Book Review | Sword of the North by Luke Scull

Five centuries ago, the greatest wizards of the north challenged the gods. The mages stormed the heavens, stole immortality from the divine and cast them down. Now the corpses of the fallen pantheon are a poison, leaking wild magic that births abominations across the land. With the barriers between the realms failing, the world faces apocalypse. The bards name this the Age of Ruin, a time in desperate need of heroes. But heroes are in short supply. The only candidates—a motley company at best—are scattered to the four winds.

Former rebel Sasha has now become an unwilling envoy between the powerful. Eremul the Halfmage languishes in disgrace, his warnings of approaching war falling on deaf ears. Yllandris, sorceress of the High Fangs, servant to a demon lord, has become that which she most despises. Davarus Cole, assassin of the immortal, lies on the brink of death. The legendary champion Brodar Kayne carves a bloody path towards his enemy of old in search of the woman he thought dead...

***

In "the five hundred and first year of the Age of Ruin," the line between good and evil is so diminished that most are convinced it no longer exists. It's every man for himself, and every woman as well, whether he hails from filthy Dorminia or she from lavish Thelassa. To wit, heroes and villains are artifacts of the past; fossils of a sort, all frail and friable... which is damn near a definition of the way Brodar Kayne has been feeling recently.

The so-called Sword of the North "had killed more demonkin than he could count, dire wolves and trolls by the dozen. Even a giant that had wandered down from the Spin the autumn just past." He knows, though, that his monster-slaying days are numbered. The years have taken their toll, of course; he's grown "old and weak: that was the truth." Yet as inescapable as his increasing weakness is, Kayne thinks he has one last mission in him:

A thousand or more miles away, the wife he had until recently thought dead waited for him. He would find Mhaira; put things right between him and his son if he could. Then he and the Shaman would have their reckoning. 

After two long years, the Sword of the North was coming home.

Coming home to "scour the land in a storm of blood and fire," perhaps? Well... we'll see. At the very least he won't be coming home alone:

The grim Highlander never showed any sign of weakness, would rather walk across hot coals than admit to feeling sympathy. But the Wolf knew all about promises. His word was his bond, and depending on where a man stood it could either be a death sentence or the greatest gift. He might be the angriest, surliest son of a bitch Kayne had ever known, a fearless warrior seemingly without peer, but Jerek was also the truest friend anyone could wish for.

Theirs is a friendship readers took as read in The Grim Company. At most they were partners with a past—a past explored to excellent effect in this text. Indeed, the bond between these brothers in blood is at the very centre of Luke Scull's sequel, for as Kayne and Jerek face off against any number of fearsome creatures and creepy people in the present day part of the narrative, in flashback, we hear where the pair came from, how they eventually met, and learn, at the last, of the lie underlying their lives: a lie explosively exposed in Sword of the North, naturally.

Book Review | Smiler's Fair by Rebecca Levene

Smiler's Fair: the great moving carnival where any pleasure can be had, if you're willing to pay the price. They say all paths cross at Smiler's Fair. They say it'll change your life. And five people are about to discover how true that is.

Nethmi, the orphaned daughter of a murdered nobleman, who in desperation commits an act that will haunt her forever. Dae Hyo, the skilled warrior, who discovers that a lifetime of bravery cannot make up for a single mistake. Marvan, the master swordsman, who takes more pleasure from killing than he should. Eric, who follows his heart only to find that love exacts a terrible price. And Krish, the humble goatherd, with a destiny he hardly understands and can never accept.

In a land where unimaginable horror lurks in the shadows, where the very sun and moon are at war, these five people will discover who they are—and who they're willing to become.

***

There's something for everyone at Smiler's Fair. Be you young or old, small or tall, green around the gills or hardened by the horrors of war, the travelling carnival will welcome you with open arms before attending to your every pleasure.

Say you want to drink yourself into oblivion or dabble in drugs from distant lands—head on over to the mobile market. Perhaps your deepest desire is to look Lady Luck in the eye at the high stakes tables, or earn enough money wheeling and dealing to make your way in the wider world—well, what's stopping you? Maybe what you've always wanted is to satisfy some carnal fantasy with a well-kept sellcock. Smiler's Fair doesn't care... not so long as the coin keeps coming.

The carnival is a crossroad of sorts in the splintered society of Rebecca Levene's first fantasy, where all people are treated equally—albeit as marks, in the main. Regardless, the poor mingle with the rich, the soldiers with the civilians and so on. Appropriately, it's here that our heroes meet at the very beginning of the book. And what an unlikely lot they are! There's Dae Hyo, an alcoholic warrior without a tribe to fight for; Krishanjit, a humble goatherd destined to kill a King; a restless seventeen year old sex worker called Eric; and the master swordsman Marvan—a serial killer in his spare time.

And then there's Nethmi, the orphaned daughter of a shipborn lord whose uncaring uncle has essentially sold her to the highest bidder. In a matter of days she's to be sent to Winter's Hammer, a shipfort in the distant wilderness, where she'll be married to a Lord who doesn't like her, far less love her. But before she goes, in "petty act of rebellion," (p.14) she visits the fair with a friend:

The gates were wood and twice as tall as a man. Through them she could see a broad street surfaced with straw and lined with buildings three, four and even five storeys tall, leaning perilously above the crowds. Further in there were taller spires yet, brightly tiled and hung with pennants whose designs she didn't know: a fat, laughing man, dice and—she blushed and turned away—a naked breast. It was impossible to think that none of this had been here two days before. And the people. Tall, short, fat, thing, with skin and hair of every shade, a babble of languages and faces eager for the entertainments of the fair. It was hard to imagine herself a part of that crowd, swept along in its dangerous currents. (p.13)

In premise, the part Nethmi plays in Smiler's Fair is sure to sound familiar to epic fantasy fans—as will Krishanjit's superficially predictable path through the narrative: he's the chosen one, don't you know. But no. Not exactly.

Book Review | The Grim Company by Luke Scull

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The grey granite walls of Dorminia rise to three times the height of a man, surrounding the city on all sides save for the south, where the Broken Sea begins. The stone is three-foot thick at its weakest point and can withstand all but the heaviest assault. The Crimson Watch patrol the streets even as Salazar's Mindhawks patrol the skies.

The Grey City was not always so. But something has changed. Something has broken at its heart. Perhaps the wild magic of the dead Gods has corrupted Dorminia's Magelord, as it has the earth itself. Or perhaps this iron-fisted tyranny is the consequence of a lifetime of dark deeds...

Still, pockets of resistance remain. When two formidable Highlanders save the life of a young rebel, it proves the foundation for an unlikely fellowship. A fellowship united against tyranny, but composed of self-righteous outlaws, crippled turncoats and amoral mercenaries. A grim company. But with the world entering an Age of Ruin, this is not a time of heroes...

***

In literature, as in life, everything has its moment in the sun—though some moments are of course more equal than others. I dare say some last so long that they've been burned to a crisp well before they're over.

Consider, for instance, the unabashed action hero. I think it's safe to assert that the sun set on the Arnie archetype some time ago. These days, readers demand certain failings from their favourite fictional figures. Certain shades of grey to ground the good guys and the bad.

Thus, some stories are simply no longer told. Genres come and genres go—from popular consciousness, if not the fringes of the entire picture. I mean, I don't suppose we'll be waving goodbye to paranormal romance any time in the foreseeable future, but it doesn't have quite the hold it once did, does it? Similarly, though it pains me to say, the New Weird has gotten awfully old.

But you must be wondering what all this has to do with the debut of one Luke Scull. Well, consider what his phenomenal first novel is called: it can come as no surprise that The Grim Company is as grimdark as fantasy gets. And though grimdark fantasy has been all the rage in recent years, the writing is on the wall. The genre has been brought low, and rightly so, by some of its foremost proponents' reliance on rape and torture as torpid plot devices; cardinal sins that The Grim Company is not entirely innocent of either, though its author does evidence an awareness that such subjects are not substitutes for storytelling.

So the genre's moment may almost be over. Almost... but not quite. Notwithstanding the issues that have all but gutted a good thing, The Grim Company is a genuinely great debut: fun yet fearsome, gritty and gripping in equal measure. If it marks the last hurrah of grimdark fantasy—though I sincerely hope there's an alternative solution to the problems posed—at least the genre will go out on fine form.

The Grim Company begins with—wait for it—a magical tsunami:

"The Tyrant of Dorminia had dropped a billion tons of water on a living city and instantly created the biggest mass graveyard since the Godswar five centuries past. Forty thousand men, women and children had died in an instant. One second they were alive; the next they were gone. All those lives, extinguished with the same callous lack of regard a farmed might show for an ants' nest as he drowned it in boiling water. [...] That any man should have the audacity, much less the capacity, to enact such judgement on so many unknowing souls... why, it would be an affront to the gods, if the gods weren't already dead." (p.88)

The gods may be gone, yet there are those in this story—namely Magelords—with godlike powers. One such is the aforementioned tyrant: Salazar rules over Dorminia with an iron fist, and indeed an iron heart—literally—by way of his Supreme Augmentor, Barandas. Though well aware of his master's monstrous qualities, Barandas owes Salazar a debt, and his loyalty is such that one senses the Supreme Augmentor will serve said till the day he dies.

That day may come sooner than Barandas believes, because Salazar's ghastly attack on Shadowport has engendered as much anger as it has obedience, or failing that fear. For the Shards, a company of Dorminian idealists, it's the last sordid straw: his reign of terror must end. The rebellion, they resolve, begins here... here where, one way or the other, it will end as well.

It's not so straightforward, obviously. Is it ever? To wit, the Shards are shattered early on: Sasha and Vicard join forces with two Highlanders—Brodar Kayne and his right hand man, the mercenary Jerek—to sabotage the source of Salazar's supremacy; "magic was fading from the world," you see, "and as soon as the last divine corpse was sucked dry, there would be nothing left." (p.92) But the rebels' trip to the Rift quickly takes a disastrous turn, and as the body count embiggens, our company can only wonder why doing the right thing feels so wrong.

They need a hero, really. Alas, after a friendly dressing down results in a temper tantrum, the one and the only Davarus Cole is captured by Salazar's forces, pressed into service as part of a prison gang, then dispatched into dangerous territory to help replenish the Tyrant's supplies. In other words, he'll be aiding and abetting the enemy. Merely an inconvenience to a saviour-in-the-making such as he!

"His abilities and quick wits outstripped those of his peers by no small distance—and besides, hadn't Garrett always said he would one day be a great hero, like his real father? A man such as he met injustice head on, enchanted blade in hand and epic destiny propelling him forwards with a righteous fury no petty villain could withstand." (p.13)

So he likes to think, that is. Later, Sasha suggests an alternative interpretation: "He's the only person I know who can scrape through the most dangerous situations by the sheer power of his own bullshit." (p.200)

Off to the side of all this, there's Eremul the tragic half-mage, who wants Salazar's head on a platter, and the sultry sorceress Yllandris, who dreams of being a Queen. These peripheral perspectives give readers insight into the larger landscape of Luke Scull's series, and though they serve little other purpose in The Grim Company, they're sure to play a larger part in the tomes to come.

Thankfully, the primary points of view are absorbing from word one. Waiting for Cole to be taken down a peg or ten is terrific fun, and in the interim the author uses his clueless central character to comment on the fantasy heroes of yesteryear. Sharp as Scull's barbs are, there's nothing especially subtle about this satire, however it does demonstrate the value of what sets grimdark fantasy apart.

By that measure, Brodar Kayne is a rather more traditional character than poor, dear Davarus: a downtrodden old warrior very much after Joe Abercombie's heart. "I ain't what I used to be," he says at one stage, as he advances on three Highlanders younger and stronger than he. "Can't piss in a straight line, if at all. I got aches in places I didn't know could ache. But if there's one thing I still know how to do [...] it's killing. You never really lose the instinct for it." (p.104) Despite his familiarity, Kayne struck me as a marvellous man of action: strong yet uncertain, done in but not defeated, bitter but still this side of miserable, he is a weapon, albeit a blunt one—a maul rather than a delicate dagger—that the author wields well.

In truth, no-one does grimdark fantasy better than Joe Abercrombie, but by the dead, Luke Scull comes incredibly close. The Grim Company can't quite eclipse the likes of The Heroes, or Red Country; all told, though, this is a substantially more satisfying debut than The Blade Itself.

In large part that's thanks to an action-packed narrative, paced like a race. There's never dull moment in The Grim Company—even in the middle, where most stories sag. Here, there and everywhere there are extraordinary set-pieces: battles, by and large, but what battles they are! In the interim, there's murder, mystery and intrigue; a meaningful, if somewhat simplistic magic system; no shortage of snappy banter; and such smooth worldbuilding that I hardly noticed it happening. There's precious little time to take stock of all this—instead, depth and texture seems to simply spring from the story—but I didn't mind the immediacy of the overall experience one whit.

A confident debut, then? Definitely. It mightn't be particularly original, but it's bold. It's brutal. Shiver me timbers, The Grim Company is brilliant.

But—and you must have known there would be a but coming—Luke Scull inherits a few iffy elements amongst the many he emulates successfully. I don't believe that these spoil the novel, but cumulatively, they do somewhat take the edge off. Considering grimdark fantasy's fall from grace of late, that's a shame, and no mistake. Yet whether or not there's a place for this sort of fiction in the literary landscape of tomorrow, The Grim Company is a sterling exemplar of what the genre has to offer today.

***

The Grim Company

by Luke Scull

UK Publication: March 2013, Head of Zeus

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Book Review | Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

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Shy South comes home to her farm to find a blackened shell, her brother and sister stolen, and knows she’ll have to go back to bad old ways if she’s ever to see them again. She sets off in pursuit with only her cowardly old step-father Lamb for company. But it turns out he’s hiding a bloody past of his own. None bloodier.

Their journey will take them across the lawless plains, to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feuds, duels, and massacres, high into unmapped mountains to a reckoning with ancient enemies, and force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, a man no one should ever have to trust...

***

A river of blood runs through Red Country: a scarlet stream that slices like a scythe through the old West-esque wilderness of Joe Abercrombie's new novel. It begins an arterial stream on a smallholding outside Squaredeal; turns a tributary after the evils of Crease; and by the end it's become a terrible torrent, as unstoppable as anger, as awful as war. Pity the poor fool who stands in its path.

Red Country is vile at times, and plain ugly most all others, but mark my words: from source to termination, you won't be able to look away... because by the dead, this book is brilliant, certain to satisfy longstanding fans as well as welcome - warmly, I warrant - new readers from near and from far.

For those folks, and any old-timers who require a refresher, a tiny primer: the Bath-bound family man made his name less than a decade ago with the opening volume of The First Law. Before They Are Hanged demonstrated The Blade Itself's success had been no happy accident, and with Last Argument of Kings Abercrombie cemented his reputation as one of fantasy's finest.

Ever since the acclaimed author has been worrying away at the same wanton world that these three were set against by way of a series of self-contained tales. Following in the fearsome footsteps of Best Served Cold and The Heroes, Red Country is the third of these, and by all accounts the last such standalone for the foreseeable. Fitting, then, that it's the best of the bloody bunch.

It begins with a bargain. In Squaredeal, Shy South negotiates a nice price for several sacks of grain harvested from her family's farm. Doesn't hurt that she has a hulking Northman by her side during these dealings, but truth be told, it doesn't help hugely: though Lamb looks like trouble, he's named after his nature. This fella she has instead of a father is a career coward... or so Shy suspects.

She has cause to reconsider her opinion when they get back to the ranch and find naught but burned-out fields and a body swinging in the wind. Some band of bastards has destroyed all that's theirs — and to make matters worse, the children are missing. The pair don't spend forever plotting out a plan of action: they bury their dead quickly, then set out in search of poor Pit and Ro.

It takes time, but twisted bitter as Shy is, she's shocked six ways from Sunday by Lamb's eventual reaction:

"This big, gentle Northman who used to run laughing through the wheat with Pit on one shoulder and Ro on the other, used to sit out at sunset with Gully, passing a bottle between 'em in silence for hours at a time, who'd never once laid a hand on her growing up in spite of some sore provocations, talking about getting their hands red to the elbows like it was nothing." (p.51)

It's not nothing - not now, nor ever again - but in the end, what else is left? Thus they track a trail blazed by bandits into the Ghost-ridden plains and dangerous dales of the Far Country, where our determined duo encounter a caravan of fellow travelers led by the legendary adventurer Dab Sweet — though the man seems less of a legend in person. But Shy and Lamb figure there's more safety in numbers than in none, so they join forces for the moment, suffering the company of others on the road to Crease: a filthy frontier town (which takes its title from a mark on a map) where two opposing powers vie for control.

Meanwhile, returning drunk and indignant from his fall from grace in Best Served Cold, Nicomo Cosca leads an inquisition of miserable mercenaries out into the big empty — ostensibly to root out rebels, but one of the Old Man's many mistakes the mission for mass slaughter. Seeing that there's "no heroism apparent" (p.60) in the Company of the Gracious Hand, Temple - a jack of all trades type - resolves to escape Cosca's clutches quick as he can. In short order, he throws himself into the river, only to be fished out of it by... a familiar face.

After an encouraging start, then, but before gathering together for an awesome last act, Red Country's narrative rather meanders — and considering the stakes, this is an issue. With Pit and Ro's very lives on the line, that our heroes dawdle in the desert for a hundred-some pages - then in Crease for at least as long again - is some kind of strange; passing distracting if not entirely pace-breaking. To his credit, Abercrombie does contextualise the double-headed delay; even so, it's sure to sit with readers uneasily.

Given this, it's safe to say that Red Country is about the journey moreso than the inevitable destination. And with such dizzying highs and desperate lows, what a trip it is! The fellowship comes together and apart, goes from rocks to hard places via frying pans and fires. And in the quieter times - though these are few and far between - a collusion of character: of the angry, the greedy and the needy; the good, the bad and the Joe Abercrombie.

Not all of Red Country's perspectives are sympathetic - come to that, some are apt to turn even the steeliest stomachs - but each arc, in its way, proves as absorbing as the protracted pilgrimage the plot revolves around. Temple and Lamb are particularly fantastic in that regard: the loyalties of either character are ever uncertain, whilst in a telling inversion, one's deliberate development seems to mirror the other's.

Cosca, meanwhile, is a fascinating antagonist: brutal and unpredictable, but a damaged man, all booze and bluster. Through him - and the cowering writer he has hired to chronicle his last hurrah - Abercrombie digs down to the root of this book, which is what separates kings from cowards, and right from wrong — or does not:

"Sworbreck had come to see the face of heroism and instead he had seen evil. Seen it, spoken with it, been pressed up against it. Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods." (p.415)

This deflated depiction of the evils men wheedle grounds Red Country in a familiar mire of misery and cynicism, yet ever the canny craftsman, Abercrombie tempers the potential excesses of his text with characteristic warmth and wit. Indeed, paired as it is with an undeniably wicked yet quickly winning sense of humour, the cruel and unusual content of his new novel feels a fleeting thing after the fact, for there is barbed beauty to be discovered amongst the abject horror of it all, in moments of love and laughter; likewise in rare reflections on family and friendship.

Red Country rides a crimson tide, but I dare say the water here is clearer than it appears. Having mastered that balancing act at last, the work of Joe Abercrombie is as blackly fantastic as it's ever been, and markedly more approachable than before. It's a testament to how far the author has come since The First Law trilogy that this superlative standalone should satisfy any and all comers.

That's the now. And the stage is intriguingly set for whatever comes next. What that will be remains to be seen, but there'll be blood, I bet, and if Red Country is any indication, a truly incredible book to boot.

...

This review was originally published, in a slightly altered form, on Tor.com.

***

Red Country
by Joe Abercrombie

UK Publication: October 2012, Gollancz
US Publication: November 2012, Orbit

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