Book information

Author: Andre Norton

Plot Synopsis: This is really two novels (Judgement on Janus and Victory on Janus) combined into one edition. Our protagonist, Niall Renfro, sells himself into indentured slavery to afford a drug which will ease his mother's passing. His servitude takes him to Janus, which is currently being harvested by the Sky Men, a fanatical religious sect which believes that it has sole mastery of the planet. During his labours, Niall comes across a cache which contains a treasure from a lost civilization, and in opening it becomes infected with the Green Sick which sees him exiled to the woods to die in madness and pain. But rather than die, Niall becomes an Ift... given the form and memories of one of the long-gone residents of the world. Confused by his dual mind, Niall retreats to rediscover himself, his new heritage and the ancient war which was once fought on Janus; a war which seems to have begun again.

Commentary: I'm of mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the Good Idea Quotient was high enough to keep me reading, albeit sometimes just to see if a given plot thread was ever going to be picked up again. On the other, the book rarely follows through on any of its good ideas, delivering very little satisfaction in resolution.     There are three truly weak points in the book.

• First, the join between the two novels is a bit rough. Perhaps I missed something, but it seemed as though the climax of the first novel actually took place in a flashback in the second. Even as a joined-together book this really isn't terribly effective; and even if I had missed something, clearly the resolution of the first book wasn't sufficient to make me stand up and take notice of it.
• Second, we have the Ift. The Iftan are a wonderful race about which we learn bits and pieces, though in the end we don't know nearly enough. There aren't enough tidbits for even a hard-working reader to put together a good idea as to the Iftan people, and while this works earlier in the book to allow said readers to empathize with the Changelings who have only partial memories of their kind, it would have made for a stronger impression had we been allowed a few more sips at the fount of the past. Far too many questions are left unanswered by the end of the book and in such a way that we don't have nearly enough interesting information to find answers for ourselves.
• Thirdly, Norton skims. He'll often craft the beginnings of a rich, beautiful conflict and immediately shorthand how the characters deal with it. Large amounts of resolution take place with other characters talking off-handedly about how they went. This technique can be used well (sparingly), but as used in Janus, it tends to divorce the reader from the story.

Moments to Watch For

• The friendship between man and bird (which then fails to go anywhere).
• Iftan verse. Sort of like Vogon poetry, but vaguely better.
• The identity of the enemy (rather well done).

Recommended: Not terribly.

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