CL Clark
Orbit, 9 March 2023
Available as: PB, 470pp, audio, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356516240
I'm grateful to Orbit for an advance copy of The Faithless to consider for review.
The Faithless is CL Clark's followup to The Unbroken, returning to the colonial setting of the Balladairean Empire and its recently self-liberated colony Qazāl. In this one, the focus is much more on Balladaire itself. Touraine, our massively moody and knife-y heroine, ex soldier in the colonial battalions of Balladaire, lately a revolutionary and member of the ruling council of Qazāl, travels to Balladaire to pursue independence negotiations with Crown Princess Luca. The problem is that Luca's being denied the throne by her uncle Nicolas whose attitude to the former colony is distinctly unenlightened - he sees it as a land of savages who should be grateful for the "benefits" the Empire brought them. Luca herself is under suspicion because of her dalliance with Touraine - a dalliance which didn't prevent her seeing the rebel leader condemned to death. (It's complicated). While there is a subplot taking place back home in Qazāl, it gets little space in the book and the divisions between the various figures on the Council - including Touraine's mother - left smouldering. Rather, The Faithless focuses on Luca and Touraine.
In discussing this book, it is worth starting with the title, I think. Often the title of a book and its content have a straightforward connection. In other cases the relationship between the two is hard to work out. Either way, the title adds little insight to the book. But then, as with The Faithless, there are books where the title really illuminates the story. Here, it is meaningful on so many levels. First, Balladaire is a polity that has outlawed religion. Like a post 1789 French Republic dialled up to 11, religion is seen as a barbaric institution - we learn a little here about why - and one of the chief policies of the Empire is to destroy it in every colony that it takes. We saw the effects of this on Qazāl in The Unbroken. In The Faithless the impact on Balladaire is explored - including the idea that having cut itself off from its own magical roots the Empire is now greedy for those of its conquests, a sort of orientalism made more keen by the presence of actual supernatural abilities such as healing, crop protection or the ability to communicate with animals. The faithless, then are those who lack an essential grounding, who have traded away their true nature.
Of course another meaning of "faithless" is a relationship between friends, lovers, or would-be lovers where trust is lacking. The complicated relationship between Luca and Touraine (and, boy, does it get complicated) is an excellent example, the evolution of their love, or lust, or whatever it is, stepping out a dance at times delicate and nuanced, at times loud and menacing. It's interwoven with the relationship between their nations, a relationship that's very unequal and which has a violent history and a gloomy future. It's impossible to separate the desires and fantasies of the two women from the politics here, leading to violent swings in their perception of one another as duty, intention and desire continually trip each other up and these two mercurial, gifted individuals lose themselves in attempts to resolve their multiple dilemmas. The resulting narrative, driven both by passion and by politics, is deeply thrilling even as one feels their frustration.
But we still haven't exhausted the meanings of "faithless" that are relevant here. There's also faith in oneself to be considered, something that both Luca and Touraine have cause to doubt given their histories. There's faith in institutions - nations, rulers and religion (or lack of it) as constituent parts of a society, distinct from an aspect of belief. All of these have their place in The Faithless, drenched as it is in the cruelties and contradictions of a post-colonial (well, partly post-colonial) situation.
I feel I am at risk of treating this book as primarily a philosophical object. Really, nothing could be further from the truth. This is a book of passion and action, one with a rattling good plot which takes forward the desperate situation that held at the end of The Unbroken, blending politics, magic and warfare to produce something utterly compelling.
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