 |
The Bastard King | Rating | |
| B | |||
| Dan Chernenko | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The Scepter of Mercy | The Bastard King, The Chernagor Pirates, The Scepter's Return | ||
Lanius is the only son of King Margus of Avornis. Problem is, he's also a bastard son - sort of. Mergus' early death fills his life with a succession of "protectors" eager to wield the power of the crown in his name. Grus is a captain in the navy, a fine officer. Thanks to his successes in the field and a bit of fortunate timing, he has found himself holding a great deal of power. He and Lanius must together work to protect Avornis from its many enemies - which unfortunately includes a rather angry, greedy god.
This novel is true epic fantasy. It relies on its chracters to define the plot, not dictating a plot for the characters to experience. This means those characters are reasonably deep and rounded. Most of the important ones, and certainly Grus and Lanius, are flawed in some way. Neither of them is overly brainy, simply thinking things over and never actually doing much. Neither is a shallow swashbuckling hero who never has any deep insights. Both characters are intelligent but not geniuses, planners and doers both, yet the one is somewhat academic and the other tied to the military. They are different enough that most readers should have little trouble identifying themselves with one or the other.
The book covers at least fifteen years, perhaps even twenty, so a good deal takes place. We witness political manuevering inside and outside the castle, diplomacy, and quite a few battles. There's a great deal of talking about things, but saying the book, or even just those parts of it, are merely talking heads would be doing it an injustice. Things happen that sometimes involve a lot of talking, is all. Chernenko keeps things interesting, and that is the important thing.
The book does suffer from three flaws, however. The first of them shows up on the very first page. The first paragraph of the book reads:
Once upon a time, a long time ago, the Kingdom of Avornis had two kings at the same time. King Lanius was the son of a king, the grandson of a king, the great-grandson of a king, and so on for a dozen generations. King Grus was the son of Crex the Unbearable. Between them, they brought the Scepter of Mercy back to the city of Avornis in triumph, and did many other deeds of which the bards will sing for ages yet to come. One of them, pretty plainly, was a great king. The other, just as plainly, was not. The only trouble is, it's not always obvious which was which...
This rather ruins some of the suspense of an epic fantasy, I daresay. We know Grus will become king, somehow. We know they both will live long enough to do many great deeds. Worst of all, we know their ultimate quest is a success. Readers are left wondering not what will happen or whether they will make it, but the much lesser question of how their glory all comes about.
The second is somewhat subjective, and thus difficult to describe. It may not even be a real problem. Namely, there were times I thought the book was moving too fast - battles, for instance, are quick and generally a bit lacking in detail, and some conversations could and should have had more to them. Yet there were also times I thought it moved too slowly, such as portions of Lanius' upbringing and certain other conversations. I have yet to decide whether this means it was paces correctly after all, or just wrong differently in different places.
The question likely would never have arisen if it wasn't for the third problem. To wit, there is ultimately no plot, no end goal to the book. Given that opening paragraph, as well as other things said and thought in the course of the story (not to mention the title of the series), I was expecting them to go after the Scepter of Mercy at some point. They don't. They don't even plan to go and get it. About as close as they get is to wish they had it, and to consider an expedition. But without this overarching goal, the book is just Grus fighting wars and Lanius trying to hold onto what power he can.
As I said, it is interesting, a good start to a good series. It could have been a little more without that first paragraph, though. And while I cannot say for sure, I feel safe in saying it could have been significantly better if at some point between half and two-thirds of the way through the book the two kings had started definite plans to retrieve the Scepter. As it is, this book is essentially pure setup. Good setup, interesting setup... but just setup.
| By Title | By Author | By Rank |