark fantasy I’ve always wanted to read. My mind is still reeling with needing to know more about this world Tarzian created. I may not have understood the meaning of every detail, but I fully understood the meaning of the story. Vultures is up next, and then I’ll return for The World Breaker Requiem, book 2 in Adjacent Monsters which released December 2, 2021.
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