There is a clear divide between classic and modern
family, with classic fantasy being more focused on worldbuilding and epic
quests with maybe one or two important character relationships while modern fantasy
characterizes itself by the characters, often making more of an intimate
experience and a deeper character experience.
The 2011 first volume of The Riyria Revelations after a
successful period of time on the online self-publishing circuit before being
picked up by Orbit Books before the final book of the series could be published. Theft of Swords collects The Crown
Conspiracy and Avempartha which were originally published in 2008
and 2009, respectively, by Michael J. Sullivan.
Sullivan drafted the entire series before even publishing, not
originally having the intent to publish these, being written for his thirteen-year-old
daughter with dyslexia. It’s an omnibus
that across two books essentially tells a complete story about the assassination
and reinstation of a monarchy while two honorable thieves are framed for the
assassination and then forced to kidnap the rightful heir to the throne. The first book is essentially a murder
mystery while the second is your classic example of quest fantasy to destroy an
evil monster. It becomes an interesting delineation
with the two books being essentially separate stories that dovetail into one
another. Avempartha especially
has a great recap for new readers in explaining the events of the previous book
in the form of a play called The Crown Conspiracy, which was given good
reviews but was criticized for not having any elves or more fantasy races in
it.
The feature of Theft of Swords is really the
dynamic between Hadrian and Royce, our pair of honorable thieves. Hadrian is also an expert swordsman with some
secrets hinted on the status of his family and perhaps gets the more interesting
characterization as Royce ends up playing the straight man to the comedic
character of Hadrian. When escorting the
young prince Alric they get their best interactions as Alric is the standard
spoiled prince character which is excellent.
They both have the chance to give this prince a chance to grow up which
makes what could have been a very standard character into something great. Yes his isn’t in much of the second book, though
I suppose that there will be some development with Alric in the back four
books. When Sullivan mentioned that he
was intending to build up the world slowly over the course of six books which
is something you can see in the first two.
The end of Avempartha in particular hints that there are elves in
this world which may be coming out of the woodwork against the racist humans
which makes for an interesting little thread, especially as the monster is
something created to destroy humanity which had been imprisoned for one
thousand years. It makes the two books
feel incredibly different even if they still work as two halves of one cohesive
whole. The end point does have the issue
of being just that, a stopping point, and not necessarily a good ending.
Overall, Theft of Swords is perhaps best
described as a classic fantasy story with a modern writing style. The story itself is straight out of the works
of Tolkien, the writing style is completely modern with the brotherhood between
Hadrian and Royce together being worth the book’s price tag. This is a book which does suffer from being
two novels put into one as they lead into one another and the weaker
worldbuilding makes this less than one of the greats, but it isn’t one that should
be discounted and has the potential to be great. 7/10.
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