Anvil of the World by Kage Baker
Kage Baker’s The Anvil of the World
FT Rating: 6.0
Smith is the catch-all name for anyone trying to hide from their past and begin again as something completely different. Or it is the name of no one from anywhere, USA. This obvious name choice is the first of many stereotypical and unimaginative references used by Kage Baker in The Anvil of the World.
Smith, as you can infer, is running from his past and becomes a caravan master intent on getting his cousin’s caravan to Salesh by the Sea without damaged goods. The road was fraught with danger, demons, poisonings and general mayhem, but were happily all thwarted to make it to the intended destination; albeit not in one piece. The interesting cargo included a motley crew of passengers with racial tensions and assassination attempts keeping everyone on edge.
This section of The Anvil of the World I will call simply “The Caravan” as it must have been a novella previous to it’s inclusion into this book. Now, I don’t pretend to have any such knowledge nor has such an idea been previously noted, but the story of the travels of Smith and the gang is a very linear story which ends once they get to Salesh by the Sea. The characters are moderately interesting, but too little information is given about them to really care about their outcome and the most interesting of the group dies. Instead, “The Caravan” begins the theme of racial discord that runs through the next two sections of the book. If you only read this section of the story, you will enjoy it as a nice casual read.
Section two, which I call “The Hotel” has a completely different tone and feel than “The Caravan” with a different story about the purchasing and running of a hotel in Salesh by the Sea. This part of The Anvil of the World is it’s own story using the same characters but continuing the racism theme and adding several new themes including an obvious environmental theme, a feminist theme, and a capitalist theme. “The Hotel” documents Salesh by the Sea’s promiscuous sex, racial tensions, environmental destruction and thoughtless expansion by one of the races, The Children of the Sun. With few exceptions, notably Mrs. Smith’s character, everyone suddenly appears to have a cause rather than a story. These stereotypes and causes got in the way of most of this story, but Mrs. Smith is one reason to continue. Her character was the most interesting of the whole section and worth the read. Unfortunately, I still don’t know much about her, even after finishing the book.
The final section “The Quest” (my name) was the continuing story of this band of people and demons as they traveled to find the anvil of the world. The previous themes are continued with the major theme of power hunger being thrown in for good measure. Again, however, the story is very thin with no depth of character or even a rich vivid world. Smith travels to find the anvil of the world with his friend Ermenwyr and encounter a few troubles along the way. In the end, the anvil of the world is found and everyone’s true natures are revealed. I’ve never heard that story before.
My overall experience was that of boredom. The story is an anthology of liberal ideologies so thinly veiled it was more apparent than the story. The only interesting characters were killed off early with the notable exception of Mrs. Smith whom I would have liked to hear a lot more about. The world wasn’t interesting or unique and the outcomes were apparent with little thought or effort and could be easily categorized as the formula book: hero forced to do evil to survive, hero meets friends who help find true nature, friend’s hidden agenda, quest ends and hero does the right thing thwarting disaster. Had there not been the sexual content, this book would be suitable for young readers and could be split into three books in the young adult section. Uninspiring and soap boxish, I have a hard time recommending this story to anyone.
