Denial by Richard Strife

How do you escape an unhappy life? For Rebecca Silas, the young woman at the center of Richard Strife’s debut novel, Denial (Book I of a series called The Drakeon Chronicles), the answer is desperate and extreme. It is not enough to leave the man she’s about to marry at the altar; she’s going to leave this whole world behind. Fortunately for her, she has an annoying little brother named Alex who stops her in the act. But escape still comes in the form of a ghost dragon that appears out of nowhere and whisks Rebecca and her brother into a mythical world called Gaedia.

So begins one of only a few fantasy novels that I have read. I generally avoid them because they require more concentration—and perhaps even a little more imagination—from the reader who must memorize all kinds of foreign-sounding names, places, and things, in addition to filling in a lot of the mental details about descriptions of creatures and landscapes because if the author were to take the time to create a truly vivid picture for the reader, the novel would be 1,000 pages long. (And yes, I realize some are, and many fans have no problem with it!)  One of the greatest strengths of Denial is that it is accessible to folks like me, who usually prefer reading about the familiar to the otherworldly.

The idea that you can accidentally step through an unknown portal and end up in another world (or, in some cases, a parallel universe) is not a new one; it’s a tried-and-true convention of the fantasy and sci-fi genres, from Star Trek to The Dark Tower. It works best when the starting point is that place that you’re familiar with already. It grounds you in the story and characters so that when it’s time to take the journey to the unknown, you’ve got something that feels concrete to hold onto.

When Rebecca and Alex arrive in Gaedia, they find a world in extreme conflict, where dragons are massacring the townspeople left and right, in violation of an old treaty. We meet the handsome, charismatic prince Sebastian, who chases one such dragon away with his mind control abilities. Sebastian is on a mission to find his missing father, the future Emperor, but he also needs to get to the bottom of what’s going on with these attacks. Meanwhile, Rebecca meets a wounded female werewolf—or Lykos—called Kaece, who she helps flee from town undetected. Sebastian’s people, the Maedians, and the Lykos share a mutual hatred for one another. This is a central conflict in the story, as Rebecca and Alex need Sebastian’s protection in the wild continent of Xiratera, but Rebecca has formed an immediate and obsessive affinity with Kaece, which could prove deadly.

As Rebecca, Alex, and Sebastian travel the continent in something called a Hadros (a vehicle that will likely remind the reader of the All-Terrain Armored Transports used by the Empire in the Star Wars films), with a dangerous and seductive Lykos on their tail, they will get to the bottom of what’s happening to this now-threatened world, and in the process, fight dragons, fly through the air on mythical creatures, witness the unimaginable destruction and carnage of war, and discover a great deal about themselves.

Denial is a coming-of-age story, although I hesitate to call it a YA book because of the amount of graphic violence and sexual content. This is not Tolkien or C.S. Lewis; it’s more like Stephen King, and it might be disturbing to sensitive readers.

The story is told through four points of view, and the author is rather clever in the way he subtlety switches some stylistic elements chapter by chapter, depending on what character we’re following. He could have distinguished the characters even more if he had written one of them in first person perspective. But that’s a small matter. The one distinction that isn’t remotely subtle is that Alex’s chapters are in comics form, which is appropriate considering the character’s age of 13.

Comics are another thing I avoid, for a similar reason that I avoid fantasy. They take effort to get through and interpret correctly, to figure out what’s going on in the scene. The artist has to tell the story clearly with a limited number of frames, and I would be lying if I said that I could always tell in this book exactly what I was looking at. But I usually could, and that is a credit both to Strife’s drawing talent and his ability to tell a story visually.  

The characters are all unique and yet relatable in their own way. As a reader, I changed my opinion about various characters several times. For instance, I found Sebastian to be initially self-righteous and arrogant, but he grew on me. Kaece was not immediately likable, and the author’s decision to always have her say “ya” instead of “you” is something I found rather distracting, but by the time I was halfway in, I felt more for her, on an emotional level, than anyone else in the story. It was the contrast of the tough exterior but vulnerable interior that make her the most intriguing.

Strangely, Rebecca and Alex seem under-developed and ordinary by comparison, and not simply because they are human. Rebecca has all the teenage angst and drama you would expect, all the emotions running wild in a thousand different directions, struggling with self-esteem, confusion over sexual identity, and rebellion against other people’s expectations of her. And her brother, well…He’s simply a precocious 13-year-old wanting to prove his worth and bravery, but in spite of his chapters being illustrated, his story is somewhat one-dimensional. Why don’t these two ever think about their parents, or their home lives? Aren’t they worried about their families or friends? Aren’t they grieved at the notion of never being able to return home? Rebecca engages in self-pity over failed past relationships, but we get no sense of what life had been like for the siblings, beyond that.

Overall, the novel is fast-paced, engaging, and unpredictable. As the story unfolded, I could never tell where it was going, nor what would happen next. There are many unexpected twists and turns. And it’s a bit of an emotional roller coaster as well because the stakes are very high for some of these characters, not only in terms of what may happen to them, but in terms of the revelation of who they really are, and what that means. Some big questions are asked: Does love override duty and loyalty? Do ethics matter in wartime?  Are there some things that you can’t forgive?  

As a gay guy, I didn’t love the lesbian romance aspect of the story (I’ll always prefer stories about dudes), but it was very intense and relatable. Rebecca has some self-loathing that she has to get over, and that’s pretty universal, I think.

Creationists may take issue with an explanation for Earth’s origin other than the one found in the Book of Genesis. I know I did, even though you can easily answer by saying “it’s a fantasy novel, not a theology text”. I don’t know, for some reason it just nagged at me, probably more than it should, like an itch that you can’t reach to scratch. 

But by and large, this is a thoughtful work of fantasy fiction, and full of heart, a labor of love for an author who loves a good story, and who loves the people he’s telling it to.