A review by conspystery
Epic of Helinthia by M.J. Pankey

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Thank you so much to MJ Pankey and Netgalley for allowing me to read an ARC of Epic of Helinthia in exchange for an honest review.

Epic of Helinthia is ambitious. It is a sprawling, dense legend seeking to evoke Homeric poetry in its grandiosity, but with a more contemporary sense of scene-based narrative and character. It’s complex, and it communicates that to its audience right off the bat-- the book includes a dictionary of terms and a tree of relationships as reference material, and necessarily so. The novel is committed to its scope and detail from the beginning through the end.

Despite that, though, I really struggled to connect with Epic of Helinthia. My biggest issue was the setting, which unfortunately I found to be more disconcerting than immersive. I applaud Pankey for her drive to tell a new story rather than retell an existing myth, but for me, the expansion of the Greek mythological world in this novel was jarring. Epic of Helinthia takes place in what I understand to be a fictional Greek land called Helinthia, named after the goddess Helinthia; for those familiar with the Greek pantheon, this name is a new one. Helinthia, the goddess and the land, are contemporary additions to Greek mythology created for Pankey’s world. In theory, this is a creative, interesting thing to see in a novel like this. In practice, at least for me, it’s mostly confusing and disconnective. 

I guess I expected this book to feel more like a Greek myth than it did, given its advertisement as similar to the work of Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint. It isn’t, or I didn’t think it was. A lot of the worldbuilding is original and interesting, but decidedly not very ancient Greek-- the names of the characters, for one, seem to be more Arthurian in influence than anything else, which is fascinating, but that detail loses a lot of its interest when it’s presented as if it should fit unquestionably into the ancient Greek world. It feels to me like the novel wants to root itself wholly in a new fantasy world and establish itself as Greek myth at the same time, but since it isn’t cohesively written that way, neither ancient Greece as we know it or Helinthia feels completely natural. I wish this book had picked one and stuck with it rather than continually try to reconcile its settings-- it oscillates unsuccessfully between exploring Helinthian lore and slipping in established facets of ancient Greek myth. I just wonder whether this story could’ve been better told as a new Greek myth without any additional worldbuilding, or as a totally original Helinthian story inspired aesthetically by ancient Greece but without literally placing itself within it. 

Earlier I wrote that Epic of Helinthia is ambitious. That ambition carries through to its cast as well as its setting, to varying degrees of success. There are a number of main characters in different geographical locations throughout the novel, all of whom have point of view chapters interspersed with each other, and all of whom have their own insights, opinions, and secrets regarding the events driving the plot. I liked the distinct voices each character had-- I think where Pankey really shines in this book is in her characterization. Every point of view felt different, and each character’s perspective was complex, allowing the reader a view of every conflict from all sides. Kelric and Gadnor and Dargon were solidly distinct characters; I would’ve known whose point of view I was reading even without the help of the chapter title. I found Gadnor in particular to be really well-written and fleshed-out. Kelric was kind of annoying and brash, but that was intentional, and it made his chapters fun to read. I think the multiple point of view structure gave the conflicts and plot of the story, which sometimes seemed unnecessarily convoluted, a lot of much appreciated depth and richness. The relationships between characters carried Epic of Helinthia for me.

But I do have some problems with the characters in this novel. Sometimes it felt like background characters were introduced only to create the illusion of depth, a world bigger than this one really is. Further, so much of the plot beats surrounding Gonivein and Forluna in particular were, to me, contrived and even reductive. The female characters in this book felt somewhat passive even when their narratives directly opposed that passivity-- Gonivein’s plotline is, I think, meant to give her depth and show that she’s more than just a woman waiting to marry Kelric, but men still defined her story, and her agency was backseat to following the actions of the men around her (especially Loric, who I liked a lot, but who essentially functioned as a knight in shining armor to replace Kelric.) Gonivein is so interesting! She deserves better than that!

Forluna is hailed as the ultimate keeper of the big secret about the heir and a mysterious, powerful, independent nymph… but the secret she keeps is kept only to serve the men in the narrative, her plotline is overshadowed by romance just like Gonivein, and her magical power is used almost exclusively to heal the men around her. She’s dragged along on the quest of the main cast passively; it doesn’t feel like she chooses to do anything, rather the plot happens to her. This is especially clear in the opening scene when she takes in the heir. 

All this is not to say that there’s no merit in female characters having romances or occupying domestic roles, and I do think Pankey writes the male characters with an eye for romance in such a way that it kind of balances out the gender disparity with those subplots, but I just wish Forluna and Gonivein had been afforded a bit more depth considering the novel’s themes about the disruption of traditional power structures and imbalances in relationships. One example of a book that does well what Pankey seems to try to do here is Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin, which communicates feminism’s versatility even in domestic pockets of a fantastical world; Tehanu proves it’s possible to tell a story like this with characters like this in a way that empowers them, and on that front I just think Epic of Helinthia falls a little short. Forluna and Gonivein, Pankey tries to say, are more than what the men in their lives make of them, and powerful in their femininity. I wish they would have acted on those maxims more often!

Other assorted thoughts I had about this book: the plot is fine, if confusing at first because of all the Greek terms surrounding the characters. I actually really enjoy the way this book commits to its terminology-- I think if I’d had a physical copy of the book, it wouldn’t have been confusing at all, because I could’ve just flipped back and forth to reference the glossary rather than trying to pick up the terms as I went. The writing is decent! I applaud the amount of showing versus telling, even though there were a few lapses into the latter and a few moments of questionable word choice in turn. I don’t think comparisons to Madeline Miller’s writing are accurate, but that’s a really, really high bar anyway. The writing is solid even though it may not be completely outstanding. I didn’t enjoy the more explicit, graphic sexual content, but I understand lots of readers do, and it doesn’t completely overwhelm the book (except for in Kelric’s chapters, where honestly I find it pretty funny.) The plot twist is pretty good; without spoiling anything, I liked the red herrings along the way and where it ended up. The conclusion of the novel is satisfying while also leaving room for a sequel, or two, since I believe this is planned to be a trilogy.

Ultimately, I thought Epic of Helinthia was decent. I’m disappointed I didn’t connect more with its setting and some of its character choices, but the parts that were good were solidly good. This book would be great for someone new to Greek mythology or interested in reading dense, transformative adaptations of historical settings. It’s an ambitious story, and I commend Pankey for taking it on, especially as a debut. I’m excited to see where the sequel and third book go and to see how Pankey’s writing has evolved by the time they’re released. 
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