Golden Trillium [Review]

Golden Trillium

by Andre Norton
Bantam Books, 1993

Golden Trillium is the third book in the Trillium series of fantasy novels, which debuted, with much fanfare, in 1990 with Black Trillium. Since that’s over 30 years ago, I’ll recap the project here.

Three respected female writers of classic SFF, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton, and Julian May, were approached by a literary agent to jointly write a SFF novel. May authored the original novel, an outline of sorts, which was about a set of royal triplets who must save their beleaguered kingdom. The idea was to rewrite it, with each writer taking on the POV of their chosen princess: Haramis, the cold but talented mage written by Bradley; Khadiya, the hot-headed warrioress and lover of nature, by Norton; and Anigel, sweet and home-oriented, but with a steely will, by May.

It seemed a project destined for success. The world these authors created is a science-fantasy one with magic and obscure technology that might as well be magic. The location is a planet coming out of its last glaciation with the central part of its continent still wild and covered by ice. Various lands exist around the borders as well as two pre-human, Ewok-like races with psychic powers. Ruwenda, the kingdom of the princesses, is a swampy land of temperate bayous and canals. It’s well-detailed and almost real, the best part of the book. In fact the worldbuilding was the best part, but a concept does not a satisfying novel make.

The magical MacGuffin of the original book was a three-part artifact the triplets must assemble in order to repel the evil sorcerer, Orogastus, who has invaded their kingdom; each must do so in her own way and on her own quest. It was all just a little too pat, including the one-note personalities of the female protagonists which matched their hair colors (black=stern, auburn=passionate, and blonde=angelic, respectively.) The adventures involving a lot of running around and visiting different parts of the world in a lengthy, meandering plotline that had me skipping ahead. Probably a fault of the round-robin structure.

In all, interesting concept with an execution that left a lot to be desired. But lookit those maps!

Ruwenda and (in inset) its neighbors on the peninsula, drawn by the talented Claudia Carlson. Click to see the larger version.

The greater continent, drawn by Claudia Carlson. Click to see the larger version.

It’s really a shame no developed a wiki for this world. It sorely needs one.

Since the concept had hooked me I proceeded ahead with the sequels Blood Trillium (written by May) and then Lady of the Trillium (written by Bradley) which were disappointments. When I found Golden Trillium at the local Goodwill I assumed it would be more of the same. But I was wrong. It turned out to be the most entertaining of the four.

I’m not even sure why I bought it since I always thought Norton was the weakest writer of the three. I never cared for her style, which involved a lot of repetition and muddled plotlines. But this, paradoxically, is also her strength. The characters in her writing are unsure of themselves, and so tend to flail around; they are prisoners of a more primitive society, one that relies on intuition and supernatural signs that are not always clear. They have only their own wills to guide them, and that means they must also acknowledge and do battle with their weaknesses. There’s a lot of back-and-forth psychological turmoil as they try to succeed, which is tedious, but also realistic. There are no easy answers in Norton’s worlds. Only lots of hard work.

The story picks up just after Orogastus, the evil sorcerer who invaded Ruwenda in Black Trillium, is defeated. After that mighty battle the talismans of the sisters are dead… or are they? Haramis continues with her magic studies, and Anigel is crowned as Queen, but Khadiya feels aimless. She returns to the swamplands to inter her swordlike talisman The Three-Lobed Burning Eye (an obvious cop from H.P. Lovecraft) in the city of the Ancient Ones.

But the talisman comes back to life there, warning her of a new danger: a terrible plague that turns the native Oddlings into shambling, infectious monsters. As Khadiya is also a Chosen One of sorts (which is never clearly explained to her) she gains the help of the Ancient Ones themselves, who, though living in their own pocket Universe, are able to manifest themselves in Khadiya’s world as statues in the city who come to life. They tell her some of their brethren turned evil millennia ago, and so have been locked away in mountain tombs; one of them has returned to life through Orogastus’ machinations and he is out to free the others and so send the plague all over.

It’s a superfluous, tacked-on storyline after all the drama about saving the kingdom, but I liked it. The whole thing read like an indigenous tribe’s spirit quest, the participants banding together in commonality without egos getting in the way. And here is where Norton succeeded: she stage-directed every one of the 10 or so characters involved, making it feel the reader themselves was in their midst. Every character had their own strengths, even the ones that seemed the weakest.  Each one contributed to the whole. The victory wasn’t just Khadiya’s and the godlike Ancient Ones’ to claim.

The swamplands of Ruwenda — the Mires in the map above — are another character in the story, one that is neutral. There is beauty in them, but they are also harsh, poisonous, and unforgiving, prone to extremes of hot and cold, and filled with deadly monsters. I read the book while I was recovering at home from a hospital stay, and felt I was there, in the muck and the rain. It took me away from my own concerns for that time, and led me to re-evaluate my previous opinion of Norton as a dull, wordy writer.  Those swamps were real. It’s never explained why Khadiya loves them so; but maybe that’s the point… it’s because they are wild and dangerous. 

The worldbuilding, as I said earlier, had elements of both science fiction and fantasy. At times the story reminded me of Jack Vance’s and Tanith Lee’s lushly described worlds where both magic and science coexist, but unlike them Norton doesn’t supply editorial commentary as she writes. Fantastic things happen, but are they supernatural, or highly evolved technology? Norton takes neither side, and neither do her characters. They are all of their milieu; it doesn’t even occur to them there is a dichotomy. The story is refreshingly void of modern terminology.

But there was lots of archaic phrasing that I had to read twice, and sometimes go back and read again until I grokked on to what was happening. At times I scratched my head. But having read The Worm Ouroboros, and enjoyed it, I was well-equipped to tolerate it here.

The story ends better than I hoped, and rather touchingly: Khadiya finally finds her place in the world, and it’s implied she exits from the larger narrative. Which, yes and no. I’ll get around to explaining that if and when I read Sky Trillium, the final book in the series.