The Heretic Kings

The Heretic Kings
in the Hawkwood and the Kings
Paul Kearney
Solaris, 702 p., $9.99

This volume takes up pretty much where Hawkwood's Voyage left off.  Things go from bad to worse.  Hawkwood and what members of his crew have survived the voyage across the Great Western Ocean have found that there is indeed a continent out there, and it's inhabited.  And the inhabitants aren't friendly.

The Council of Kings splits, with three of the kings declaring support for the true Pontiff.  Declared heretics by the Church, they face assassination and civil war.  Abelelyn must make his way home through hostile seas, while the Church and grasping nobles try to seize the kingdom. 

Corfe has managed to get the true Pontiff safely to Torrunn.  Despised and viewed with scorn by the military fops who inhabit the capital, he catches the attention of the Queen Dowager, who sets him up with his own commmand.  Her son, King Lofantyr, resents her interference in what he sees as his decisions and sends Corfe out on a suicide mission with a group of barbarian galley slaves.

In the holy city of Charibon, two monks make a discovery that will literally tear their world apart.  If they can live long enough to reveal it.

And then there are those pesky werewolves...

This being the second volume of a pentology, things tend to drag a bit in places as Kearney sets up some broader story arcs.  Or that could be my perceptions.  I read most of the first volume, Hawkwood's Voyage, while traveling.  This book I started the same week classes started.  This didn't leave me much time for reading on top of the other things I had to deal with, like helping my wife with her job search.  Plus I got distracted by what will probably be the topic of the next post.  So it took me nearly two weeks to finish the bloody thing, something that isn't typical for me.  So some the dragging was due to the stop and go nature of my reading it.

The characterization is as strong in this book as it was in the first, although most of the new characters introduced aren't as fully fleshed out.  Part of this is because we've grown to know the continuing characters  so well, the new ones don't have the same depth.  There are exceptions, of course.  The Queen Dowager, for all that she isn't on stage very much, is especially complex, showing both ruthless and tender sides.

The structure is a little different as well.  It's divided into three parts, with the first and third parts taking place in the Ramussian kingdoms, and the middle part concerning itself solely with what is happening to Hawkwood at the same time.  I rather preferred the format of the first book, where the settings rotated between chapters, with the ones focusing on Hawkwood intermixed with the others.  But that's just my personal preference.

I also am a little puzzled with where Kearney is going to go with the next three books.  Some major plotlines are introduced and then resolved by the end of the book.  It would seem more logical to me to continue them out through at least one or two more volumes.  But there are enough new plot threads here that I'm sure there are plenty of surprises ahead in the three books to come.  Fortunately they're sitting on the shelf in the other room.  I'm going to focus on some short fiction, and since I'm hopefully going to be attending ConDFW in a few weeks, reading Jack McDevitt's latest novel since he's one of the guests.  I intend to get back to the series within a month at the latest.  I still think this is some of the best fantasy I've read in quite a while.

Happy Belated Birthday C. L. Moore

The last couple of days have been hectic, so I'm a little late in posting this, but yesterday marked the centennial of the birth of one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy authors of all time, Catherine L. Moore.

Although her writing was primarily collaborative after she eventually married fellow author Henry Kuttner, with whose works readers of this blog should be familiar, Ms. Moore was a major author in her own right.  In fact many critics and historians of the field consider her to have been the better writer of the pair.  Indeed, her work is more poetic and shows more emotional depth than Kuttner's solo work. 

After Kuttner's death, Moore wrote no more fantastic fiction.  I'm not sure why, although I've heard it was because her second husband didn't approve of science fiction and fantasy.  Whether this is true or not, I can't say.  I have difficulty believing the woman who gave us Jirel would ever go along with that kind of restriction.  Whatever the reason, as much as her "retirement" was a loss to the field, her influence is still being felt.

Her first published story, "Shambleau", introduced Northwest Smith, a (superior) forerunner to Han Solo in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales.  This was the first of a number of tales featuring the space adventurer, although to call them science fiction is a bit of a stretch at times due to the fantasy elements they often contain.

Moore's next series character was Jirel of Joiry, the first warrior woman of sword and sorcery.  Jirel could give the men a run for their money in the fighting department, and usually did.  Both the Northwest Smith and the Jirel stories are in print, as are collections of her solo fiction and her collaborative work with Kuttner.  Given the versatility of her work, you should probably check out more than one volume just to get a good feel for Moore's talent and range as a writer.

I plan to look more in depth at the Jirel and Northwest Smith stories here, but those posts are some time in the future.  Until then, check out these tributes by Ryan Harvey and C. S. E. Cooney.  Better yet, read some of C. L. Moore's work as well. 

First eSsassins Cover Posted

The first eSsassins cover is up over at the Rogue Blades website.  Check it out.  Very cool.  I can't wait for the series to start being released.

Happy Birthday, Bob

Today marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of  Robert E. Howard, father of sword and sorcery.  Howard is most famous, of course, for creating the character of Conan, most often called the Barbarian.  If you only know Conan through movies, comics, and pastiches, well, pardner, you don't know Conan.  And if Conan is the only way you know Robert E. Howard, well, you don't know Howard very well, either. 

There are a number of tributes on the web today, and if you're in the vicinity of Cross Plains (I wish), there's a party.  If you happen to be among the Howard impaired, and only know him by reputation or through Conan, let me recommend you check out the posts by Howard Andrew Jones and Barbara Barrett over on the Black Gate website.  Jones's is a more general tribute discussing the breadth of Howard's fiction, while Barbara examines the poetry.  Both are good gateway drugs introductions to Howard's work.  It's an addiction worth having.

New Rogue Blades Entertainment E-Anthologies Announced

After the week I've had, I was looking for something short and sweet to blog about tonight, wanting to wait until I was rested a little before tackling a longer post.  Fortunately, Rogue Blades Entertainment has come to my rescue.  (Thanks, Jason.)

To promote the forthcoming Clash of Steel anthology Assassins, Rogue Blades is publishing four e-anthologies consisting of four stories each.  These stories are different than those included in the print anthology, the cover of which is shown on the right.  Each e-anthology will sell for $3 and will contain between 15,000 and 18,000 words of sword and sorcery fiction.  Since the going price for a single short story in electronic format is 99 cents, that makes these collections a steal.  Or would that be steel?  Anyway, there will be one released a month for four months, starting in February.

You can get all the details here.

Employment Issues Resolved

Well my wife has found new employment.  It looks like I will have time to do more blogging rather than helping her with her job search and looking for more ways to increase my income to make up for the shortfall.  I intend to try to post at least two new posts per week.  The next one will be within the next 48 if everything goes according to plan.

The Monarcharies of God: Hawkwood's Voyage

Hawkwood's Voyage
in the Hawkwood and the Kings
Paul Kearney
Solaris, 702 p., $9.99

Over the last few days, I've been at a conference.  You can always tell when you're at a conference of physicists.  There's just something about them.  The long hair.  The no hair.  The facial hair.  The leg hair (on the women).  We just sort of know how to recognize each other.  While it wasn't the best conference I've attended, it was far from the worst.  And the best part of it, at least in the short term, was the plane ride. 

No, not 'cause I got frisked by a good looking TSA agent.  Security was a breeze, surprisingly enough.  The best part was I read Hawkwood's Voyage and made a dent in The Heretic Kings, the second book in The Monarchies of God pentology by Paul Kearney.  I must admit I'd never heard of the man until recently, when I came across a copy of one of his other books. 

Side note.  I managed to find a couple more of his books while I was at the conference in a nearby used book store.  If they're as good as this one, I'll be reading everything he wrote.

Hawkwood and the Kings collects the first two novels in the series.  There are a number of plot threads, and I'll try to summarize the main ones here.  There was once a large empire which stretched over most of the continent, a continent that bears some resemblance to Europe on the map provided.  Then the empire fell apart as the different provinces rebelled.  The heart of the old empire is still an independent country (so to speak), but at the time of the book's opening, it doesn't really interact much with the rest of the continent.

The church is dominated by the Inceptine order, an order that bears a strong resemblance in many ways to the Jesuits.  There are other orders, but they're kept in their place by the Inceptines.  One particular Inceptine, the Prelate of the kingdom of Hebrion, has started purges of any foreigner or Dweomer in the kingdom.  The Dweomer are those who have some innate magical ability.  Captain Richard Hawkwood, himself a foreigner, has agreed to take two ships loaded with Dweomer across the great Western Ocean in search of a mythical continent in which to found a colony.  The king of Hebrion, Abeleyn, is trying to curb the growing control of the Church of the Saint in his kingdom.  In the east, the Holy City of Aekir, home to the Pontiff of the Church, has fallen to the Merduks, invaders from the east who bear more than a pasing resemblance to Mongols.  The sole surviving soldier of the siege of Aekir, Ensign Corfe mourns the loss of his wife and everything else he loved at the hands of the Merduks.  The Pontiff is missing and presumed dead.  And the Prelate of Hebrion seeks the position of Pontiff for himself...

There's a lot more than that or course.  I realized as I was reading why the suspense was so strong at times.  It was because the characters seemed like real people to me, and as a result I cared what happened to them.  There's plenty of action and intrigue here to satisfy any fan of epic or heroic fantasy.  Kearney doesn't shy away from the gritty details of combat or court life.  The battle scenes throb with passion, bloodlust, and fear.  I've not read much nautical fiction, something I intend to rectify, but the chapters that take place on Hawkwood's vessel brought life on board a ship alive for me.  And showed how terrifying it can be to be at sea when something on board begins to hunt and there's no place to go.

Hawkwood's Voyage was first published in 1995, and if it had an edition here in the states, I missed it.  I won't miss any of Kearney's other fiction.  This one held my attention all the way through.  Usually when I finish a book, even one I've enjoyed immensely, I'm ready to move on and read something else, and by that I mean something different.  In this case I went straight into The Heretic Kings.  If you haven't read Kearney, give him a try.  You'll be glad you did.