“Children of Rhatlan” is a light, easy-to-read fantasy about a wizard and a “dual”. A dual is a set of twins that literally share space. Only one of them can appear at once. You either see Garum, the boy, or Vayin, the girl. They share consciousness so they are in constant communication but only one can speak at a time. Duals are considered the children of Rhatlan, the trickster god, and many consider them servants of evil.
The idea of duals is an interesting premise on which to hang a story. Tanya Huff did something similar in “Fifth Quarter”—she had a brother and sister team of assassins forced by a spell to share one body for a time. In “Children of Rhatlan”, however, Garum and Vayin were born as a dual so they’ve grown up in each other’s head. You would think this would drive most people nuts, but they seem pretty stable kids.
The story itself is simple and straightforward, without complex characters or motivations. The writing was rather flat, with no real tension, drama or humour. It’s safe. Things almost always worked out, usually on the next page. Considering the fact that so many people were supposed to hate duals, the dual and their parents seemed fairly casual about hiding their identity. The seriousness of the danger was never really felt.
I also had problems guessing the dual’s age. At first I thought they were 12 or 13, then I upped it to 14 or 15 when I discovered Garum was shaving. Late in the story they claimed to be 17. By the end of the story this was believable but at the beginning they seem much younger. They were both very self-centered and were able to rationalize anything in order to do what they wanted, even petty theft. They were very blasé about staying in town without telling their parents, even though this left their parents with no help on the farm. Any money they got they spent on themselves. They acted more like the kids on TV shows like “Gossip Girl” or “90210” than like what I would expect in a pseudo-medieval setting.
Garum was the more serious of the two. For the first half of the book he seemed to do all the work, especially the chores on the farm. Vayin usually got her turn after the chores were done. She was flighty, sneaky and rather clueless. She was also the one who got the dual in trouble most of the time. Fortunately for the story, both twins “grew up” as the story progressed.
As adult or even teen fiction, I think “Children of Rhatlan” is a bit light-weight. There isn’t enough meat on the bones of the story to hold most people’s attention. As children’s fiction, there’s probably a few too many “adult situations” implied for their parents’ comfort. However, if you’re looking for a light, fast read and you like fantasy, you might want to give it a try.
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