A Mostly Fun Romp That Feels Like a D&D Adventure (But
in a Good Way)
 |
| Sykes, Sam. The City Stained Red. Orbit: 2014. |
It starts simply enough: the D&D-esque party of
'adventurers,' led by silver-haired (if not, sadly, silver-tongued) Lenk,
arrives in The City. Their goal? To collect on some money owed them. The money
is supposed to set them up for life, letting them settle in civilization and quit
the adventurer life. The problem? Not all (or any?) of the others actually want
to settle. They'd rather kill stuff, mostly.
The goal of me reading this book? To be entertained—and I
was. Sykes has a way with words, and sprinkles his prose with several
laugh-out-loud moments in the dialogue (generally quite witty) and the
description (hilarious and very vivid). The only real problem? It's two-fold. In
the beginning, I couldn't understand why everyone seemed to hate poor Lenk the
misunderstood fighter, even people who also claimed to love him, like those in the
adventurer party (including the boy-wizard, the hulking dragonman
(self-explanatory), the half-feral shict (mostly human-looking Cat Woman), the
long-suffering priestess, and the world-weary thief) of which he was titular
leader. But by the end, I couldn't understand why anyone would love him—in fact,
I kind of hated Lenk too. Trouble is, I don't think Sykes intended to alienate
the reader with Lenk's unlovability; he's not supposed to be an anti-hero, just
a misunderstood hero with a heart of gold. Yet if, by the end, even the reader
is half hoping the protagonist will, to quote Mystery Man, fall "down an elevator shaft—into some bullets,"
we've got a bit of a problem, either in the character himself, or in the
execution.
Sykes tackles real questions of contemporary social
relevance, cloaked in the language of fantasy, and this aspect of the story was
plenty interesting. Replace any of the fantasy-speak for the various species
with words like "minority" and the human elite with "white
people" and we can read all manner of racial and ethnic struggle into the
various non-human characters' stories and actions, particularly that of the
scene-stealer Gariath the Dragonman. Yet Lenk is supposed to be the likeable
glue that holds this motley crue (haha) together, and instead, by the end I
can't for the life of me imagine what any of his non-human companions, far more
sympathetic characters one and all, had ever seen in him. It certainly wasn't
his leadership or strategic skills.
This all crystallizes around the tempestuous love affair
between Lenk and Kataria the shict. The reasons for them not to be together
seem nigh insurmountable, since she could hardly do worse. Not, all in all, an
ideal couple around which to hang the courageous, persecution-defying idea of
interracial (or in this case interspecial) union. The thing that threatens to
drive them apart is Lenk's insistence he wants to stop killing and settle down
among other humans—many of whom openly despise shicts. But of course he's all
surprised when she's upset. Good one, Lenk.
Despite the frustration having so icky a protagonist is
bound to cause, The City Stained Red is well worth your time. I just can't help
wishing it had been told entirely (or at least mostly; Sykes employs a
multi-perspectival narrative that, nonetheless, grants far too much time to
Lenk the Unlikeable) from the indomitable Gariath's perspective, and Lenk, if
he'd appeared at all, had only added his blood to that staining the city.
The Math:
Objective Assessment: 7/10
Bonuses: +1 for stylish writing, +1 for Gariath (he's
awesome, trust me)
Penalties: -1 for Lenk sucking so hard...in fact, we're
going to have to deduct another -1
Nerd coefficient: 7/10 "A Mostly Enjoyable Experience"
[Curmudgeonly comments notwithstanding, a 7/10 is actually a
fine score indeed here at Nerds of a Feather, and indicates this book is better
than the vast majority out there! See here for
details (NB: in true newscaster fashion, it is not DEtails but deTAILS, so read
it right, even if silently!)]
This review brought to you by Zhaoyun, sci-fi/fantasy-lover and dreamer of dreams here at NOAF since practically forever ago (actually 2013).
