The Falcon’s Children: Ross Douthat’s (Mostly) Fantastic Fantasy
Ross Douthat likes to joke that every opinion writer is either a failed politician or a failed novelist, and that he falls into the latter category. With the full online release of The Falcon’s Children, however, the conservative New York Times columnist has officially proved himself wrong. This hefty foray into high fantasy fiction (Douthat’s first) is a novel indeed. What’s more, it’s a thoroughly decent one, whatever the publishers who turned it down may have thought of it.
For those unfamiliar with The Falcon’s Children, its story began roughly three years ago with a blog post by Douthat titled, “I’ve written a fantasy novel. What should I do with it?” It seems even nationally bestselling authors occasionally get their pitches rejected; Douthat had gone through three separate rounds of submissions before finally setting aside his hopes of a traditional publication. He remained undaunted, however, and in late 2024 began releasing the novel serially on his Substack.
Last fall, the final piece of the novel went live. It made something less than a splash publicity-wise, which is surprising given the attention lavished on the book’s early chapters. Nonetheless, the overall feat is, sincerely, remarkable. While juggling fatherhood, chronic illness, a day job at the United States’ paper of record, and the release of the religious apologetic Believe, Douthat has managed to produce a perfectly entertaining work of fiction. The fact that it falls short of first class does nothing to undermine this achievement.
On its surface, the novel is a tale of two young women in a medieval fantasy empire. The first is Alsbet, the imperial princess. Dutiful and self-conscious from the start, her world-weariness is compounded when her father falls into drinking and her brother comes under the influence of a warmongering general, forcing her to bear the burden of leadership. The second is Rowenna, a dissolute farmer’s simplehearted daughter, whose world is turned upside down by the mysterious murder of her family. As their paths unexpectedly converge, these heroines find the fate of the empire in their hands.
But this is only one half of the story. It is paralleled by a darker, weirder narrative rooted in an obscurantist prologue, in which a woman of unknown relation to the novel’s other characters bargains with a fairy-like monster to deliver her from continual miscarriages. The monster agrees to grant her request in exchange for an eye but is suddenly superseded by a far more powerful (and terrifying) Presence. The woman’s final escape is marred by the memory of an unholy “touch” and the disconcerting promise of twins.
Over the pages that follow, Douthat builds on this Gothic beginning to illuminate a world of supernatural warfare. We catch glimpses of the benevolent angels the empire worships and the more demonic entities inspiring a pagan renaissance. We also see (through a glass not-so-darkly) how fey powers are attempting to twist human affairs to their ends. The end result is a tale grander and deeper in scope than a record of mere power politics.
It is difficult to go any further without spoiling the drama, but this summary hopefully conveys what The Falcon’s Children is not. It is not a wholly original spin on the fantasy genre à la Susannah Clarke’s Piranesi, nor is it a religious allegory in the manner of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. It certainly isn’t, despite what some Douthat fans may have wished for, a social commentary dressed up in doublets and houppelandes. What it is is an earnest attempt at a modern fantasy page-turner that combines Game of Thrones–style thrills with a substantially elevated thematic overlay.
This may come as a disappointment to readers expecting the next Lord of the Rings. Those willing to engage with the book on its own terms, however, are likely to come away satisfied. The plot is pleasantly unpredictable and becomes positively gripping in the second half. The fictional setting, meanwhile, is impressively drawn. Some of Douthat’s best prose, in fact, comes when he indulges in uncharacteristically lavish descriptions of his world, every element of which is clearly crafted with love.
When Alsbet’s brother Padrec returns from war, for instance, we aren’t just told that it’s autumn. Rather, we’re invited to imagine “high skies and strong autumn winds, and showers of brown leaves swept down from the mountain forests to carpet the Castle and city.” The “brilliant, waning sun” doesn’t shine; it “burnishe[s] the landscape,” and as the days run “shorter and shorter,” we don’t anticipate winter, but “long nights draped in shadow and in snow.” If this languorous imagery slows down the action, it makes up for it in general immersiveness, such that the story’s sudden outbursts of violence are authentically heart-pounding.
Douthat’s style is also effective in filling out his main characters. The stoical princess, the jealous steward, the loyal retainer, the overweening prince: in another writer’s hands, these types might have turned out too, well, typical. But in The Falcon’s Children, rich narration of realistic interior lives conjures flesh-and-blood men and women whose portraits, though familiar, are altogether convincing. This makes the book’s interior monologue-heavy chapters, of which there are many, not just bearable, but consistently enjoyable.
Where the novel truly excels, though, is in its insightful treatment of court intrigue. There is no hint of the tabloid or pulp here, yet neither is there any simplistic moralizing. Instead, the narrative sucks the reader, via Alsbet, into a dizzying whirlwind of prudential decision-making, in which virtue is felt to be as much a curse as a refuge, and every action has both good and bad consequences. To this, the story’s other threads form an ideal foil, revealing how even the best-laid human schemes remain subject to supernatural ones, i.e., ongoing contests between angelic and demonic (and, in this case, fey) powers.
In short, Douthat has accurately approximated what he considers the golden mean of high fantasy: a fine balance between meditations on “Machiavellianism and metaphysics.” The New York Times columnist’s real-world expertise in both subjects is an asset on this front, but thankfully only makes itself known indirectly, as flashes of realism in an otherwise fanciful tale. We are left free to benefit from the author’s journalistic acumen without having to accept anything resembling apologue: quite a coup in this age of heavy-handed political messaging.
Nonetheless, the story has its flaws. If some of the main characters just avoid shopworn tropes, the side characters aren’t always so lucky. One of Prince Padrec’s sidekicks, for example, who could easily be played by Tom Hiddleston, is overwhelmingly described as “beautiful” and “insouciant,” to the point where one wonders if Douthat had lost his thesaurus. Another character’s vaguely orientalized girlfriend, meanwhile, is introduced with “brown eyes in a brown face, impish smile, robe askew, cleavage, a spiced scent”: words that prompted my wife to visibly cringe.
It is also undoubtedly true that, as several of the book’s initial reviewers pointed out, the first few chapters are essentially a cumbersome “info dump.” An absorbing prologue gives way to page upon page of characters literally lecturing each other on the history and politics of the fictional world’s empire. This is not so out of step with the fantasy genre’s conventions, but will be an unlooked-for change of pace for some, if not most readers, even if those who wade through these shallows will find themselves rewarded with deep water (and sooner than they might expect).
One final criticism has less to do with Douthat’s writing than his chosen medium. While granting that releasing a novel on Substack was something of an experiment to begin with, it has to be said that staring at a computer screen is not conducive to patient reading of a lengthy, ostensibly otherworldly text. If you want the best experience, do yourself a favor and listen to the author’s audiobook recordings instead. The full-throated narration, complete with all the accents and voices at a nerdy dad’s disposal, stands as an attraction in its own right.
Douthat, ironically, has expressed disappointment at the outsized popularity of his recordings. He seems to believe it’s indicative of the modern West’s regression from a literary to an oral culture. This may be, but it’s no mark against his first foray into fiction that people are willing to spend an hour listening to each of its chapters. Far from it, it’s a testament to his fictional work’s success. Is this tale imperfect? Yes. But it’s one that’s worth hearing regardless.
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