The Land of Elyon – Book 2 – Beyond The Valley of Thorns

Posted by Samuel Walters

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The Land of Elyon – Beyond The Valley Of Thorns, Patrick Carman’s sequel to the Dark Hills Divide, is an expansive, fast-paced and much darker installment than its predecessor. In this book, readers learn more, a lot more about the Land of Elyon – its histories, its tragedies, and its current precarious balance between the forces of good and evil. With all of these additions, Beyond the Valley of Thorns is poised to be a significant improvement over the first book of the series. Unfortunately, the rather minimal development of the book’s main character, Alexa, keeps the book from being a true classic.

The story begins promisingly enough with Alexa returning to Brideswell a year after the exciting and transformational experiences recounted in Dark Hills Divide. She’s older, a little wiser, and a little more contemplative – all changes which are both necessary and plausible. She wonders how any adventure could possibly match the one she experienced a year earlier and, as such, seems to have begun turning her attention away from adventure and toward worrying about how dangerous the outside world is.

This is an important element to Alexa’s character and it’s handled fairly well, however, this is pretty much where attention to Alexa’s character ends. The rest of the novel is much more concerned with describing the history of Elyon, and Warvold’s place in it, as well as detailing the difficult trials Alexa faces as she is reunited with characters like Yipes and Murphy, meets new friends such as John Christopher, Armon and Odessa, and faces new enemies like ogres and the twisted Victor Grindall X.

All of these elements combine to create a story that is very compelling and engrossing for the reader. It’s easy to get lost within the pages, following the exploits of the allies as they uncover the fact that Renny Warvold is, in fact, alive and that she is being held prisoner by Victor Grindall. Alexa and her friends resolve to free Renny, as well as the downtrodden village of Castalia – lorded over by Grindall and his army of ogres.

The ogres are an interesting construct for the book. They were once a race of giants, noble, proud and virtuous, but they were infected with the evil of Abaddon by way of a swarm of bats, and thus became twisted and evil – bound to the service of Grindall. Only Armon survives as the last remaining giant. Indeed, the downfall of the giants into ogres underscores a much bigger backstory in which Elyon is elevated to godlike status and Abaddon is portrayed as something of a fallen angel. This immediately evokes a more Judeo-Christian angle to the story, mirroring J.R.R. Tolkien’s tales of Morgoth’s downfall into evil.

The literary references do not end there, either. Elyon here is presented as a being who is nearby and “returning” to the world, recalling the God-like Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia. And even more interestingly is the inclusion of Grindall’s fortress called “The Dark Tower.” If that’s isn’t enough to evoke Stephen King’s opus of the same name, consider the fact that there is a river (and later a character for whom the river was named) called Roland.

Without question, these additions demonstrate a deliberate attempt by Carman to give a bit of homage to some of the epics that have preceded his Elyon series. And for more mature readers, the connections are fun to discover and consider. Also, this points to the very detailed world of Elyon itself – which seems quite plausible (and exhaustively) planned and described.

Now, if only the character of Alexa had been so meticulously explored in the novel. For the most, she appears to just be along for the ride. True, she is described as “the chosen one” but aside from that, and the fact that other characters speak highly of her, there’s little that she does within the novel itself. In and of itself this wouldn’t have been critical had her experiences proven to be more transformative for her character – in other words, if the experiences were part of an ongoing learning process for Alexa, teaching her lessons that would be valuable later on, then the story itself would have taken on a more timeless quality.

Overall grade: B-

Beyond The Valley of Thorns is an enjoyable continuation of the Land of Elyon series. There’s plenty here for readers to enjoy, thanks to the immersive quality of backstory. Perhaps a more thorough approach to the character of Alexa Daley would have elevated the story even higher.

Topics: Book Reviews, Fantasy
Filed under: The Land of Elyon