Ben Holiday was an early middle-aged trial lawyer in Chicago, trying to recover from the death of his wife, Annie, in a car accident two years prior. He was a brilliant trial lawyer, had started a successful law firm, and was living on a penthouse. But the courts were full of red tape, he had dropped connection with most of his friends, and now he was drinking alone. He looked at the Christmas Wishlist catalog from the high-end New York department store Rosen’s, and an advertisement for a fantasy kingdom (complete with dragons, knights, castles, and princesses) for sale for $1 million. He had not been able to get over the grief of losing Annie, he was frustrated with the court bureaucracy impeding progress, and he had no more vision for his life. So he decided to buy it, despite that it was totally irrational, probably just a fake stage production, and derided as foolish by his business partner and best friend Miles.
He arrived at Rosen’s to purchase it, was directed to a special elevator and then to a room in back. A very unusual-looking man named Meeks was the broker, and he interviewed Holiday very expertly, but avoided telling Holiday anything about the kingdom. Meeks decided that Holiday was the man to become the next king, and offered him the purchase. Holiday thought it over during the night, and signed the contract the next day. A month later, he had sold $1 million worth of stocks and bonds and purchased the magic kingdom of Landover. He was given a medallion which would establish him as the true king and would let him return if he wanted. He could return any time within the first 10 days and receive his money back, but returning afterwards would forfeit it. He was given airline tickets to Virginia, a rental car to drive to the Appalachians, and directed to a path off the side of a road. He would be met in the kingdom.
The entrance to the kingdom was a long, dark tunnel, full of voices. (Great special effects.) The voices were interrupted by a scream, which proved to be coming from a most dragon which was looking quite real. He fled, and unable to outrun the dragon, touched the medallion in hopes that it would protect him. A knight appeared, charged the dragon, and knocked Holiday out of the way. A brief encounter with the sleepy dragon later, he arrives in a meadow and is met by the court wizard Questor Thews.
Questor is rather unreliable with magic, and ends up introducing Holiday to the Bonnie Blues, a species of edible tree gifted to Landover by the fairies that created the kingdom. They set off for the king’s castle, Sterling Silver, reaching her around nightfall. It turns out that the magic in Landover was decaying, and Sterling Silver, once brilliantly white and shining is now dark and dreary. Inside is better; the castle feels warm and homey. Holiday discovers that the royal retinue consists of a wizard of dubious ability (Questor); Abernathy, originally a man, now a man-sized terrier owing to a magical disguise by Questor backfiring; and two kobolds, ugly but very effective at killing. There had been no king for twenty years, so there was no army, no taxation, no nothing, pretty much. To add insult to injury, Questor puts a magical sleeping potion in the wine but got it wrong and they slept for a week, leaving Holiday with two days to return with his money back.
They hastily went to the location of the coronation, as Questor had notified everyone in the kingdom that the new king was to be crowned that day. A poor farming family and a beggar were all that showed up. And the demon Mark, who arrived after Holiday was hastily crowned, pledging himself to Landover. Mark stood defiantly, but the knight appeared again, and he the demon and his army left. Questor was astonished that the Paladin had returned after twenty years. And Holiday, who knew that Questor had been holding out information on him was determined to get to the bottom of it.
It turned out that the son of the last king did not want to rule, nor did the court wizard want to stay. So they left Landover (and in so doing, lost their magical powers) through one of the portals that connect Landover with other worlds, choosing a world where the inhabitants would see Landover as a fantasy worth paying for. The wizard was, in fact, Meeks, who chose buyers who would stay long enough to forfeit their million dollars, but would not have the fortitude to stay; thus the kingdom would keep reverting to Meeks. Questor was Meeks’ half brother, and was given the job as court wizard in exchange for informing Meeks of all that went on (and for dibs and dabs of magic knowledge that Meeks would give to string him along). Furthermore, Meeks had suggested that the Mark challenge the king on midsummer’s eve, to ensure that the king would be killed or flee. Holiday, however, had meant it when he bought Landover to start a knew life, and a resolve grew in him to take the kingship and make things right. In fact, being king was like being a lawyer—he was responsible for the well-being of his clients as a lawyer, and as a king he was responsible for the well-being of his subjects.
If he were going to repair the kingdom, he would have to get the kingdom to acknowledge him as king. So they set out to ask allegiance from the Greensward barons. The barons say they will pledge allegiance if he marries one of their daughters (putting himself at risk of being killed). Holiday says he cannot; the head baron challenges him to combat. Holiday choose boxing, which he had some practice in. The fight ends when Holiday was getting bested and the knight appeared again, and then disappeared. Thirty-two kings had come and gone in rapid succession, none lasting long, and none could bring back the Paladin (including Holiday, as the Paladin appeared like a ghost), who alone had the strength to defeat the dragon that preyed on their land. The barons say they will pledge allegiance if he gets rid of the dragon.
Next they went to the Lake People. One night on the way, Holiday goes swimming by himself in a nearby lake. (Fortunately, the bog wights and other creatures that the kobolds regularly kept from eating Holiday did not show up.) He sees a slyph bathing. She says that because he has seen her, she is his. Holiday is infatuated, but interrupted. They arrive at the Lake People’s dwellings in the forest soon after, and the slyph, named Willow, turns out to be the daughter of the leader of the Lake People. The leader also refused to swear allegiance, on the grounds that his people came from fairy, and still retain healing magic which they can use to repair the decline. When Holiday suggests that perhaps the failure of others to stem the tide would overwhelm their magic, the leader says he would swear allegiance if Holiday gets the Greensward barons to stop polluting the valley. Then there was an all-night party, which Holiday left early, and joined Willow to see her mother dance. Afterwards, Willow turned into a tree on that spot, repulsing Holiday—he was attracted to her human form (despite her green tint) and repulsed by her alienness.
Holiday returns to Sterling Silver defeated. However, two G'Home Gnomes arrive to pledge allegiance, and asking for his help in releasing their kindred taken hostage by the trolls. The gnomes were small, furry, and covered with dirt. They dug underground, and had a habit of appropriating things (likely the trolls’ pets, in this case), but as slavery was not allowed, Holiday insisted on going to the trolls to enforce it. The mission was a disaster: the party was captured. In the night Willow arrives and frees them, and Questor makes a diversion with successful magic in the form of a dragon. Willow continued to insist that she was his, it had been prophesied that she would be, and it did not matter that he did not love her now, she was confident he would in the future.
When the six of them had safely escaped, they confronted their failures, encouraged each other, and committed to each other. Then Holiday decided that he needed to go see the witch Nightshade, because only she had strong enough magic to overpower the dragon. Despite universal objection, Holiday was High Lord. The gnomes had been to Deep Fell, where she lived, and could guide them. Holiday, Willow, and the gnomes went first, so that the others could rescue them if needed. Willow could sense the illusions that the witch put up, and the gnomes were too shortsighted to see them, and they arrived at the witch’s castle. The witch also refused to pledge allegiance, nor did she think that she needed him. After Holiday pointed out that if the rest of the valley was overrun by the demon, she would eventually be, too. She said that she could tell him of magic strong enough to control the dragon—Io Dust, from fairy—and if he went to fairy (she was banished) she would partner with him.
Despite Willow’s objections—no one returns from fairy—Holiday left for fairy. He encountered a vision of being in Chicago after ten years have passed, has possessions having been disposed of after being declared legally dead, and the law firm failing because Holiday was its genius. Then he saw the ghost of Annie at her parents’ house, guilt-tripping him for not visiting because she still needed him. The he met Questor in a dead Landover, berating him for not having returned from fairy. He was nearly eaten by the dragon before he faded into another vision. Eventually he logiced out that the visions were not real, and remembering that Willow had said that the Lake People had left fairy because it was the manifestation of emotion, he realized that he was seeing the manifestations of his fear of failure, his certainty that he would fail. At that point he knew they were lies and had no power. Then the fairies congratulated him on this rare achievement, invited him to come back at need, showed him a bush with Io Dust pods, told him of the power that if they were inhaled the giver would have control over the inhaler, and warned him of the witch’s treachery.
Upon his return, Holiday found the surprised gnomes, and arranged a ruse with them. He went to the witch, faked seeing Willow as the gnomes rustled the vines, and threw dust from one of the pods into the witch’s face. She burned with hatred for him because of that, but she had to do as he asked. She could not release his friends, whom she had taken prisoner, because she had sent them to Abaddon, for the sport of the demons. She could not go there herself to retrieve them, but the dragon could. Because she had sent his friends out of the world, he ordered her to resume her form as a crow and fly out of this world to fairy (where she would likely die).
Holiday went to the Fire Springs, and despite some difficulty in thinking clearly, got the dragon to inhale some powder and threw an entire pod into his mouth. The dragon complained that could have killed him, and he hated Holiday as well, but he obeyed. He took Holiday to Abaddon, rescued everyone (including Questor, who miraculously escaped filling into the fire through a perfectly executed levitation spell), and extracted a promise from the dragon not to hunt in the valley as long as Holiday reigned.
At this point the Mark showed up early and challenged Holiday. Holiday accepted and set the date in three days. He summoned the Lake People and the Greensward barons to the challenge location at the Heart. Then he tried to figure out how to summon the Paladin, and what the connect was between the king and the magic that held the land together. He had no success.
Everyone arrived at the Heart, although they hid in the forest when the Mark appeared. The Mark, eight feet tall, clad in wicked armor, challenged Holiday, and galloped toward him, lance down. Holiday was terrified, but mastered his fear, which left him a brief moment to think. He remembered that Meeks’ brief instruction had said that the medallion could not be taken from him, which meant that the Mark could not take it. But the Mark needed it. Which meant that the Mark expected him to use it to flee. Holiday determined not to flee and abandon Landover to save his skin. At that moment, the Paladin appeared again, but instead of disappearing, Holiday’s spirit was sucked into it and he became the champion that had never lost a battle, with the wisdom of a thousand battles. He attacked the Mark, and actually was losing for a while, but the Mark’s sword got stuck in the Paladin’s armor, and Holiday finished him off. He returned to his body, the demon army fled, and everyone acknowledged him as king. Holiday now knew that the Paladin was not someone to be summoned by magic, but that his all-in commitment to Landover made him the Paladin.
High Lord Holiday invited everyone to a feast at Sterling Silver, where he told them of his vision that they would work together, be friends, and restore they value. They reaffirmed their pledge of allegiance (despite many doubts). Holiday found that the pain of losing Annie was gone, after he had faced his fears of loving again, and he began to love Willow.
Brooks weaves together a number of fantasy themes in Landover. There are the standard dragons, castles, nights, and princesses (Willow is the lord’s daughter), but a little whimsically. There is a Narnia element of a small, pastoral kingdom (Landover appears to be less than a three day’s ride in radius). He incorporates some of Faerie, the Celtic other-world that occasionally interacts with ours. Although Faerie is a dangerous place, Landover’s fairy is benevolent. The fairies created Landover as a gateway to fairy, gifted her with the Bonnie Blues so that all would have something to eat no matter how poor, and set up the medallion and king. From Holiday’s experience in fairy, it seems that people did not return from fairy because they got lost in their internal emotions, rather than because of the malevolence of the fairies. Frankly, the fairies seem to be a pantheistic sort of sub-Aslan, as they seem to play a similar role in guiding critical events.
The main theme seems to be that meaning in life comes from commitment to the people around you. As a lawyer, Holiday’s duty was to serve his clients, and as king, he is the chief servant of all (as he mentions in his speech). Meeks failed in recognizing Holiday’s perseverance, as it led to Holiday’s commitment to restoring Landover, if only for the sake of the family and the beggar who needed him so badly they showed up to the hopeless coronation of the 33rd play-king.
The premise and theme have promise, but somehow there is no soul in Landover. It fails to have the incisive humor of Terry Pratchet; in fact, I did not find it funny at all, not even in the parenthetical or situational way of Asimov or Heinlein. (Reviews suggest that schoolboys find it quite funny, so perhaps the humor is age-dependent.) Yet it does not have the depth of world to be serious. There is no mystery, no myth, and no history to the land. We are told about the land, but we are not given an experience of the land. The sap of Bonnie Blues tastes like milk, and the branches are edible, but that is the extant. We are told that Sterling Silver is dark and forboding on the outside and homely on the inside, but we are not told what it feels like. There are sufficient characters for the story, but no visceral sense that Landover’s population actually exceeds the handful of people that we meet. And for that matter, why are there so many barons when the size of Landover would only require a single one, namely Holiday? The world is apparently big enough to have eight (!) moons, yet we sense nothing more than mountains ringing a small valley and the mists of fairy beyond that.
The main theme also did not resonate with me. Now that I am older, I understand how fear actually prevents us from living life, and how defeating fear actually is important. But implementation of the theme did not resonate with me. Maybe it is simply because I do not enjoy internal struggles or reading about how someone feels inadequate. One problem is that Holiday does not seem to struggle with fear, he goes from being confident to being despondent. There is no sense of vulnerability in the characters.
And of course, the love interest was poorly done. You happen across a naked sylph bathing and her response is “I am yours, take me”? That never happens anywhere, especially not in fairy-tales, which are usually more femme-fatale (Sirens of Odysseus, the Maid of the Alder in MacDonald’s Phantastes, or even “Mrs. Reynolds” in the “Firefly” TV show). I get that commitment is a theme, but there is no vulnerability in Willow, no sense of pain that he that cannot return her love, nor any questioning of the prophetic foretelling that normal people all have. On the other side, while Willow can sense that he is committed to Landover before he realizes it, Holiday never expresses appreciation of who she is. The best we get is the he “needs” her, which sounds more like lust than love, especially since it seems more a physical reaction. What, exactly, is this relationship based on? A prophetic image on her part, and her body, plus the fact that she is committed to him first? Isn’t the knight supposed to be the one pursuing the pursuing the princess, not the other way around?
Ultimately this is an average quality fantasy world. The mechanics of fairy are well-developed, but the rest of the world is not. Holiday’s character has emotional motivation, but his emotional growth is ineptly communicated. This seems to be a comedy, but comes out serious. It is a world that you want to like, but have no connection to. However, the plot and the pacing do make you want to find out what happens, and it is a fun read.