Fiction Reviews
The Everlasting
(2025) Alix E. Harrow, Tor, £22, hrdbk, 309pp, ISBN 978-1-529-06117-8
Who wouldn’t grab at the chance to journey back through the mists of time and meet a legendary hero? To write the true story of their life, one that will then bind an entire people together as one nation? But, then, what if, in doing so, you discovered that the story, the legend, all of it, was just to serve the aims of a relentless authoritarian leader? These are the questions that Alix E. Harrow plays with in the context of an epoch-spanning tale about the enduring love between a scholar and a warrior.
The scholar is Owen Mallory, an unremarkable college historian and less-than-heroic veteran of the Dominion’s terrible war against the Hinterland. What motivated his life-choices in both cases was an abiding fascination for the legend of Sir Una Everlasting, a young woman who became a fearsome knight and champion of the Queen, who slayed the last dragon, recovered the lost grail and, in doing so, saved the kingdom. And so it would seem that Owen is the natural choice to receive a mysterious book that apparently recounts the ‘true’ story of Sir Una. However, the book was sent by Vivian Rolfe, Minister of War, who tells Owen that “We’ve forgotten - as a nation, as a people - who we are” (where have we heard that before?!) and that to set the Dominion back on the path to its rightful destiny, that ‘truth’ needs to be rewritten.
Whereupon she stabs her letter opener through Owen’s hand as he opens the book and through that device of blood on now blank pages, he suddenly finds himself transported back to the time of Una Everlasting herself. At this point, the narrative likewise shifts, as Owen recounts to Una what then happened, telling her how they found each other, how he persuaded her to undertake her final quest and how, in anguish but out of necessity, he betrayed her at the end. But also how he then wrote her story, or at least a version thereof, transforming her into the legendary figure that would propel the Dominion into becoming an empire.
Unfortunately, that heartbreaking sacrifice turns out to be insufficient and upon returning to his own time, Owen finds events repeating themselves, except this time the book is sent to him by Chancellor Rolfe. Who again tells him his country needs him, or, rather, she needs him in order to stay in power and so again the letter-opener is deployed and once more Owen finds himself back in the past. And again the narrative shifts back to second person, only now it is in Una’s voice, addressing Owen, re-telling the story of her final quest in the service of the Queen. This time, however, certain details are subtly different and the relationship between Owen and Una has likewise shifted. At the same time, he begins to perceive what is actually going on and who Vivian Rolfe really is. Nevertheless, it all ends the same way, with blood and death and with Owen taking back the narrative voice and (re)writing the tale of the legendary hero, before being returned to his own time, whereupon events proceed as before.
At this point I began to wonder, or perhaps more truthfully, fear, that we were going to be taken through further iterations of the tale, albeit with the differences mounting towards some sort of revelation. However, Harrow does something that is far more interesting, as the narrative unfolds into a moving love story and Una and Owen attempt to break out of these cycles of false heroism and manufactured patriotism. This in turn opens up space for reflection on not only the nature and power of love, but also that of memory, of family ties and commitments, and of authoritarianism and what might be done to resist it and ultimately free oneself and one’s country from its grip.
As that indicates, there is a lot packed into this novel - and I’ve not even mentioned how Harrow neatly closes various intersecting circles, including the nature of the mysterious book - but the quality of the writing and the pace of the narrative make for a thoroughly engaging and immersive read. If you liked her previous books, such as Starling House or the Hugo and Nebula short-listed The Ten Thousand Doors of January, you’ll love this one and if you haven’t read any of Harrow’s work before, well, this is most definitely as good a place as any to start.
Steven French
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