A review by gnashchick
Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues by Lian Hearn, Mark Lawrence, Michael J. Sullivan
5.0
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I love rogues.
This is a factor which needs to be considered before I discuss this book in any further length. I am a fan of scoundrels, ne’er do wells, thieves, assassins, courtesans, cat burglars, and con men. As long as they’re possessed of some degree of personal integrity and faced against people worse then themselves, I’m all for books about these sorts of antiheroes.
This book, published by Ragnarok Publications, is a anthology collecting over forty short-stories chronicling a wide variety of rogues and their adventures. Many of these characters have series of their own while others have completely independent adventures.
It was created with an extremely successful Kickstarter which raised almost $40,000 to release the book on multiple platforms as well as pay several well-known authors for their work. Amongst the authors who contributed to the work I’m fond of are Paul S. Kemp and Richard Lee Byers.
The book opens with an introduction written by Glen Cook of The Black Company fame. I’m not really too fond of this intro since it talks, at-length, about the author’s love of complete bastards. Given the vast majority of scoundrels in the book are of a “lovable rogue” style versus murderous brigand, his statement seems dissonant with the rest of the book. Thankfully, editor Joe Martin gives a much more balanced foreword immediately after. How bad is Glen Cook’s introduction? He cites Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream as a way that evil characters can be heroes against more monstrous foes.
Look that novel up on Wikipedia to find out why that’s…no, just no.
Noooooo.
Ahem.
The short stories usually follow a single hero or a solo one on an adventure where they prove to be cleverer than the people around them. My favorite stories in the book are probably, Professional Integrity by Michael J. Sullivan, Troll Trouble by Richard Lee Byers, What Gods Demand by James A. Moore, and The Betyar and the Magus by S.R. Cambridge.
These tales tend to combine intelligent thieves with moral codes who have a sense of humor about themselves too. Professional Integrity, for example, is a tale about two thieves hired to kidnap a nobleman’s daughter by the aforementioned daughter. What her reasons are as well as the twists involved are all extremely well fleshed-out and form an exciting mystery.
The majority of the other tales are quite enjoyable by themselves. We have bards soothing savage gargoyles, Arabic adventures with pit fighters, smugglers dealing with questions of religion, and even a psychometric detective in the book’s sole modern-day story. All of these stories were entertaining and well worth the price of purchase.
Indeed, out of the book’s tales, I only found two to be stinkers. The Secret by Mark Lawrence which isn’t so much a bad story as one I didn’t enjoy because of its contents and A Length of Cherrywood by Peter Orullian. That story I outright hated. Its protagonist is just a misogynist scumbag I hope drowns in a river somewhere. Any of the female protagonists of this book would probably love to take him down and its a shame they can’t.
Why do I like this book? Well, for one, it has a great sense of humor. It’s a collection of short-stories which show a wide variety of thieves, conmen, killers, and their ilk. None of them are the same and many are motivated by a wide-variety of ideals. A few are religious, others are atheist, with most not caring whatsoever. Some are cynics, some are idealists, and some are just plain mean. All of them are surprisingly well-rounded characters, though, even the ones I don’t like.
The book also has a great sense of humor with the vast majority of the characters being one kind of a deadpan snarker or another. It seems to be a requirement of the best rogues to have a silver tongue and these guys are amongst the best. Those who purchase the ebook version should also note they get an additional eleven short-stories to go with their purchase so I highly recommend it.
In conclusion, Blackguards is a story collection for those who like a little bit of darkness with their fantasy. It’s not grimdark, though, and only about half of the stories qualify as dark fantasy. Rather, it’s the best kind of fantasy that transports you to the sort of world which you might enjoy visiting for a little bit of danger in your life. It doesn’t take itself too seriously but it takes itself just seriously enough.
This review originally published at www.bookie-monster.com/
I love rogues.
This is a factor which needs to be considered before I discuss this book in any further length. I am a fan of scoundrels, ne’er do wells, thieves, assassins, courtesans, cat burglars, and con men. As long as they’re possessed of some degree of personal integrity and faced against people worse then themselves, I’m all for books about these sorts of antiheroes.
This book, published by Ragnarok Publications, is a anthology collecting over forty short-stories chronicling a wide variety of rogues and their adventures. Many of these characters have series of their own while others have completely independent adventures.
It was created with an extremely successful Kickstarter which raised almost $40,000 to release the book on multiple platforms as well as pay several well-known authors for their work. Amongst the authors who contributed to the work I’m fond of are Paul S. Kemp and Richard Lee Byers.
The book opens with an introduction written by Glen Cook of The Black Company fame. I’m not really too fond of this intro since it talks, at-length, about the author’s love of complete bastards. Given the vast majority of scoundrels in the book are of a “lovable rogue” style versus murderous brigand, his statement seems dissonant with the rest of the book. Thankfully, editor Joe Martin gives a much more balanced foreword immediately after. How bad is Glen Cook’s introduction? He cites Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream as a way that evil characters can be heroes against more monstrous foes.
Look that novel up on Wikipedia to find out why that’s…no, just no.
Noooooo.
Ahem.
The short stories usually follow a single hero or a solo one on an adventure where they prove to be cleverer than the people around them. My favorite stories in the book are probably, Professional Integrity by Michael J. Sullivan, Troll Trouble by Richard Lee Byers, What Gods Demand by James A. Moore, and The Betyar and the Magus by S.R. Cambridge.
These tales tend to combine intelligent thieves with moral codes who have a sense of humor about themselves too. Professional Integrity, for example, is a tale about two thieves hired to kidnap a nobleman’s daughter by the aforementioned daughter. What her reasons are as well as the twists involved are all extremely well fleshed-out and form an exciting mystery.
The majority of the other tales are quite enjoyable by themselves. We have bards soothing savage gargoyles, Arabic adventures with pit fighters, smugglers dealing with questions of religion, and even a psychometric detective in the book’s sole modern-day story. All of these stories were entertaining and well worth the price of purchase.
Indeed, out of the book’s tales, I only found two to be stinkers. The Secret by Mark Lawrence which isn’t so much a bad story as one I didn’t enjoy because of its contents and A Length of Cherrywood by Peter Orullian. That story I outright hated. Its protagonist is just a misogynist scumbag I hope drowns in a river somewhere. Any of the female protagonists of this book would probably love to take him down and its a shame they can’t.
Why do I like this book? Well, for one, it has a great sense of humor. It’s a collection of short-stories which show a wide variety of thieves, conmen, killers, and their ilk. None of them are the same and many are motivated by a wide-variety of ideals. A few are religious, others are atheist, with most not caring whatsoever. Some are cynics, some are idealists, and some are just plain mean. All of them are surprisingly well-rounded characters, though, even the ones I don’t like.
The book also has a great sense of humor with the vast majority of the characters being one kind of a deadpan snarker or another. It seems to be a requirement of the best rogues to have a silver tongue and these guys are amongst the best. Those who purchase the ebook version should also note they get an additional eleven short-stories to go with their purchase so I highly recommend it.
In conclusion, Blackguards is a story collection for those who like a little bit of darkness with their fantasy. It’s not grimdark, though, and only about half of the stories qualify as dark fantasy. Rather, it’s the best kind of fantasy that transports you to the sort of world which you might enjoy visiting for a little bit of danger in your life. It doesn’t take itself too seriously but it takes itself just seriously enough.
This review originally published at www.bookie-monster.com/