Soul Eater – Book Review – Beyond The Spine Reviews

Spoilers for Soul Eater throughout. Content Warning for grooming and assault.

Soul Eater is the third book in Paver’s series, ‘The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’. This is a reread review and may contain vague references to later books in the series.

Mopey Teenagers

We’ve hit the section of the series where the kids aren’t looking so much like kids anymore! It’s like Harry Potter book three all over again… except not quite so moody. Not yet.

Soul Eater is more of a transition book. Torak and Renn are right at the tipping point for starting puberty and all the feelings that come with it. Our protagonists might not yet be at their moodiest, but the events that transpire in this book are sure to send them there!

Where’s Wolf?

It’s like the end of Wolf Brother all over again! Early into the book, Wolf goes missing and the reader is left wondering whether his wonderous point of view will ever return!

Luckily, it does. And we didn’t have to wait that long! Unfortunately, Wolf spends most of this book kept in captivity which is heart breaking. We don’t get the wolf who runs free and wild and proud, instead, we’re shown a Wolf brought to his lowest, but still loyal and loving to his pack, Torak and Renn, by the end.

I found Paver’s ability to vary Wolf’s scenes fascinating. Considering that Wolf’s situation barely changes I was eagerly reading every sentence, desperate to know if he was still OK. As Wolf’s health and mind deteriorates, the pressure for Torak to come and save him gets stronger. Wolf becomes the clock on the bomb in a spy movie, except far more tragic and beautiful.

Grooming Analogues in Soul Eater

In Spirit Walker, the main antagonists were the tokoroths. They were visible nuisances bothering Torak every step of the way. In this book, the masters of the tokoroths take a more active role. The remaining Soul Eaters are excited to get their hands dirty.

They’re certainly evil—only evil people would torture a wolf and leave him to rot—but the true horror of the Soul Eaters only really becomes apparent right at the end. It’s only close to the finale that we discover that they had been grooming a child to become their final sacrifice.

Disturbingly, the Soul Eater that Torak sees as the most human and most repentant was the one in charge of this grooming. We experience it first hand as Torak discreetly takes the place of the intended child sacrifice to infiltrate the Soul Eater base of operations and rescue Wolf.

What I found most disturbing about this section was how much felt like it was being hidden from the reader. We spend a lot of the time during Torak’s infiltration mission in Renn’s head. What’s kept quiet until the book’s resolution, is the very disturbing scene on the ice where Torak is held down against his will by Thiazzi the Oak Soul Eater while Seshru the Viper Soul Eater tattoos him with their demonic mark.

I don’t think I thought this as a child, reading it for the first time, but as an adult this scene felt a lot like a rape. Not the least to mention Torak’s shame over the event and struggle to confide in Renn about it.

After reading this scene, my mind flashed back to the scene where Renn is eavesdropping on the mages, to hear that Torak was being watched over by Seshru the beautiful Viper mage. We never hear what happened during that time, and it’s never spoken of. For me, that omission is extremely uncomfortable.

Nudity and Drugs in Soul Eater!?

Another thing I didn’t notice as a child was the amount of nudity and drugs in this book! They’re certainly not obvious, but they’re there hidden between the lines. The Soul Eaters’ black root has the effect of ‘loosening the souls’, but which I now visualise as possibly hallucinogenic and quite poisonous.

Another scene that I blissfully misread as a young child was Renn’s spelunking adventure. It’s only on this reread that I noticed that she falls out of the tunnel into the snow ‘bare backed’. To fit through the narrow tunnel, she had to strip right to the skin!

Of course, this isn’t mentioned as Renn and Torak exit via the same tunnel together a few chapters later, but presumably they’re both naked from the waist up. They did seem somewhat giddy about their escape.

Shortly before Torak and Renn escape, there’s also a description of the Soul Eaters dancing around a fire as they summon the demons out of the cliff. Both Seshru and Thiazzi are again described as stripped from the waist up but also wearing some interesting hats and cloaks as part of the ritual.

It’s not a sexual kind of nudity, but it’s still a little too close to being so. Torak’s perspective regularly thinks about Seshru’s overwhelming beauty. It seems like the very start of a sexual awakening, and it definitely shaped my mind when reading the scene where Torak is tattooed against his will.

Magic Confirmed in Soul Eater?

Until this book, the magic was uncertain. The people of Torak’s world believed in the magic but the reader didn’t have to. That all changes in this book. Renn voices that she has prophetic dreams and Torak sprit walks into a raven to get information that he would never have obtained otherwise.

‘But Mel!’ you cry. ‘Magic has always been present in ‘The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’! Torak has been spirit walking since the beginning!’

And you’re right, of course you are dear reader, but it is possible for a reader to believe that those first spirit walkings are imagined by Torak. Simply the mind playing tricks as it slowly dies. That the tokoroths are simply tortured children without language. That Torak’s ability to understand Wolf is largely lucky guess work that comes from a life spent observing animals.

The magic never acts as a cheat code until this point, and I think that change might upset a few readers of Soul Eater.

Personally, it bothers me only slightly. I quite like a magic system that may or may not exist (like in A Song of Ice and Fire) and I was a little sad to see it go. On the other hand, Torak’s spirit walking experiences are so wonderful to read and I’m excited to see them become a bigger feature in future books.