Etjole Ehomba is just a herder of sheep and cattle among the small tribe of the Naumkib. When strange-looking foreigners wash up mostly dead on the beach near their village, Etjole is suddenly propelled on a journey of unknown (but presumably high) difficulty by the dying charge of one of the light-skinned strangers. Taking up a quest to rescue a woman he has never met from an evil that has already claimed dozens, if not hundreds of lives of those who have already tried, Etjole seems completely outmatched. He is, after all, only a herdsman.
But a person may be one thing and other things besides, and we quickly find out that Etjole is a man of amazing resources. As we follow his long journey north through numerous perils, we are taken on a tour of one of the more bizarre fantasy worlds in the realm of speculative fiction. Carnivores pulls off being whimsical, inventive, and alien without letting that weirdness get in the way of the tale itself; rather, the strangeness is woven deftly together with plot and characters, and rarely fails to delight the reader. The utterly fantastic situations in which Etjole and his new companions find themselves never seem formulaic, and don’t quite come across as ‘yet another obstacle on the quest’ - at least not in the first volume.
Carnivores is the first book in a trilogy, and I would recommend it to anyone with a strong imagination - it is certainly light reading, and doesn’t evoke strong emotions, but it is an enjoyable tale if you appreciate the mythical.
