A review by vinayvasan
First Watch by Dale Lucas
4.0
A dwarf and a man walk into a bar and get into a bar fight :)
This one was so much super fun - drawing inspiration from mismatched cop buddy movies as much as from standard fantasy tropes - to craft a rollicking story, that frequently had one grinning while becoming progressively darker. Rem, an ordinary man, serves as our window to the story as he fortuitously finds himself part of the city watch, one of the 5 in the city hosting elves, orcs, dwarves and men. This complexity of races inhabiting this world brings its own challenges wrt administering the law. A rookie, he finds himself saddles with a rather short-tempered, shoot-first-ask-questions later (or the equivalent in this world) dwarf as they investigate the case of the dwarf's dead partner even as the city grapples with a spate of women missing
Make no mistake, the book is really about the mucky undertones of the city. It gets right and dirty, our lead pair often wade within the muck, both literally and figuratively even as they tangle with the various race factions of the city, some who want them to stop investigating, other who have their own agenda. As with the cop buddy movies, there is a wonderful dynamic between the naive, eyes wide open, wanting to prove a point rookie and his cynical, been-there-done-there hard as nails partner. There is an easy flow to the book, there are hints around the city itself and the politicking with a good amount of history as well explained without significant exposition dump.
The book gets darker, and bodies do start dropping. The seamy underside of the city is deadly seamy. Rem is quite believable as a new character who happens to be a wonderful fighter as well. Torval as the dwarf added menace and unpredictability and happened to be an expert in making a situation worse. There are a lot of hints on Rem's background which will come into play through the series.
We have seen the Fifth ward in good detail. Now looking forward to exploring other wards.
This one was so much super fun - drawing inspiration from mismatched cop buddy movies as much as from standard fantasy tropes - to craft a rollicking story, that frequently had one grinning while becoming progressively darker. Rem, an ordinary man, serves as our window to the story as he fortuitously finds himself part of the city watch, one of the 5 in the city hosting elves, orcs, dwarves and men. This complexity of races inhabiting this world brings its own challenges wrt administering the law. A rookie, he finds himself saddles with a rather short-tempered, shoot-first-ask-questions later (or the equivalent in this world) dwarf as they investigate the case of the dwarf's dead partner even as the city grapples with a spate of women missing
Make no mistake, the book is really about the mucky undertones of the city. It gets right and dirty, our lead pair often wade within the muck, both literally and figuratively even as they tangle with the various race factions of the city, some who want them to stop investigating, other who have their own agenda. As with the cop buddy movies, there is a wonderful dynamic between the naive, eyes wide open, wanting to prove a point rookie and his cynical, been-there-done-there hard as nails partner. There is an easy flow to the book, there are hints around the city itself and the politicking with a good amount of history as well explained without significant exposition dump.
The book gets darker, and bodies do start dropping. The seamy underside of the city is deadly seamy. Rem is quite believable as a new character who happens to be a wonderful fighter as well. Torval as the dwarf added menace and unpredictability and happened to be an expert in making a situation worse. There are a lot of hints on Rem's background which will come into play through the series.
We have seen the Fifth ward in good detail. Now looking forward to exploring other wards.