My friend Eyeris once remarked that Robin Hobb is cruel to her characters, making them suffer so much. Man, he has not read Fiona McIntosh. Now, she really tortures her characters. Literally.

The Quickening is the Titus Andronicus of the fantasy genre. A lot of people die. A lot. And brutally. Very brutally. My eyes just glazed in fascination when McIntosh describe their cruel ends in succint paragraphs: nailed to a cross and burnt alive, beheaded messily, forced to carry the head of a loved one - if she drops it, she dies. Whoa wee, I'm glad I am not a character in McIntosh's book.

But am I saying that the Quickening series (Myrren's Gift, Blood and Memory and Bridge of Souls) is bad? No, far from it. In fact, it's the first fantasy series in a long, long while that I read through in just one and a half weeks! And that's three thick books, mind you. It's been a long time since I enjoyed a book so much; I got that "turn the page no matter how tired you are at night" feeling. I felt kinda lucky finding a series like that after writing my lament about fantasy books recently.

It's actually quite difficult to summarise the storyline without giving spoilers away. But here goes.

The main tale is about Wyl, a young general for a grand kingdom, who finds himself out of favour when the new king comes to power. This new king is not just vain and petty, he's downright bloodthirsty and cruel. Anyone who crosses him or looks at him the wrong way or is somewhat related to Wyl, meets a horrible end. (Yet, despite all that, Wyl seems rather careless with the information he shares. Tut-tut. When blurts something out to someone — a weakness of his, apparently — I often shake my head because I know the poor bloke will meet a ghastly end.)

Thankfully, Wyl has a unique ability that helps him escape certain death. It's this unique ability that's the hook of this book. I can't go further or else I'll spoil it for you guys.

McIntosh's characters are a little two 2-D. They're either goody two shoes or are downright evil SOBs like King Celimus. I wondered how it would be if her characters had a little bit more "grey" in them. But then again, if Celimus hadn't been the evil SOB that he is, the ending wouldn't have been so delicious. (Though I think he got off too easily.) Sometimes we just need a simple "justice triumphs at the end of the day" kinda book.

The ending is happy. Very, very happy. Maybe too happy, because as a result, it had a strange, unreal feeling to it. After such misery everyone seemed too cheerful. No lamenting for those who've gone by? I thought that the ending was somewhat rushed, but at least it wasn't an agonising one like Robin Hobb's The Farseer series. Poor, poor Fitz. Luckily he had a happier ending in the The Tawny Man trilogy. Phew.

Needless to say, my enthusiasm for fantasy fiction has been renewed. I actually rented three fantasy books from a rent-a-book store today. (One of them is Robin Hobb's latest trilogy. Another round of character torture coming up!)