The Call of the Rift: Flight

Jae Waller

ECW Press

April 3, 2018

As soon as I opened Jae Waller’s Flight, the first book in her The Call of the Rift series, I was sucked into a stunning fantasy world.

The Call of the Rift: Flight tells the story of Kateiko, a seventeen-year-old water mage living in a small community called the Rin that has been decimated by war. The community is now separated from its old allies, including Kateiko’s cousin Dunehein, who married into a different jouyen and has not been heard from in years.

The book follows Kateiko as she leaves her home in search of somewhere she can live a more fulfilling life. But her journey takes her through communities and cities that are equally ravaged by the war and left in a tense state of near conflict. Although she develops priceless friendships along the way, she finds her search more difficult than she had imagined.

Her struggles are compounded by the emergence of an air spirit named Suriel, long believed to be lying dormant, who threatens the Rin and the other jouyens in the confederacy with another war. Kateiko, armed with the knowledge of her isolated community and her water summoning powers, is dragged into the political maelstrom that threatens to send her world teetering on the brink of more conflict.

From the beginning, Waller puts an immense amount of detail into Kateiko’s culture. The map printed at the beginning of the book immediately told me where I was and gave me an idea of the surrounding world. Within the story, there are numerous descriptive moments that I think do a brilliant job of establishing the different places that Kateiko goes as well. For instance, I loved that the wealthy city pubs have clear air inside because they can afford glass lamps, rather than smoky candles. It told me so much about the difference between the places Kateiko is used to being and the new atmosphere in which she finds herself.

Small elements of world-building are also woven into every part of the story and shape the way Kateiko sees the world. They are often subtle, such as the way that names are affectionately condensed, and the way familial ties are denoted by someone’s tattoos. One of the most prominent cultural world-building elements is the Rin jouyen’s approach to hair, with a person’s hair being a very private part of them that can only be touched by those they trust absolutely. These details not only framed the story specifically from Kateiko’s perspective, but also highlighted the differences between communities that were geographically close.

I was also very impressed by how fluidly and effectively the world is established within the first few pages. The opening chapter is incredibly atmospheric, making it difficult not to get drawn into the natural beauty of the world that Waller created. I found it really easy to sink into Kateiko’s first person narrative. I didn’t have any trouble understanding her or her world and, though she is impulsive and a little naïve, her motivation was sound. She’s a girl on the cusp of adulthood from a place that is simple but troubled, dreaming of a better life.

Overall, Kateiko was a lot of fun to follow as a main character. There are points in the story when she feels like exactly the kind of female character I want to see more often. She has a lot of righteous anger that I felt right along with her. There are a number of instances where people in the city Caladheå look down on her, openly snub her, or sometimes even threaten her both for her femaleness and her status as a foreigner in their land.

Sometimes she confronts them, but more often than not she has to bite back her rage at the way she is treated. I got a very clear idea of her frustration at not being able to challenge people’s backwards attitudes towards her, which felt very reminiscent of the way women are often treated in our reality. I would have loved to see her dish out magical water slaps to people who are unnecessarily rude to her, but I equally enjoyed seeing that all too common fury reflected on the page.

At the same time, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Kateiko’s elaborate plan to escape from her home. She set off on her journey with the intention of marrying someone in another jouyen, as her cousin Dunehein had done before her, as a way of developing a tie to a new community. Logically, it makes sense. It is something that she has seen other people do, and through this act they achieved her goal of living somewhere new. However, I automatically rankled a little bit at a female character’s primary goal being marriage. Admittedly, it isn’t for the clichéd reason that the love of a handsome prince will solve all a woman’s problems. And I appreciate that Kateiko has a far more practical approach to why she wants to marry and why it will help her. Ultimately, her motivations makes sense, so I grew to find her relatable while still retaining her own distinct personality.

The story also helped ease my concerns about Kateiko’s marriage plot in two ways. For one, the marriage idea became less of an end goal as the story went on and new conflicts arose to muddy her situation. In addition, the wealth of wonderfully written friendships became strong driving forces for action in their own right within the story. Kateiko sets off on her journey with her close friend Nisali, who is a continual source of support for her for a solid chunk of the first act. The two of them have been friends since childhood with a young man called Feldun, who is a significant figure within their jouyen and cares about them in a deep, platonic manner.

Strong friendships are further built upon as the story progresses, as we see Kateiko bond with new people and reconnect with old friends. I like that relationships like this are well developed even outside of Kateiko; the people she interacts with have just as rich connections with those around them as she does. This helps all the relationships feel beautifully established and realistic.

While I adored reading this book, I didn’t think that the story was perfect. I thought that there were some points where the tension was too drawn out or ineffectively broken. For instance, Kateiko takes a long time out from her plans to learn to read. Then, rather randomly right before the big climactic battle, Kateiko stops to go swimming with her friends. On one hand, I appreciate that these aspects of the story create a sense of a calm before the storm that is brewing ahead for the rest of the series. But at times it took me out of the story because I wondered if stopping to catch up and hang out would really be a priority while the world was so close to war.

Thankfully, these minor disruptions in flow weren’t enough to stop me from really enjoying this book. I found myself relieved when my trains were delayed so that I could keep reading for a bit longer, and I almost missed a couple of stops because I didn’t want to put it down.

The Call of the Rift: Flight definitely stands out to me as a brilliant example of contemporary fantasy. The story itself was genuinely compelling. Every setting was clearly conveyed and beautifully described, and should this series ever gets translated to film, I think that a good recreation of it would make some lucky cinematographer’s career. I hope this already promising series gets the appreciation it deserves, and I am very much looking forward to the sequel.