Mirrenwood: A Tale of the Unicorn

Hallman debuts with a promising but half-baked mythic fantasy. King Adalmund of Averonne succumbs to a mysterious illness, and the only way to cure him is to capture the fabled unicorn from the Mirrenwood wilderness and use the powder from its horn to make an antidote. The king commands his friend and royal physician, Zimenes, and his daughter, Princess Vialle, to lead this mission. As the two plunge into the heart of Mirrenwood, Zimenes develops a strong sexual attraction to the princess, despite also romancing the king’s wife, Tesse, who is Vialle’s mother. Hallman devotes much of the story to Zimenes’s identity search and romantic frustration as he juggles his inner turmoil and the critical task at hand, which leaves the magic system murky and many questions unanswered as plot plays second fiddle to character study. For readers not invested in Zimenes’s vaguely incestuous love triangle, the intrigue doesn’t pick up until the climax, when the palpable tension between the leads comes to its head and a truly clever twist is revealed. Fantasy readers will need to put in some work to enjoy this. (Mar.)