The Desert of Souls is the first novel by Howard Jones, editor of Black Gate Magazine, the magazine of fantasy and science-fiction. It's a historical fantasy yarn set in and around 9th century Baghdad - the world of the Caliphate, the Arabian Nights, and Haroun el-Rashid. First up, the book is a beautiful object in its own right - a blue-themed dust cover with a "Prince of Persia"-styled image and lots of Arabian decoration picked out in gold, it's a sturdy hardback running to just over 300 pages. If you've a thing about books (I have), it has a good, satisfying "first edition" heft to it.
Between the covers, The Desert of Souls is a tale of romance, action, and adventure. Imagine Fritz Leiber meets Arthur Conan Doyle in the world of the Arabian Nights. Two heroes - Asim and Dabir - begin a mission for their master Jaffar, one of the lords of a swashbuckling, larger-than-life 9th century Baghdad, which leads them deep into perilous intrigue and death-defying conflicts, and a quest far beyond their wildest imaginings.
Jones clearly knows his stuff - he weaves his story with a beautiful command of language and an apparently effortless mastery of the background of the Caliphate of Haroun el-Rashid. His prose is smooth, and sometimes deeply lyrical; his love of the desert, his evocation of ancient Basra and Baghdad, are a real pleasure to read. But it's his characters where he really shines: Jones has artfully managed to portray true heroes. Asim and Dabir, and their comrades, feel like real people, yet are also cast in an honest Golden Age mould - a perfect antidote to our cynical and divisive age. These aren't weak anti-heroes or tortured souls filled with self-doubt; they are people like you and I, thrust into extraordinary situations, and they rise to the occasion with a courage and humour which is as satisfying as it is stirring.
What struck me most about The Desert of Souls was that Jones has succeeded in 'reclaiming' the world of the Arabian Nights for modern story-telling. Too often these days is the Middle East portrayed as a hostile, alien culture; in his novel Jones harks back to the love and respectful treatment of his source material shown by writers and adventurers such as Sir Richard Burton. It becomes a real place, a world we can understand, a people we can like and sympathize with as they face peril and ripping, action-packed adventure. It's a world of magic, mystery, and intrigue, but also one which touches on the themes of love, duty, loyalty and friendship which unite us all.
I thought of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser a lot during The Desert of Souls, and even Robert E. Howard's historical fantasies, but there's an optimism and light in Jones' characters and story-telling which is absent in Howard's and Leiber's work. His affection for his characters is clear, and we share his excitement that we are seeing two people at the very start of their path to greatness.
As well as being a great read in its own right, however, The Desert of Souls is also chock full of great ideas ripe for plunder and use in any fantasy, historical, or even investigative roleplaying game. Because Howard Jones, as well as being a fine writer, is also 'One Of Us': he's a gamer, and a reviewer of games (check out his column in Black Gate Magazine); and in The Desert of Souls, he's given us stacks of great campaign and adventure material.
Without giving too much away, The Desert of Souls is structured as a quest. The plot is episodic, a linked series of action-packed scenes which lend themselves very easily to translation into an episodic RPG adventure. The setting oozes flavour - the characters are richly described, and can be plucked out of the text for use as perfect NPCs, and the cities, streets, and other locations of the novel are well-detailed, and come kitted out with all but a map. If you're playing any kind of Arabian Nights-themed game, then the novel is great inspiration.
More than that, however, I found myself constantly thinking of investigative scenarios while reading The Desert of Souls. One of the two main characters, Dabir, is a scholar with a bent for solving mysteries, which gives the story a running "Sherlock Holmes" type theme which could be translated easily into the elements of an investigative adventure. And not just fantasy: there are elements in The Desert of Souls which, with just a minor tweak of emphasis, would work very comfortably in a Call of Cthulhu / Trail of Cthulhu type game, whether using a kind of "Cthulhu Dark Ages - Arabian Nights" setting, or even a more traditional, modern game set in the Middle-east.
Howard Jones is already working on a second novel in the same setting, and I believe featuring the further adventures of Asim and Dabir, so hopefully we'll see lots more detail added to this setting in future books. If you're looking for material or just inspiration for your Middle-eastern / Arabian Nights-themed game, or a new and growing setting to game in, or just love that Caliphate vibe, The Desert of Souls has it in spades. Highly recommended.
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