Broken Blade & King of Thorns [book reviews]

Over the past few weeks, I read Broken Blade by Kelly McCullough, the start to a series of novels taking place in a fantasy universe and involving the same characters. As in many recent novels I read, the main character Aral Kingslayer is more an anti-hero, not very congenial and rather drawn towards booze and self-loathing. He is one of the last remaining Assassins of a religion which goddess got killed (with very little explanations on how and why this happened). Maybe this is a good enough explanation for his current psychological state, hence the “broken” in the title, but that does not make him more endearing! The story itself is more of a sleuthing one, Aral acting as the detective for hire and another character as the client seeking to recover her inheritance. (With the more unusual add-ons of ghouls and zombies and magics. And the more usual theme of corrupted police officers.) Nothing earth-shattering and still a pleasant ride (that made me miss my metro station once!). As an indicator of how I liked it, I already ordered the sequel Bared Blade. If only to see whether the novelty does wear out… Or not!

About a year ago, I mentioned reading Lawrences’s Prince of Thorns and being rather uneasy about the central anti-hero, a 14-year old at the head of a gang of murderers and worse. I nonetheless bought the second volume, King of Thorns, a few months ago. Once again, I am unhappy about the lack of moral and basic compassion of Jorg and found it difficult to trudge through the ethic morass that King of Thorns represents… In some sense, the character gets more depth and some minimal type of humanity, but most of his actions do not make sense and the added touch of Indiana Jones at some crucial point in the story is just annoying. And I am usually adverse at the mix of science-fiction and fantasy in vague post-apocalyptic universes.  Not recommended, despite the flow of highly positive reviews…