Book Review: Darrell Schweitzer’s ‘We Are All Legends’

We Are All Legends, by Darrell Schweitzer, is a collection of weird sword and sorcery tales about the otherworldly wanderings of Sir Julian, a Crusader damned by God for his sins. I read this way back in October, but I never got around to posting a review. So here goes.

According to Wikipedia:

The book was edited by Hank Stine and illustrated by Stephen Fabian, and features an introduction by L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published as a trade paperback by The Donning Company in 1981. It was reprinted by Starmount House in 1988, Borgo Press in 1989 and Wildside Press in 1999.

The collection consists of a cycle of thirteen stories, nine of them originally published from 1976-1979 in various fantasy and science fiction magazines and anthologies, with the remainder original to the collection.

I have the Wildside Press edition myself. I give it a solid B.

It gets an A+ for the dark, vivid atmosphere that envelopes each tale — perfect reading material for October — and a C- for characterization. You never truly get to know Julian the apostate knight (or any of the secondary characters, for that matter), but the lands through which Julian travels are fully realized…and spectacularly creepy. This isn’t that surprising given that the book is not a novel but rather a compilation of a body of serial fiction, a medium that can make characterization more difficult.

I’ve seen comparisons of Julian to other ill-fated protagonists like Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane and Michael Moorcock’s Elric, but I see a major difference. In my somewhat limited exposure to Kane and Elric, I never came away with the sense that they possessed any conscience, so I could never really root for them. In fact, I just didn’t like them. Elric especially came across as a narcissistic, lugubrious prick.

Julian, however, clearly has a sense of morality; but most of the time, his morality seems to kick in too little or too late to rise above his obsession with escaping from his past sins to –and I’m paraphrasing Julian’s words here — a place of peace that is neither Heaven nor Hell. As a result, I think readers can feel for him a bit more than they can for a couple of devious, immortal killers like Kane and Elric.

Book Review: The Scroll of Years by Chris Willrich

I’ve been reading Chris Willrich’s short fiction for years, and I particularly enjoy his Gaunt and Bone stories. Their lyricism and whimsy seem to fill a void in a fantasy fiction landscape marked by dark, gritty realism. I love dark, gritty realism, but I can only take so much.

I’ve long been hoping that some gutsy publisher would buck the trend and print a compilation of Willrich’s Gaunt and Bone tales to sprinkle some dreamlike fable amidst our worldly fantasy fiction. Instead, this Gaunt and Bone novel arrives.  Even better.  The fantasy fiction shelves need to be stocked with more books like this one.

Willrich injects The Scroll of Years with the same gorgeous prose of his short fiction but still manages to move the story along at a steady clip. It rises to a pulse-pounding pace in delightfully entertaining moments of action and at times slows to a trickle to allow the reader to ponder a bit of philosophy. But it never stalls.  The landscape—described in precise, exquisite detail—is a character in itself (literally and figuratively), and the dialogue is witty and insightful. Through all of this, Willrich weaves his signature threads of antithesis and paradox. There’s enough depth and beauty here to make subsequent readings just as entertaining as the first.

He packs this all into about 260 pages, which is impressive, but this may have detracted from the overall story a bit only because it prevents the inclusion of more background about the characters. Gaunt and Bone, and some of the secondary characters as well, have fascinating pasts that readers can only glimpse. This is at once tantalizing and frustrating. Readers well acquainted with Gaunt and Bone will not be deterred, but those meeting the characters for the first time may miss out a little on what makes them so compelling.

I do hope this absence will urge them to read the next installment, The Silk Map, to learn more. I’ve already pre-ordered my copy (and I’m still holding out hope for that Gaunt and Bone short story compilation).

Book Review: The Servant of the Manthycore

I had the pleasure of finishing Michael Ehart’s The Servant of the Manthycore recently. I’ve decided to make it my first ever book review.

---

Reviewed Book The Servant of the Manthycore Double-Edged Publishing The Author Michael Ehart, http://mehart.blogspot.com/ Where to Purchase Double-Edged Publishing or Amazon.com

---

Review

The Servant of the Manthycore is a compilation of several short stories featuring a tragic, morally equivocal, but truly likable warrior woman, a complete bad ass in a very small package who reminds us that we often do beautiful and awful things for love because we are human and cannot help it. The stories are terrificly paced, filled with plenty of sword-and-sorcery action, and leave the reader pondering in the mist between right and wrong.

Midway through the book, when the Servant is sent on a quest involving rubies and herbs, readers who find themselves thinking, “Didn’t I see this in a video game?” will be quickly reminded that the background stories from all of those role-playing games are rooted in mythology. And Ehart skillfully treads the familiar ground of old myths while blazing a trail for a new one. This is part of what great fantasy is all about.

I do wish Ehart would have fleshed out the setting a tad more. I feel he could have described the Middle Eastern Bronze Age in greater detail while maintaining the swift movement of the story–though this is a delicate balance. Despite this, Ehart imbues Servant with the gritty flavor of the Pulp Era while maintaining his own distinct and modern style. Readers who enjoy the stories and style of Robert E. Howard, Harold Lamb, and other historical fiction authors from the early 20th century will enjoy this book, as will readers of modern fantasy.

I definitely recommend it.