At
first glance this is a fairly standard fantasy story. There's the
humble man destined to be king, there's a warrior babe (actually, a
whole organisation of warrior babes), there's a villain bent on world
domination, and there's a bit of a mystery: whatever happened to the
previous king? What about the magic sword, I hear you say? And the
prophecy? And there ought to be a wizard... Yep, got those too. There's
probably nothing here that the average fantasy fan hasn't seen a hundred
times before, and there are no prizes at all for guessing where things
will end up, it's obvious right from the start.
But still,
there's always room for a new take on the old stories, and this one has a
fresh feel to it. The hero has a certain charm, for a start. It's very
pleasant in these days of gritty realism and world-weary, cynical heroes
to find one who actually behaves like a hero, and rescues damsels (or
blokes) in distress; although, being of humble origins, he does all this
while wiping his nose on his sleeve and scratching his balls. There's a
certain amount of puking and shitting going on too. But - praise be! -
no rape, no lovingly described disembowellings, a very minimal amount of
torture and the fights are nicely done, realistic and not too long,
without wallowing in it. And three cheers for a hero who is himself
rescued from time to time. I do like proper teamwork on a quest (well,
of course there's a quest, didn't I mention that?).
The setting
is pretty traditional, too - a low-technology sort-of medieval world,
with a clear class system and the usual array of merchants, craftsmen
and the like. The towns have a grubby underbelly, with poverty, thievery
and bad sanitation practices. There's some nice original terminology to
spice things up: warriors are called battlers, for instance,
mercenaries are warrant knights (and also serve as a rough and ready
form of law and order) and the local chief of town Whatever is Lordover
Whatever. None of it is hard to work out, but it gives the created world
a feeling of otherness, as if it's not just another rehash of the
medieval period.
Some grumbles. Firstly, the bad guy is just too
much of a caricature. He's just evil incarnate, with no redeeming
features whatsoever. And he has some very powerful magic, so everything
just falls into his hands (with some nice exceptions; the magic sword,
it turns out, has a mind of its own). Frankly, I've never quite
understood the attraction of world domination myself. If you have all
that magic at your disposal, why not use it to become unspeakably rich,
or (as in one book I read) to win at gambling, or pull women. Sounds
like far more fun than all that bothersome ruling. But there's a nice
touch in all this; the villain, it turns out, has a plot-related reason
for all that villainy, it's not something trite like being abandoned by
his mother, or dropped on his head at birth, or (the usual reason) just
because...
Secondly, the inevitable problem with rehashing the
traditional tropes is that large parts of the plot are just too damn
predictable. Yes, there are occasional minor twists, but basically
anyone with some knowledge of the genre could map most of the story out
way ahead of time. So although the plot builds up a nice head of steam
and rattles along very pleasantly, every once in a while there's a real
eye-rolling moment, and the magic is a very convenient device. Not quite
deus ex machina, but slightly contrived, shall we say. In the middle
things got quite complicated. There are a lot of characters, a lot of
hopping about from one town to another, and a lot of pieces of
information known by some characters but not by others, and I lost track
of who was doing what where - and often why, as well. But the author
was obviously on top of it, and it's not the sort of book where you
absolutely have to keep up or you miss the point of the ending.
This
is not a particularly deep book, so anyone looking for profound subtext
should move right along. Nor is it wildly original, there were too many
cliches and a certain amount of contrivance. The good characters are a
little implausibly good, the bad guys are just a little too evil, and
nothing terribly unexpected happens. Nevertheless, it's good solid
entertainment, well written and well thought out and with enough
freshness to make it palatable to all but the most jaded tastes. I liked
the idea that the ex-peasant and future king has appalling table
manners (well, he would, wouldn't he?), I liked that there were so many
competent female characters, I liked the many minor characters who were
well rounded and interesting, without hogging the limelight, I liked the
little touches of humour. An enjoyable undemanding read. Three stars.
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