Kingdom River (Snowfall Trilogy Book 2) by Mitchell Smith
01/10/2003 . Source: Tomas L Martin 
pub: Forge/TOR. 400 page hardback. Price: $25.95 (US), $35.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-765-30008-7. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check
out website: www.tor.com
Mitchell Smith's 'Kingdom River' is not
what it claims to be. Supposedly, it is a post-apocalyptic novel,
if you believe the blurb. In reality, though, the flimsy and annoying
post-apocalyptic elements of the tale let down what could be a very
solid and enjoyable fantasy.
'Kingdom River' is set in a ravaged America gripped by an ice age
of human making. The hero, Sam Monroe, is General and leader of
a small nation in North Mexico, his people are under threat from
a Ghengis Khan figure and his huge warband of horse riders attacking
from the north.
In order to fight them off, Sam has to join forces with their
rivals, the Middle Kingdom, a powerful but stagnant nation across
the south of the USA, whose capital and stronghold is on an island
surrounded by often frozen rivers.
The feel of the combat and life is a lot like American Civil War
in tone and style, only gunpowder has been 'suppressed', and only
swords, pikes and the occasional bow are used. The combat scenes
are very authentic and realistic and this is where Smith's strengths
lie. The characters are memorable without being stereotypes and
the medieval politics ebb and flow with suitable savagery.
The plot, characters and to a certain extent the setting all fulfil
their purpose well and the writing is strong. In particular the
Queen and her bodyguard, Martha, are great to read about and the
banter between members of Monroe's army is a nice touch. Despite
the makings of a good tale, I struggled through 'Kingdom River'.
There were three things that really killed my enjoyment. Normally,
these elements would be bearable or even interesting but Mitchell
Smith overuses them so much that by the fiftieth page I was sick
of it.
All of them derive from the post-apocalyptic setting. The first
is Smith's over-liberal swearing. The Middle Kingdom's Queen is
supposed to be quite guttural and lowborn and Smith has her swear
and talk dirty a lot to achieve this. All the other characters swear
so much that the effect goes unnoticed. I have no problem with language
as such but when every other line of dialogue uses a gratuitous
swear word for no particular reason and especially when the swearing
encroaches into the prose, I found my patience growing thin.
The second, in particular, is a case of a good idea horribly overused.
Supposedly the language of the characters in 'Kingdom River' has
been rebuilt from 'Warm-time copybooks'. This means that whenever
a modern idiom like 'what the hell' or even a word like 'versus'
is spoken, the characters involved in the discussion will pause
everything to consider the aesthetics of this 'Warm-time' word.
After the third or fourth, it gets tired.
Smith uses this trick on most pages and it severely affected my
judgement of the novel as a whole. The last and perhaps most major
problem I had with 'Kingdom River' is the surprising lack of any
post-apocalyptic elements to anything. Aside from a brief appearance
from a Boston civilisation dabbling in genetic modification, the
Warm-time annoyance and the insertion of 'Map' in front of all the
place names, this book could just have been a fantasy novel.
It seemed to me like the post-apocalyptic storyline was just used
so the author could use American place names in his fantasy novel.
'Kingdom River' has some excellent parts to it and I enjoyed the
battle segments and characterisation with the final climactic section
being particularly effective. In the end, the annoying outweighed
the enjoyable and I found reading this book a chore, especially
disappointing as there is so much promise to it.
I only hope Mitchell Smith's next book doesn't take place in a
post-apocalyptic setting, so we can all enjoy his fine fantasy skills.
Tomas
L Martin 
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