Kalyna the Soothsayer
by Elijah Kinch Spector
1998’s landmark cRPG Baldur’s Gate was my on-ramp to the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons—the manual it came with was a thing of beauty: its detailed pages guided me through rolling up a character; its advice kept him alive through the fraught first level of experience point gain; its arcane minutiae forced me to internalize me what Thac0 meant.
holy relic
Heya, it’s me….Imoen.
By the time Baldur’s Gate 2 hit, the manual ballooned with content and—because it was a direct narrative sequel—the dry vocabulary of dice-rolling mechanics weren’t quite as necessary. There was more flavor: both Elminster—the Gandalf of Faerûn—and some cartaographer named Volo left little notes in the margins of the book, using in-world meta-level crossmedia references before that type of playful media savvy became ubiquitous. Having Volo, the cartographer from the manual, eventually show up in the game was pretty neat. Other people thought so too, I suppose, since I hear tell that Volo makes a comeback in 2023’s forthcoming Baldur’s Gate 3 (mayhaps the golden pantaloons, as well?).
Kalyna the Soothsayer gives me those vibes. The vibes of Volo. She’s a fun character to be sure, but the primary way she interacts with you, the reader, is more like a meta-level observer describing a roleplaying game system. I lost track of how many times something pretty basic about the world was repeated to me again, to make sure I didn’t miss it– “Four armies in this one kingdom, itself one of four kingdoms in a larger country, all desperate to tear each other apart.” I didn’t read the book in serial format or spread out over weeks of game nights. I just read it straight through. I can be trusted to remember the basic structure of the world, friend.
This extends across most of the events, which are repeated back to you in triplicate. I know Kaylna’s grandma is mean. I know Kalyna is concerned that the world, or at least the kingdom, or at least one part of the kingdom, will end. When Kalyna mishears a soldier’s name as “Dugmush,” she could just call her Dugmush. The reader will remember, and whenever Kalyna mentions Dugmush it could be just, “Hey, there’s Dugmush.” Instead, nearly every time it is, “I met the Yellow I was still calling “Dugmush” in my head, for lack of something better.” Yes. That is not her name. You didn’t hear it correctly. I was there.
288 pages later, someone says Dugmush’s real name, and Kalyna says “Who?” A classic joke setup and potential payoff:
“Yes, this was the tall, striking blonde woman I’d thought of as “Dugmush,” and had decided it was too late, and too embarrassing, to ask her name.”
Except we had been reminded so often that Dugmush was not actually her name, and that Kalyna just didn’t hear it correctly the first time, that there was just no chance of the reveal being fun. It might have been funny, I think, if we, the reader, also just started thinking of her only as Dugmush–then the joke of “Who?” might have paid off. Instead, we knew that shoe was to drop each time she entered the scene because we were not allowed to forget, ever, or trusted to remember that her name was not actually Dugmush.
Kalyna the Soothsayer felt more like a NaNoWriMo inspired by The Lies of Locke Lemora, which was in fact a fantasy novel born from a tabletop roleplaying session. Maybe it started as a worldbuilding exercise with a fun narrative voice stuffed in; I think Kalyna the character would be a great friend to meet for brunch in Park Slope—she has a strong narrative voice—but I don’t think I’m ready to roll up some D&D characters for her homebrew gameworld any time soon. Simply put, I didn’t feel like I was respected very much as a reader to follow the plot—mildly insulting color-coded armies aside, the constant world-status repetition told me neither my comprehension nor my time was considered. Kalyna the character was fun. Kalyna the book was not.
As a short aside, I flopped out on reviewing another 2022 light fantasy novel that I read slightly earlier, The Stardust Thief, but after trudging through Kalyna I wish I had them flipped. Stardust was way more fun, and not only because Loulie is one of the most pleasant names to say in your head. “Looulieee.” One quick note on Stardust: I have never been big into the fantasy foodscene marketplace, but reading descriptions of falafel and flatbread truly made my mouth water–maybe I’m just not a roast animal kind of guy.
I don’t recommend Kalyna the Soothsayer. I mildly regret not spending my time reading something else. I don’t think anyone would be upset if they read it, but this type of tepid lack of reaction is not at all what I want from the stories I read. Sorry, book, you just weren’t for me.