Hopefully not the end.

While Kelly McCullough's Darkened Blade doesn't have a preview of the next book at the end, I can onl;y hope this isn't where the series ends. I've grown quite attached to his characters, and this one is quite a finale any way it goes.

We start not long after the end of Drawn Blades, with Siri, Faran, Aral, and Kelos in the city of Wall. We open on Aral dreaming/ visionquesting and meeting with Namara in a bar crowded with those he's killed over the years. While the goddess may be dead, a piece of her lies in Aral, and encourages him to continue the path he's been walking since the end of Book 1. Which means, at last, it's time to confront the strange Risen who currently heads the Church of Shan. Well, at least moreso than the occasion where Aral snuck in and cut the Son's face.

Anyway, a possible alliance with members of the church army fall apart as an army of Risen attacks the place where the meeting happens. The army of Risen actually act as a motivational device to get everyone to Jax's school and then on to the fallen Temple of Namara where they finally find a way to bind Namara's infused swords to their wielders, something that hasn't been done since Namara herself invested them with the Blades.

And then we journey into the Celestial city for the final confrontation, which pretty much takes up the last third of the book.

Along the way, we see Aral get appointed  First Blade by Siri, the students of Jax become full fledged Blades, and meet a few legends of the world in which this is set.

We also see Aral's final transformations into Campbell's Hero of 1000 Faces. Ultimately, by the end, Aral Kingslayer struggles with his desire to do justice without the deaths of millions in the Civil Wars to follow the death of the Son and his desire to become more than the tool of his mentor in Kelos' mad plan to upset the apple cart and create a new world without corrupt nobles and royalty.

It's really a fine book, although it feels a bit like the last chapters of a D&D campaign, with no real transition between plot points.

I do hope he writes more in this series, given the rather.... brief ending, but then I'm still hoping for another WbMage book which will probably never happen. 

Non-Smoking, please

I was a bit concerned when I picked up Kelly McCullough's sort of most recent Fallen Blade novel, Drawn Blades, mainly because it's book 5 in the series, and his other series, WebMage, ended after 5 novels.

Thankfully, as we find out after this one ends, there is indeed a 6th one that evidently got released this month.

None of which is helpful here, beyond letting readers know that Aral's adventures will continue.

Anyway.

We rejoin Aral in the city of Tien not long after the end of the last book;s tales of government restructuring. To that end, Aral is back again sitting at his favorite bar (although he's now sober) when a smokey ghost forms from the tavern fire, looking nothing so much like Siri, one of the other blades who's nickname was Mythkiller. Siri's avatar performs a pantomime ceremony of handfasting, leaving Aral with a rather interesting ring made of smoke on the 3rd finger of his left hand.

After an attack by a mythic beast and some assistance from Aral's librarian contact and his familiar, contact is made with Siri through smoke again, and the end result Faran and Aral are off to The Sylvani Empire. Which is an adventure in and of itself, since in quite possibly the most unique way of gaining travel speed, they wind up traveling by Dukoth as far south as the Wall. (Note here: The Dukoth are a race of First Ones who are more or less Elemental Earth. Aral's smoke ring gets their attention, and the need to speed Aral and Faran across the land.) Along the way, we learn more of the First Ones, races created by the gods prior to humans. Seems the First Ones rebelled again being slaves to the gods, and there was a war in Heaven. The gods won. As such, most of the First Ones live behind the Wall that separates the Empire from the human lands. Mind you, a few of the First Ones rose to a level near Godhood and were punished to be buried and never dying. One of the Buried Ones was dealt with by Siri before these novels began, thus her title of Mythkiller.

However, due to magical principles and a dead goddess, when we finally meet Siri in the flesh, we find out her smoky nature is due to her becoming part of the binding holding The Smoldering Flame in his burial. Namara, before she died, helped keep his influence over Siri in check, but after the Emperor of Heaven killed Namara, the binding weakened a bit, giving Siri and her Shade some smoke overlap.


Not longer after the touching reunion and consummation of wedding vows as part of the deeper magics, Kelos enters the picture, making for a Namara's disciples reunion from Hell. Kelos is working to find a key that will resurrect a god before the Son of Heaven finds it, and before one of the Buried Ones finds it and tries to use it.

There's much going on in this book, including filling in much of the metaphysics of the world. things like the true nature of the blades Namara gave her acolytes, the nature of the Son of Heaven and his end goals, and the rather fractured relationship between Kelos and Aral and Kelos and Siri.

I reserved the new one this evening, and I look forward to seeing where this goes next. McCullough may miss a few dangling plot threads (like the attack by the mythic beast that never really gets explained), but his world building is nothing less than spectacular.

The circle closes

So, after a few unexpected adventures in plumbing this week, I did managed to finish Kelly McCullogh's Blade Reforged, part of the continuing adventures of Aral Kingslayer.

Wow.


We start this book with Aral trying to spring an old friend from King Thauvik's (son of King Ashvik, who died to give Aral the title Kingslayer) torture prison. After finding the task nigh impossible, Aral instead helps set up Baroness Maylien (also his part time lover, and the one who got the plot rolling back in Book 1) to take the throne.

Complicating this is a Blade legend, the Kitsune, and the return of former Blade turned servant of the bad church, Devin. The Kitsune would be a Blade long thought dead, who entered dead Namara's service long before Aral was born, supposedly killed by teacher Kelos. Surprise! Nuriko is still alive and still accompanied by her many tailed fox shade familiar! And she's also sort of in league with Son of Shan, in a less restricted manner than Kelos, who was already sort of a free agent in service to the Son. Devin, on the other hand...

Well, Devin again ends up making a deal with Aral, who, despite their complete hatred of each other, is being more tormented by Nuriko than Aral could ever attempt to accomplish. Also, if Aral is able get rid of the Kitsune, the Son's torments of Devin are likely to be lesser than if her plot manages to go forward. (As we have been learning through the series in dribs and drabs, the Son is not a nice person. That his form of discipline involves God enforced oaths, tattoos and then flaying skin to remove said tattoos to preserve in an art gallery should not exactly be a surprise.)

Devin, unsurprisingly, doesn't want Thauvik dead, mainly because the King is more or less under the thumb of the Son. However, with Nuriko warping the Son's goals....

Oh yeah, and Maylien starts a revolution to take the throne after Thauvik kills off half the nobility to prevent Maylien's legal adoption (and therefore legitimate claim of succession) becoming public knowledge. Which leads to a few new characters, including Prixia, who becomes Maylien's general after her father gets killed and declared a traitor in the adoption fiasco. Captain Fei again provides fascinating background information about what's going on in the figurative shadows.

Oh yes, and Aral has finally achieved some measure of sobriety, which cuts down the passages devoted to self-incrimination over drinking quite a bit. (I'm not knocking addiction recovery at all here. Aral's sobriety is long coming, and it's good to see him accomplishing it one day at a time.)

The events following the climax provide quite a preview of things to come, as well as providing a literal interpretation of both the first book's title and the current book's title.

I'll be very interested in seeing how the series progresses from here.

That was a sharp retort

I've talked before about how much I'm enjoying Kelly McCullough's Fallen Blade series, and having just finished book 3, Crossed Blades, I'm happy to report it's just gaining steam.

As a quick recap, in the last book, one of the apprentices from the Temple of Namara (that Aral, our narrator worked out of before Shen and his devotees declared the goddess dead and destroyed the temple) was found and apprenticed herself to Aral. Faran has been a quick study in using the shadow arts, having worked as a spy and assassin prior to reconnecting with Aral.

We start this chapter with the reappearance of Jax, Aral's one time fiancee, who wound up in bed with Aral's best friend and later traitor to the order, Devin. Jax managed to escape from the Son of Heaven's torture chambers along with a few other Blades, starting a sanctuary and school in the high mountains of her home country. However, rumor of Aral's reappearance in the eleven Kingdoms coupled with the capture of her current lover and the apprentices at her school leads her to the city of Tien to find her lost lover in hopes of freeing them.

What we find out early on is that Jax is being blackmailed by a high ranking priestess in the Temple in order to capture Aral. We also find out that Aral's mentor, Kelos, is now in league with the Temple, acting as the Sun's shadow. Not that Kelos doesn't have his own agenda, but....

Again, much of the book focuses on Aral's climb out of the depths of his depression and recovering from his alcoholism. We also delve quite a bit into Aral's psyche as he deals with his doubts over his previous vocation and whether or not he was doing right by bringing justice in Namara's service. Ultimately, give the preview of the next book tucked into the end of this one, I rather doubt that question is easily answered, as Aral's mindset evolves on the matter.

Another high point is the interactions between Jax and Faran, who hate each other at first sight, and have to work around their differences in order to achieve their goal.

Kelos is by far the most interesting addition to this book, as his motivations remain clear as mud until the very end. One hopes he reappears down the line, as he provides a very interesting perspective on the cause of justice.


Really, while the entire premise sounds like the stuff of an RPG, the verve and flair of the author and his characters makes it worth the investment of time to read.

Haven't been here in a while...

Here recently, I went through this blog and goodreads and found out new books had come out in series that I completely missed. Kelly McCullough's Bared Blade happens to be the first one to come in at the library.

I started the series waaaaay back here, so here's a quick refresher on setting. Aral lives in the city of Tien, doing work in the underworld. He started life as a Blade, a servant of the goddess of justice, Namara. Namara got killed by the new gods and her temple razed; he servants were mostly destroyed, although a few remain, working clandestinely for the new King. (Aral killed the old one.) Aral has a shadow familiar, Triss, who provides much of the comic relief.

Aral ended the last book crawling his way out of the bottle and getting a new lease on life, which is why it's kind of amusing that he's in a bar at the start of this one. (His struggles with drinking provide an undercurrent of conflict throughout.) However, like any good noir (even fantasy noir), trouble walks in wearing the form of two beautiful women, one of whom resembles Aral's old flame.

The fact that both women share a mind with a meld has kind of an effect on their relationship with Aral. (They're the visible parts of a Dyad, two bonded mages who also share a third mind, in this case named Valor of Steel.) The Dyad also happen to be targets of the local Elite Kingsguard, who break in and tear up the bar where Vos is talking with Aral. Upon escaping, Aral runs afoul of Qethar, a Durkoth seeking the Kothmerk. (That's a lot of gobbledegook. Durkoth and an Other race, beings purely of the Earth. As such, he's kind of a moving Greek statue. that can make the Earth move under his feet. And more.) Qethar and Aral enter an uneasy truce to find the Ruby ring that confers rulership of the Durkoth that was last seen in the slaughtered parter the Dyad was part of.

There's a lot of crossing and double crossing, plus more revelations from Fei, the shadowside Police officer who knows exactly who Aral is. And ongoing revelations from Aral as he tries to figure out what justice actually is without a goddess providing it.

Once again, McCullough writes an excellent yarn, and I'm kind of curious as to what the next book in the series (that cam out last December) has in store, given some of the plot development in this one. As I said last time, everything of his that I've read has been worth the time investment.

What happens when the journey ends?

I'm almost done with Kelly McCullough's Broken Blade, Book 1 in his new Fallen Blade series.

The premise is fairly straightforward, narrated by one Aral Kingslayer, who has long since stopped using his moniker, preferring instead to work as a "shadowjack". His Holy Order fell several years back, and his goddess was killed by "the new gods"; the Son of Heaven now runs the government. Thankfully, Aral still has Triss, his shadow familiar. Triss, who exists as Aral's shadow, mostly hides as Aral's shadow, occasionally taking his "normal" shape of draconic shape.

Into his life of drunken forgetfulness walks Maylien, a girl dressed as a servant who wants Aral to do courier work for her. The price is more than generous, but the hob doesn't turn out quite as Aral imagined. Mainly because the Baroness Marchon, upon who's balcony he is to deliver the message, is having a clandestine meeting with Devin, another of the "Blades" whom Aral worked with in his Holy Order. Devin, it seems, has sold out his temple after the fall, becoming an assassin for hire. (The order killed people who were in need of their next turn on the wheel of karma, not murder for hire.)

Somehow, this set up begins awakening the old Aral, particularly after finding out that Maylien is the Baroness's elder sister and should have the barony, being tortured by people who know something about controlling shadow familiars, etc. It's less the hero's journey, and more an exploration of what happens after the hero returns home and find the world isn't what he left in the first place.

I've discussed McCullough's past series before (his WebMage pentad, concerning an alternate Earth wherein the universe runs on a computer based on Greek mythology. It's quite imaginitive and I loved all five books), and there are a few series I can point you towards that discuss what happens when Campbell ends and the hero continues to exist.

There is, of course, Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis's Dragonlance Legends trilogy, which while mostly being about time travel in a fantasy world, also shows this trope of what happens when a hero (Caramon) returns from heroing and can't get his life back together. By the end of Legends, Caramon has finally fixed his life and his relationship with his brother Raistlin. Well, sort of. For those of you who have never read the Dragonlance Chronicles or Legends, let's just say that Caramon and Raistlin don't have issues as much as they have volumes. Even if they are derivative of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (which isn't surprising, since he more or less set the groundwork for most modern fantasy. Not to mention, Frodo also finds he can't really go home again.), they remain good reads in their own right.

There is also Richard K. Morgan's A Land Fit for Heroes, which starts with The Steel Remains. I'm not sure how to describe this series. I started reading it because Ringil, one of the three major protagonists, is gay. The alien half-human is also bi, and hooked on a marijuana type drug. The third, a horseman from the outlands, has issues with his tribe forcing him out. The series is interesting, but very graphic, and every character tends to swear like a sailor on a golf course. There's also the rather graphic description of Ringil's boyfriend's public execution for being gay. However. there's an awful lot of densely packed plot involving another alien race making their return to Ringil's world and potentially enslaving the humans. Mind you, this provides motivation for the three war heroes (all three served in a previous war before the series starts fighting along side the rest of humanity against dragons and lizard armies. After the lizards were defeated, humanity returned to their warring states and leagues.) to get back together eventually, but in the mean time, we get a look at three lives of old war heroes more or less put out to pasture by the people they saved.

While the hero after the journey isn't quite a full cliche yet, the possibilities remain interesting, particularly juxtaposed again more modern and real issues of people returning from war and trying to reenter society. For most, they can do it; for others, it's it quite difficult. But no one returns unchanged, and I think that's why stories in this vein remain facinating.