An update and a review
The Great Marketing Adventure and The Barrow
The Great Marketing Adventure rumbles on, driven by the ambition of the author and limited only by my minuscule budget. The latest trick is using Faebook to send out excerpts of The Spear of Heaven, kind of like flinging out handfuls of seeds into the wind in the hope and expectation that some (if not all) of them will lands on fertile patches of earth and sprout, which is a metaphor for turning into sales. Will it work? God only knows…
Anyway, anyone who wishes to download an Advanced Review Copy of my novel, click below:
A review in return for a free book. A square deal by any measure.
Review of The Barrow and Black Heart
A few years ago, I came across a new novel on Amazon called THE BARROW, by Mark Smylie. As a longtime reader of fantasy fiction, I've become a bit jaded about what is out there, much of which nowadays seems like rehashes of Dungeons and Dragons sessions, or romance novels with fantasy elements bolted on (not that there’s anything wrong with either...when done well they are very entertaining. When done well…)
The Barrow was different. It was dark, it was violent, it was infuriating and thought provoking and best of all, it was entertaining. I read it in two days and eagerly waited for the promised sequel. And waited, and waited...until it seemed that the book would be just another abandoned series, destined to fade away. Then, one day without ay fanfare, the sequel came out, divided into three books and self-published, for reasons that were not entirely clear. Even so, the story continued, and for that my eyeballs were glad.
A bit of background…Mark Smylie began his career as a comic artist and illustrator, and in 1999 out out a comic book series called Artesia, set in the same world as the novels, focused on the adventures, trials and tribulations of title character Artesia, a warrior-queen, witch and former concubine. TV Tropes has a breakdown of sorts about the plot line, done in its usual amusing style.
The novels act as a prequel to the main comic book series, focusing on Artesia’s brother Stjepan, also known as Black Heart, who is an adventurer and spy in the service of the High King of the Middle Kingdoms, a man who very much has his own agenda, and does not shy away from crossing any number of lines or betraying even the oldest of friends to get where he needs to be. He is called Black Heart for a reason.
Without giving away too many details, the first book (the Barrow) details an expedition to find the lost tomb of an ancient wizard king. The second book (split into three separate volumes) goes into aftermath of this expedition, which includes among other things a war with more than few parallels to events that have taken place in the real world over the last two decades.
So, starting with the bad points of the novels – as stated above, these are essentially prequels to the comic book series, and are clearly written with fans of Artesia in mind. The reader is dropped into the setting with little in the wait of explanation, which can make it confused if you are unfamiliar with Smylie’s work (as I am – full disclosure, I've never read the comics) and seem to be written with the assumption the readers already know the world and how it works. Also, the story is GRAPHIC, both in terms of violence and sex. For example, the end of the last book depicts a large and very explicit group sex scene that crosses the line from gratuitous to out and out WTF. Personally I thought it was unnecessary and took away from the story. But again, those are just my tastes, your mileage may vary.
As for the good points – first, Smylie is a very good writer. The prose just crackles off the page (or kindle screen.) And the setting, while it takes a while to figure out, is one of the more well-realized and, for lack of a better term, realistic epic worlds out there. It is set in the usual medieval Europe-like background, but unlike most others, the author takes the time to show why everything works the way it does, what the divisions (social, religious, ethnic) are and how they interact, and so on. The setting just feels natural, in a way many fantasy settings aren’t. If it is grimdark (and hoo boy, it is grimdark) Smylie take the time to show why it is grimdark, something that a lot of lesser writers following in the wake of GRRM don’t bother to do.
And the characters reflect this. Stjepan Black Heart is a truly fascinating lead, whose motives remain murky right up to the very end. Is he a good guy, is he a villain, or is he someone to whom those distinctions simply do not apply?
So, in conclusion, a very good read. 8/10, as I see it.