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| De Castell, Sebastien. Traitor's Blade. Jo Fletcher Books, March 2014 |
The Meat
When you're making a sandwich, I think you'll agree that
it's important to ensure relatively consistent quality among all the various
ingredients. If, for example, you splurge and get the nicest tomatoes or
whatever known to man, it really doesn't make much sense to slather the thing
with Velveeta. You'd want a nice provolone, say, or something with enough oomph
to support your investment in the tomatoes.
As with sandwiches,
so too with story-telling. Some stories can be first-rate in most areas and
still fall apart, as an ensemble, over whichever element is Velveeta-quality,
be it the protagonist, the dialogue, or the descriptions of the fighting.
What makes De
Castell's Traitor's Blade so
delightful is that it's all provolone (so to speak). The story is very well
crafted, from the dialogue to the fight scenes (I hear De Castell has worked as
a fight choreographer!) and there's nary a hint of Velveeta to be found.
Anybody can rally behind the much-abused Falcio as hero, especially because
despite what the title might make you think, readers will almost immediately
discover that this gold-hearted romantic, this ever so formidable warrior, is
no traitor at all. Instead, he's been dumped on by everybody, Fates and Furies
and everyone in between, and he's only got his blade(s) and his trusty
Greatcoat (a half-magical coat which also functions as excellent armor,
emergency cash reserve, bag of all tricks, and instant symbol of monarchy in,
shall we say, a post-Charles I (but not at all Cromwellian) kind of world.
Strictly speaking
the tale De Castell tells has nothing to do with England, drawing its
inspiration from late medieval/early modern Italy instead, but in any case, in
the world De Castell shows us, it (to misquote Mel Brooks) is no longer at all
good to be the king, nor to be his most trusted friend and compatriot, the aforementioned Falcio. The story is set up as a loose mystery, in which Falcio
and his few remaining loyal companions must seek to clear their names/get away
from the bad guys/right injustices everywhere/fulfill their king's last
requests. So in the Abercrombie-esque, dog-not-only-eat-but-gleefully-tear-apart-dog world they're in, they've got their hands full, needless to say.
De Castell is at his
best as he periodically interjects flashbacks the better gradually to reveal
more of the story's central relationship, that between the now (ahem) 'forcibly
deposed' king and Falcio, who even years later remains totally loyal to his
erstwhile monarch. We are offered a window deep into Falcio's interiority thanks
to the first-person narration, even tempered as it is by the 'I write this little
account years later' device, so we come to know what makes him tick, and what
makes him go ballistic (or whatever the equivalent term is for rapiers—pointillistic,
perhaps? Take that, Georges Seurat! That's too good a word to waste on boring
quasi-impressionistic painting!).
The story is captivating, and though many readers (even I figured it out!) will soon
see through the king's cryptic assignment for Falcio, it's immensely satisfying
to read. The only hint of Velveeta was in a third-act deus ex machina-esque appearance—and,
soon, disappearance—of a sympathetic damsel who gives our broken-hearted Falcio
one heck of a pick-me-up. The characterization of one particularly bloodthirsty
duchy bothered me as well; I immediately thought of Riften from Skyrim, but
like five billion times more lawless and dangerous. I mean, this place is like
Frank Miller's Sin City bad.
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| True, random thieves appear to cause mayhem in Riften, but at least there isn't a week-long bloodbath! |
The duchy's
tradition of a free-for-all general melee where anyone can be targeted within
the time frame of the 'celebration' also immediately brought back memories of
that creepy Ethan Hawke movie The Purge,
which was certainly an intriguing premise for a sci fi/horror film, but fleshed
out here in Traitor's Blade it
teeters on the edge of being untenable as a premise. How could a city-state
really indulge in such an elaborate orgy of violence at the whim of a despotic
ruler and then continue to function normally—or at all—after it? So as
interesting a place as it sounds, the uber-evil duchy felt like a melodramatic
exaggeration of 'how bad things have gotten since our hero Falcio and his
reformer king got screwed.' None of this is to suggest that the parts of the
book devoted to describing that duchy are anything less than riveting, however!
All in all, De
Castell has produced a wonderfully inventive, thoroughly entertaining story and
a fascinating world in which to set it. And I, for one, am excited to hear how
Falcio will proceed in the remaining three volumes of the series! (I just hope
he doesn't come down with a bad case of Robert Jordanism and end up writing
four seven thirteen twenty thousand books in the series!)
The Math
Baseline Assessment: 7/10
Bonuses: +1 for creating a berserker with a heart of gold in
Falcio, +1 for a story boasting such a consistently high level of quality
throughout its many elements
Penalties: -1 for a hint of Velveeta in the deus ex machina
of the woman near the end
Nerd coefficient: 8/10 "Well worth your time and
attention"
[Here at Nerds of a Feather, we don't give out high scores
like 8s lightly! See here for how
our scoring system works.]
