Redemption's Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Ten years ago, the Kinslayer returned from the darkness.
Ten years ago, the Kinslayer returned from the darkness.
Read: 2020-08-10
Rating: 3/5
Pages: 520
isbn: 178108579X
Picked this up because Adrian is among the very best genre authors out there today, be that in SF or Fantasy, his writing hits all my buttons.
This is high fantasy, but not your usual epic, where the heroes go and fight the Big Bad and bring back light to the World.
This is the world after the epic is done, when the heroes have slain the Big Bad -- in this case the Kinslayer, a demigod turned bad -- and people are left trying to pick up the pieces in the shattered world left behind. This world is particularly shattered, as the Kinslayer appears from all context to have been a completely amoral sadist, bringing creatures from other realms and twisting the land and people alike.
We still have a Quest, however, but one taken up willingly by the protaganist, seeking to undo some of the damage which occurred in the long struggle. That protaganist, Celestaine, travels with two of the Kinslayer's inhuman Yorughan, a warrior and a mage, and they are joined by a victim of the Kinslayer's rule.
There is a lot here which is excellent, most notably the world building and the characterisation of different races, which delves deep beyond surface appearance and into the motivations, the losses which drive the effort to rebuild a life amid the ruin. This isn't Tchaikovsky's best work, however; the character of Celestaine is left undeveloped unti the final few pages; the plot is a straight up "hunt the snark"; there is too much which is elided or just plain skipped over in the interest of keeping the story going.
I love reconstruction narratives, however, so I probably rate this higher than others might. The post-facto, the struggles to come, these are usually left unsaid and unstated by genre fiction, especially High Fantasy (looking at you JRRT) so when someone does it, and does it well, I think that needs to be noted.
NOTE: This is the first in a "shared world" narrative, one in which it is planned to have different authors take on the world. Unfortunately, barring "Salvation's Fire" by Justina Robson, August 2018, there don't appear to be any other books in that series.
This is high fantasy, but not your usual epic, where the heroes go and fight the Big Bad and bring back light to the World.
This is the world after the epic is done, when the heroes have slain the Big Bad -- in this case the Kinslayer, a demigod turned bad -- and people are left trying to pick up the pieces in the shattered world left behind. This world is particularly shattered, as the Kinslayer appears from all context to have been a completely amoral sadist, bringing creatures from other realms and twisting the land and people alike.
We still have a Quest, however, but one taken up willingly by the protaganist, seeking to undo some of the damage which occurred in the long struggle. That protaganist, Celestaine, travels with two of the Kinslayer's inhuman Yorughan, a warrior and a mage, and they are joined by a victim of the Kinslayer's rule.
There is a lot here which is excellent, most notably the world building and the characterisation of different races, which delves deep beyond surface appearance and into the motivations, the losses which drive the effort to rebuild a life amid the ruin. This isn't Tchaikovsky's best work, however; the character of Celestaine is left undeveloped unti the final few pages; the plot is a straight up "hunt the snark"; there is too much which is elided or just plain skipped over in the interest of keeping the story going.
I love reconstruction narratives, however, so I probably rate this higher than others might. The post-facto, the struggles to come, these are usually left unsaid and unstated by genre fiction, especially High Fantasy (looking at you JRRT) so when someone does it, and does it well, I think that needs to be noted.
NOTE: This is the first in a "shared world" narrative, one in which it is planned to have different authors take on the world. Unfortunately, barring "Salvation's Fire" by Justina Robson, August 2018, there don't appear to be any other books in that series.