A puckish, free-wheeling take on the sword-and-sorcery genre.
This second book in Pettway’s Misplaced Mercenaries series sees a diamond-in-the-rough imposter king defend his city from political intrigue and military incursion.
Carrying on from the events of A Good Running Away (2019), ex-mercenary Keane has been accepted as king of Greenshade. He has married the princess—now Queen Megan—and rules as best he can over a Great Council of devious, squabbling noblemen. Keane’s sister in arms, the fearsome ex-mercenary Sarah, acts as his bodyguard while also receiving magical instruction from Finnagel, the city’s resident sorcerer. Keane and Sarah have landed on their feet, but they are not yet out of the woods. When Keane arrived at Treaty Hill, he was impersonating Prince Despin Swifthart of Tyrrane. That nation has now discovered the deception. With armed reprisal imminent, Keane sends Sarah and Finnagel on a diplomatic mission to shore up Greenshade’s treaties with the neighboring kingdoms. In their absence, Keane is left vulnerable. Megan is pregnant. More so than ever before, Keane feels a genuine allegiance to his adopted kingdom. But the enemy is at the gate, and Greenshade’s allies have turned in favor of Tyrrane. Worse, there are forces within the capital of Treaty Hill working to betray the city. Can Keane outmaneuver the backstabbers and keep his wife, unborn child, and kingdom safe? While the book is something of a bridging installment in the series (Sarah’s mission in particular does not further the plot in any great way), the developing storylines afford plenty of opportunities for character development and exploration of a diverse world. Separating Keane and Sarah allows each to shine. Megan emerges as a second strong female character while Sarah’s new companions, Cassius and the troll Grohann, are well realized. Pettway’s prose has a lightness of touch often missing in epic fantasy. The dialogue is frequently vulgar but inventively so, disavowing realism with an eye instead to humor. The chapters are short, often ending in quips, and the novel as a whole moves quickly and confidently. Overall there is much here to like.
A puckish, free-wheeling take on the sword-and-sorcery genre.Pub Date: June 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-951445-10-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Cursed Dragon Ship Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.
A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.
Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.
Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781250899651
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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