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E-Book Review: Blood Calls by Charles D. Shell

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Blood Calls

by Charles D. Shell

(Please note: I was given a free copy of this e-book in return for my honest review. This is it.)

 

Now that was a fun book.

I haven’t read a ton of independently published e-books; but of the ones I have read, this was without a doubt the best.

It’s the story of two outcasts, a man and a dragon, both the victims of deep-seated and vicious prejudice, who find friendship and solace with each other; until they are finally forced to leave the land of their birth. The man, Corbin, who is a nobleman of his home country of Denza despite being an unwanted bastard with a mother from a despised minority, is given a minor diplomatic post in neighboring Sunal, thanks to the influence of his influential uncle. Corbin and his only friend, the dragon Blood, travel to Sunal, where, if everything goes according to plan, Corbin should be able to sink into relative obscurity, pursuing his twin passions of drinking and womanizing, and perhaps occasionally dipping his toes into diplomacy.

But world events, and Corbin’s heart, have other plans. Corbin finds that the prejudice that he has suffered under for all of his life is nonexistent in Sunal, where the Skuranese, his mother’s people, are accepted. Corbin is able to find friendships (with other men, for once) and even to pursue a woman for more than a roll in the hay. This would be enough changes in Corbin’s life: but there’s more. War is coming to Sunal. War that could threaten everything that Corbin has found there, as well as his homeland, his life and the life of his dragon, and perhaps everyone on the continent. Unless Corbin and Blood can do something about it.

The world-building in this book is top notch. The relationships between the various nations and their people are interesting, and enough historical backstory is given to make it all seem quite realistic. The magic system is done well, with different spellcasters making use of summoned spirits and creatures, or simple control of the four elements, or Frankenstein/steampunk creations made of living creatures mixed with machines. There are some unusual elements in the magic system that were very intriguing – like sonomancy, the use of sound for magic and also as a weapon; Shell was also able to reflect that form of magic in the society that makes use of it, which was a thoughtful and effective choice. The military aspects of the war – which is told not only through Corbin’s experiences, but also from the point of view of an officer of the aggressor nation of Gurein, which is trying to conquer and consolidate an empire, no matter what the cost – are as good as any military fiction I’ve read. I did wish there was a map, a visual aid that I have always found both interesting and useful in books like this; hopefully the author, with his arts background, will be able to provide one in future books.

The book isn’t perfect. I thought the romance was a bit haphazard: Corbin has never been anything but a womanizer, and though it makes sense that he’s never had an opportunity to be anything more, he jumps from that habit to a pursuit of true love a little too easily; he also settles on the object of his affection without much more inspiration than Romeo and Juliet, and though I love the Shakespeare play, I don’t really believe in love at first sight, especially not when it is turned into a chivalrous courtship, as this one basically is (though not entirely, I hasten to add). The dialogue and banter between the characters is often amusing, but much too close to our own society, using slang and colloquialisms that don’t make a lot of sense in world that isn’t ours; hearing a man from Denza call his telepathic dragon a “smart-ass” sort of took me out of the fantasy. (Also, maybe it’s me, but I want fantasy books to have fantasy names; though most of the main characters do, there are side characters with names like Jerry or Terri, which again kind of burst the bubble.) I didn’t like the character of Dante Firetongue, who is a newspaperman straight out of modern comics – he even refers to a good story as a “scoop” – and who never really settles on a personality, leaving us guessing whether he’s a shallow, selfish bastard or a good guy with a high defensive wall around his heart. I also thought Blood, the dragon, who is a good guy with a high defensive wall around his heart, was just too much of a jerk sometimes, when I wanted him to be lovable even when he was being sharp-tongued.

However, none of these things are the heart of the book. The heart of the book is the characters learning how to live together, accept each other, and protect what is truly worth protecting. That, the book does extremely well. There is good action, good suspense, and good humor throughout; and I enjoyed the ending as much as I enjoyed the beginning, which is the sign of a good novel. I’d recommend this book for fantasy fans, and I plan to see what else Mr. Shell has to offer.

Nightglory

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Nightglory

by Mathew Babaoye

I liked this book. I just wish I could have liked it more.

There is a lot to like. The concept is good: it is about a supernatural Lady, the Queen of Night, and her struggle to consolidate her control over her world. She struggles with her subjects, with her responsibilities, with her power, and with herself; it’s a story with a lot of interest, a lot of conflict, a lot of places it could go. I like the writing style: short sentences, short paragraphs, breaks where there shouldn’t be breaks; it makes the reader consider the words more carefully, makes us notice what’s being said. There’s an element of the epic in the writing, in the way certain phrases – her blue-black hair and black dress; the old hard-bitten gold carpet in her throne room – are repeated, almost Homeric. And the name, of course, is brilliant: Goldenslaughter. I still don’t know: are the last two syllables “slaughter” – or “laughter?” I love that ambiguity, as much as I love both possibilities.

But the potential is not quite realized. The writing style is interesting, but the mechanical mastery is insufficient to allow the style to really flow; there are flaws in the writing, in the editing, that make the reader question what is intentional, what just a mistake, and that means the moments when you notice what the prose is doing, when you see it start to dance – you don’t know if it’s only stumbling. The epic phrases are too few, and too often repeated; they start to seem dull, rather than classical. The storyline gets lost in the mystery: the story begins with Goldenslaughter already having conquered her realm, gained the loyalty of her subjects, and then lost that loyalty through an attempt to gain total mastery of the Power that keeps her on the throne. Coming in to the middle of the plot can work, but there has to be a careful process of backbuilding, through flashbacks and the like, so that the audience can gain a complete understanding of how the story got to where it is; this book doesn’t do that. The best way I can put it is that the book makes the reader work too hard to understand what’s going on, rather than the writer doing all of the heavy lifting for the audience. Here: an example. There is a scene in the early going when Goldenslaughter confers with the Lady of Elements, who has had a prophetic dream; that dream gives hints of what will happen to Goldenslaughter. By the end of the book, that dream comes true, and after that happens, Goldenslaughter and the Lady mention that earlier discussion, and the warning that the Lady offered to her Queen, which the Queen did not heed. This is all fine: except the poetic language the two use in the first discussion is too abstract, and I for one had no idea what the Lady was talking about until the later scene when Goldenslaughter refers to it. So the foreshadowing of the prophecy was lost on me, as were all of the hints of what Goldenslaughter meant to do and why it would be challenging and dangerous.

The end of the book is the best part: the final climax is well-done, with a good battle scene and a really fine resolution to the central conflict, when Goldenslaughter makes her choice about who and what she is. I just couldn’t really follow most of the book leading up to that, even though I enjoyed reading it.