Fourteen (The Number Prophecy) by Colette Black

Fourteen (The Number Prophecy)

By Colette Black

So during Phoenix ComicCo…*coughCOPYRIGHTcough* Oh right, San Diego went nuts.... So during Phoenix Comicfest 2018, I picked up a couple books that were either self published or small press. If you're interested in exploring books that don't have the approval of Random House (Someone bring back Teddy Roosevelt), events like this are a good place to try your luck. Just beware that anyone can self publish a book. Anyone. Ms. Black was born in the United States and has lived in the Philippines and Switzerland. She currently lives in the greater Phoenix area with her children, dogs and a cat; thus joining the ranks of writers who huddle beneath the merciless sun of this blasted land (It must be the spice. It’s everywhere. In the air, in the food...). Fourteen was published in 2015 with Ms. Black noting the idea came from her children constantly picking up rocks and bringing them home (in their defense Ms. Black, there is just something comforting about an interesting rock in your pocket). Let's take a look at this shall we.

Almost all the world rests under one roof (one world government, for clarification), under the rule of the self proclaimed divine emperor. All the world is organized and structured into ten castes. Each caste has their own responsibilities and duties; their own areas set aside where they can live. Specifically tailored education for the children of these caste ensures that every person knows exactly what they need to know to be a proper contributing member of society. If this sounds good to you, I'm going to have to suggest that you grab 1984 and give it another read. From his palace in the sacred city, the Emperor rules over all, dictating everything from the thrust of scientific research, the availability of goods and the mobility of the masses that he rules. He lives surrounded by his servants, advisers, concubines and sons, each son being a near mirror image of himself in his youth. To avoid confusion the boys are numbered instead of named, the number comes from their birth order. In this environment Fourteen, the 14th son of the emperor lives a life of luxury and constant struggle as he is locked in constant competition against his brothers for who will become the next emperor. You see, every couple of decades the Emperor retires, and in a mystic ceremony passes on his knowledge, wisdom, and connection to the Vasheri who are the gods of the people and supposedly dwell in the center of the earth. The competition grows urgent because the Emperor has announced that this year is the year of his retirement. So 14 strains himself to show every drop of strength, intelligence and craftiness he has. He also turns to his servant Aednat, a lovely young woman who sees him as a younger brother, and his mentor Master Den. Unfortunately to his view, neither Aednat or Master Den are really what you could call allies in this struggle, as they keep encouraging him to give up the idea of becoming Emperor and instead focusing on escape.

Escape is also on the mind of Mariessa. A low born subject of the Empire, she lives in constant battle to keep her stepfather's hands off of her and her life her own. Her real parents raised her with a unbroken sense of self worth and right and backed it up by training her in how to kill people with knives. Mariessa is going to need every scrap of skill and every drop of determination that she has, because her venal stepfather has decided to sell her off. Not to just anyone however but to the Emperor's Men themselves. In this case they’re not looking for just another concubine for the Emperor but a woman to bear the first son of the new Emperor. Mariessa has no desire for such an honor viewing it as slavery and frankly... She's not wrong. So she maneuvers, plots, fights, and runs every step of the way refusing to give up her attempts at escape even has she is dragged into the very palace itself by her curly dark hair.

It's when the competition ends and the winner is declared that everything goes bad. Mariessa, Aednat, Master Den and Fourteen himself are going to have to flee from fates worse than death from the very heart of imperial power. Their opponent is a madman who wields the power of the entire world and has lived entire life times. Against them are arrayed armies and in a way society itself.  On their side is the lifetime of preparation that Master Den has made against this day; a network of angry citizens and officials from the highest levels of glittering society to the lowest dregs of civilization; some mysterious powers long thought extinct; and an ominous prophecy that predicts that the 13th son of the Emperor will be his doom.

I'd like to talk about prophecy, both specifically this one and in general for a moment.

For me this is the weakest part of the book and feels largely unnecessary. Part of that might be a general exhaustion with prophesy when it comes to fantasy stories. Prophesy stories tend to be real easy to screw up and there's also a chance of the prophecy draining all the tension out of your book. If everything is foreordained then why does anyone need to worry? There's the option of being “clever” in how you fulfill the prophecy but to be honest, most of these clever fulfillments aren't very clever.  Ethier falling flat by twisting the prophecy around so much you might as well not have it, or just being unconvincing.  Additionally, the prophecy just kinda makes the Emperor look... Well kinda dumb, which is another risk of these plots. I mean look if you had rock solid information that your 13th son would one day kill you... Why have a 13th son? For that matter why not limit yourself to 6 or 7 sons to ensure that there's a vast amount of wiggle room? Why even bother rolling that dice? There's no benefit to winning! So don't play! You're the Emperor of humanity! Just invest in some damn condoms and make sure you don't father any children you don't mean to. It's not that hard, billions of men have figured out how not to leave bastards behind and so can you! Of course our villain doesn't do that, he does the other plan where he murders an infant and the baby's mother for having the gall to give birth at the wrong moment. Look, even ignoring morality, any plan that includes “Let's murder the newborn child and it's mother” is a bad plan! Infanticide tends to create vastly more enemies than it removes and quite often you kill the wrong infant. Just ask King Herod and the Pharaoh from Exodus about that! When the Old Testament is pointing out that your plan has problems... It's time for a new plan! Ms. Black tries to get around this by not revealing the full prophecy until the end of the book, mostly just dropping a few lines here and there but anyone who's read older fantasy books (Like say... David Eddings) knows right away what we're dealing with. So for me at least the trick fell flat. It doesn't help that prophecy is in many ways overdone and frankly I think it's time to put that specific toy back in the toy box for a bit and let it rest.

That said, I do like the world the characters inhabit, even if I would never want to live there. In contrast to her leaning on prophesy, the world is very distinct and different from your bog standard fantasy world. While she has harvested some Asian influences here and there, Ms. Black has been content mostly to build something new. The Empire has a pre-WWII feel for its technology, but heavily impacted by the totalitarian government squatting on society. For example they have airplanes and cars, but due to the Emperor's decrees only the elite can actually have any access to them. Indoor plumbing is only common among the top levels of society because the Emperor and his administrators have no interest in improving the lot of the common man. Scientific research is slowed by the fact that every research project has to justify itself to a single all powerful authority whose only interest is in what will produce tangible benefits to him in the short-term. This is really brought home in a scene where the Emperor decides to suppress further airplane research (planes becoming cheaper and more powerful increases the chances of a rebel gaining access to a plane and causing damage, whereas the Empire has enough ground troops to win any confrontation it wants to) and research into atoms. I don't think I have to explain why suppressing the research into atoms made me laugh. It's a world where the elite have comfortable toilets, 20th century medicine and electric lights. The poor have to cart off lepers to death colonies and watch their children growing up half starved and illiterate. Ms. Black shows us exactly what a centralized state with complete control of industry and research looks like in these scenes and it's not pretty. Another interesting bit of the world are the heartstones. The soil has creatures called xicao that strip the body of all flesh rather quickly, this process leaves behind a small stone-like object called a heartstone. Traditionally the heartstone is presented to a loved one as a memorial to the lost one. Most of them simply generate light and are useful as long as you don't think to much about where they come from. A minority of heartstones do other things, like help you find a specific thing or person, or ensure that your children will look just like you or things even more strange or sinister.

Fourteen and Mariessa are the main characters of the book and they're both teenagers with a lot of growing to do. Both of them have a lot of baggage and preconceptions from their upbringing and prior experiences that they need to shake off. Along with learning how to deal with each other while avoiding being hunted down and murdered for daring to exist. Ms. Black handles this rather well, keeping the two fairly realistic but keeping either of them from getting to obnoxious so I only wanted to strangle them a few times in the book. Considering there are adults I want to straggle on a regular basis, this is well done. Especially given Fourteen's deep ignorance and classism. Master Den, while the older character and more settled in his ways is, on the edge of being consumed by a desire for revenge and chewing on old grudges and secrets. He's honestly the character we learn the least about in this story. Aedat mostly serves as the steadying influence of the group that everyone loves. Her main duty is keeping the group together and keeping them from killing each other until they learn to live and work together. Ironically given that she's barely into her 20s, she's the most mature character in the book. This includes the villains.

The big negatives for this book to me were the prophecy arc and the fact that some powers just seem to pop up out of nowhere, which a strange feeling of a lack of foreshadowing considering we're dealing with a fantasy revolving around a foretelling of the future. If you're going to have a character with secret magic powers, put in some build up. Additionally there were unnecessary plot elements (did we really need two palace escapes?) that ate up time that could have better used. Balancing against that, the characters of Fourteen and Mariessa are fairly well done and while they could use some more in-depth work, you get a good sense of what kind of people they are by the end of the book. The world is incredibly interesting, avoiding the fantasy traditions of NotEurope and the more recent one of NotJapan or NotChina. While there's a slight Pan-Asian feel to the Empire, there's enough variety of people and customs that it feels like a real world state inhabited by all kinds of people across the world. Ms. Black's strength is very much in the characters she creates and the world she allows them to inhabit. So I have hopes that any future books will be better. That said, I'm going to have to give Fourteen by Colette Black a C due to the plot issues. If prophesies and pacing issues don't bother you as much as they do me however the book is easily above average.

This Sunday, we bring in Joshua Simpson one of the co-writers of the Warpworld series to tell us a bit about worldbuilding.  Join us next Friday for the review of The Warrior's Stone by Matthew O. Duncan.  Keep Reading!

Red textis your editor, Dr. Ben Allen.
Black text is your reviewer, Garvin Anders.