My first meeting with the Ancient was also my last . . .
With these words, a discontented modern-day English professor is thrust deep into the world of the Ancients. Ever since the Making, this race of immortal beings – known to Humankind as the creatures of mythology, from the Dragon and Unicorn to the Griffin and Phoenix – have sought to cultivate the Light of creation, pushing back ever against the malignant forces of the Wasting. Fear, Pride, Violence, Death: with barbarians from the sea wreaking havoc and good men cowering behind their walls, the future of the Light has never seemed more precarious. The struggle comes to a head at a monastery in 10th century Ireland, where the last two Ancients join with a mortal boy to make one final stand for the Light – before the Wasting snuffs out the flame forever . . .
The Ancient tells a story of Creation, the Fall, and Redemption as told through the stained glass window of J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts, C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, and Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization. As a fan of all of these things, the book checked all the right boxes for me. As you read, you feel wrapped up in the blanket of stuff you know and have seen before, but the awareness is comforting and heartwarming rather than stale. Nelson's prose is both clear in its intent and inventive in its language, bending common tropes back into a deeper, more persistent trope, like the weaving of an arabesque vine into a wreath, or trying to explain a dream to people who can only use words and not pictures. Nelson stays a bit ahead of her reader most of the time, so even though the content and forms are familiar, the story has an air of the mythic.
The Ancient is R.A. Nelson's magnum opus and a story for the ages. The epic proportions of this tale, the timeless meaning and truth that glows on its every page, the richness of language all earn R.A. Nelson a seat among the great fantasy authors, from Milton to Tolkien and Lewis.
All I can say is beware: this book will not stop at entertaining you. It will change you and the way you see the world, past and present. Once you venture in, you cannot turn back... but neither will you wish to!
