A review by secre
Ragged Heroes by Oz Monroe, Jonathan Yanez, Sara C. Roethle, David Estes, Jason Paul Rice, J.T. Williams, Susan Faw, Joshua Robertson, Brandon Barr, Johnathan Yanez, Andy Peloquin, Phil Tucker, L.F. Oake, Megan Haskell, Laura Greenwood, Daniel Parsons, Stevie Collier, Logan Keys
4.0
In typical fashion, I had started writing a blow by blow review of this as I went along and trusted in my phone to keep it safe. Foolish me. So, I'll have to make do instead. I'm always rather wary of anthologies because I can find them so hit and miss - even when it's all the same author. When it's a collection of multiple authors, many of whom I have never heard of, I am even more so. But I'm never one to turn down a freebie and this certainly looked interesting enough; the standard definition of hero often being rather boring after all.
We start with Reaper of the flame which is an undeniably dark and grim tale, settling us into the knowledge that these heroes may not be what we expect. The blood of innocents may be required to pay for the sins of a ruling class and our heroes may be the one with blood on their hands. From this, Blood and Stone is far gentler and more introspective, written with a contemplative hand that understands the frailty that lies beneath the surface of all men. I fell in love with Phil Tucker's work here, the writing is beautiful and in so very few pages he paints a picture of both violence and humanity and how one bent backed old man can perhaps make a difference. Daniel Parsons however takes us in a completely different direction with Another Chosen One, offering us some much needed laughs with his almost parodical use of fantasy tropes and cliches. Whilst it is clear that he is poking fun and it is a highly entertaining read, there is still a depth here that is surprising and I found the highlighting of how many authors only use human life in their works quite telling.
The Skincutter's Daughter moves us back into the realms of far darker fiction, with little or no humour interlaced to lighten it. Despite the focus on mental health and faith, I found this fairly poor and difficult to get into, perhaps due to the lack of cohesive world building. The same could be said of The Thorn Witch and A Tale of Two Thieves, and whilst the events described keep you engaged, the lack of real characterisation and world building mean that even shocking events don't have the impact they should have. The latter in particular I found to be simplistic in comparison to some of the other offerings here. Whips, Toothpicks and Doorstoppers certainly returned my engagement however, even if some of the characters were perhaps overly caricaturised; the dark edges are back and it felt like we had moved out of young adult territory once more, but the level of humour here certainly got a few smiles out of me. But it was with Heart of a Shadow Child that I once more found myself hooked; Brandon Carr has a real gift here for showing the flip sides of the coin between brutality and innocence. It has really sharp edges and yet his writing is beautiful, bringing you right into the mind of a child who has been forced to grow up beyond normal capabilities in a world of never ending darkness... and yet can still find a spark of hope.
We return to a land of high fantasy in Broken Honour and whilst it is short, it is unique enough with intelligent wolves and a mix of betrayal and trust running throughout as we are brought into a frozen wasteland. Talking of wolves, The Wold's Law strangely has none of them and was another weaker entry in the collection with high action impacts but very little depth behind it as the tools of angels and demons battle. I wasn't impressed with Falling Ashes either, finding it simplistic and rather representative of characters repeatedly making bloody stupid decisions when they really should know better. For this reason I found it lacking and the main character irritating rather than anything else. Curse the Dead was thankfully far more intelligently written and manages to mix that introspective writing style with a fairly quickly paced narrative; I particularly enjoyed the characterisation of the witch and the twist on her magic that makes everything that little bit more unpredictable, but there is really interesting world building here as well. My only complaint was that the ending was relatively weak. We return to the more typical fantasy tropes with Warmarked as we follow a fighter and tourney champion into battle; fast paced with lots of action, this would be more my brothers style than mine. There's certainly potential in the characters, but the author takes the easy way out by simply skipping over several years rather than actually depicting them.
Necromancy comes back into play in Death Bane, in a world where the dead outnumber the living and the situation gets grimmer by the day. Again, the characters could have been far more than they actually are here and I found myself feeling that something was missing. But Jason Paul Rice sets out what looks to be a potentially thrilling epic fantasy in Redemption Day with his character back-story of a man fallen into darkness only to be given a chance at redemption through the lives of three children.
But the true gem in this comes from the namesake of the collection, Ragged Heroes. I had hoped for, and expected, great things and Andy Peloquin does not disappoint. If there was ever a reason to buy the first novel his new series, The Silent Champions, this is it. It is a superb exploration of a ragtag group of soldiers, the dregs of an army and how they can surpass all expectations - including their own. I absolutely fell in love with the characters, two new recruits with problems all of their own and a motley crew of supporting soldiers and officers. This is the longest entry here and it is definitely worth it.
We start with Reaper of the flame which is an undeniably dark and grim tale, settling us into the knowledge that these heroes may not be what we expect. The blood of innocents may be required to pay for the sins of a ruling class and our heroes may be the one with blood on their hands. From this, Blood and Stone is far gentler and more introspective, written with a contemplative hand that understands the frailty that lies beneath the surface of all men. I fell in love with Phil Tucker's work here, the writing is beautiful and in so very few pages he paints a picture of both violence and humanity and how one bent backed old man can perhaps make a difference. Daniel Parsons however takes us in a completely different direction with Another Chosen One, offering us some much needed laughs with his almost parodical use of fantasy tropes and cliches. Whilst it is clear that he is poking fun and it is a highly entertaining read, there is still a depth here that is surprising and I found the highlighting of how many authors only use human life in their works quite telling.
The Skincutter's Daughter moves us back into the realms of far darker fiction, with little or no humour interlaced to lighten it. Despite the focus on mental health and faith, I found this fairly poor and difficult to get into, perhaps due to the lack of cohesive world building. The same could be said of The Thorn Witch and A Tale of Two Thieves, and whilst the events described keep you engaged, the lack of real characterisation and world building mean that even shocking events don't have the impact they should have. The latter in particular I found to be simplistic in comparison to some of the other offerings here. Whips, Toothpicks and Doorstoppers certainly returned my engagement however, even if some of the characters were perhaps overly caricaturised; the dark edges are back and it felt like we had moved out of young adult territory once more, but the level of humour here certainly got a few smiles out of me. But it was with Heart of a Shadow Child that I once more found myself hooked; Brandon Carr has a real gift here for showing the flip sides of the coin between brutality and innocence. It has really sharp edges and yet his writing is beautiful, bringing you right into the mind of a child who has been forced to grow up beyond normal capabilities in a world of never ending darkness... and yet can still find a spark of hope.
We return to a land of high fantasy in Broken Honour and whilst it is short, it is unique enough with intelligent wolves and a mix of betrayal and trust running throughout as we are brought into a frozen wasteland. Talking of wolves, The Wold's Law strangely has none of them and was another weaker entry in the collection with high action impacts but very little depth behind it as the tools of angels and demons battle. I wasn't impressed with Falling Ashes either, finding it simplistic and rather representative of characters repeatedly making bloody stupid decisions when they really should know better. For this reason I found it lacking and the main character irritating rather than anything else. Curse the Dead was thankfully far more intelligently written and manages to mix that introspective writing style with a fairly quickly paced narrative; I particularly enjoyed the characterisation of the witch and the twist on her magic that makes everything that little bit more unpredictable, but there is really interesting world building here as well. My only complaint was that the ending was relatively weak. We return to the more typical fantasy tropes with Warmarked as we follow a fighter and tourney champion into battle; fast paced with lots of action, this would be more my brothers style than mine. There's certainly potential in the characters, but the author takes the easy way out by simply skipping over several years rather than actually depicting them.
Necromancy comes back into play in Death Bane, in a world where the dead outnumber the living and the situation gets grimmer by the day. Again, the characters could have been far more than they actually are here and I found myself feeling that something was missing. But Jason Paul Rice sets out what looks to be a potentially thrilling epic fantasy in Redemption Day with his character back-story of a man fallen into darkness only to be given a chance at redemption through the lives of three children.
But the true gem in this comes from the namesake of the collection, Ragged Heroes. I had hoped for, and expected, great things and Andy Peloquin does not disappoint. If there was ever a reason to buy the first novel his new series, The Silent Champions, this is it. It is a superb exploration of a ragtag group of soldiers, the dregs of an army and how they can surpass all expectations - including their own. I absolutely fell in love with the characters, two new recruits with problems all of their own and a motley crew of supporting soldiers and officers. This is the longest entry here and it is definitely worth it.