Theft of Swords

I have always loved movies which have two heroes who are best friends, know each other well and have different strengths and personalities. The chemistry, camaraderie and the interaction makes everything better and more fun.

Strangely enough though, I can’t remember a good book which has two male protagonists except the Malazan Series.
This book has the aforementioned characteristics in spades.

Michael.J.Sullivan has given us two fantastic and memorable characters in Royce and Hadrian. They’re capable, confident , have cracking chemistry together and their biggest strength is their faith in each other.

I also need the books I read to have a good, even pace. This book was fast, detailed, had excellent peripheral characters and had a very good plot.  It had enough twists and turns to keep me hooked, all the while being faithful to the genre. It also has the archetypal omniscient and mysterious wizard with ulterior (or maybe benevolent *wink*) motives who comes and goes whenever he desires.

There’s also no gratuitous violence (sexual, torture, bdsm or otherwise) (something apparently deemed necessary in fantasy by lesser and sadistic pseudo writers ).
This always makes me appreciate a writer more.

The chapter about Esrahaddon’s prison and his introduction was one of the best I’ve recently read in a fantasy book. It reminded me why I enjoy the sword and sorcery genre so much.

There are few things I’d prefer to be different though.

I would have preferred the point of view to be focused entirely on the protagonists as I thought that the villains were not relatable and totally lacked the charm and charisma. They felt cliched : stiff, fat or old and corrupted with either blind faith and/or politics. I did not want to read about their skewed views and plans and thought it was all tripe, it was all I could do to wait for the narration to turn back to the protagonists.

The character of ‘Bernice’ was especially grating. She eerily reminded me of ‘Dolores Umbridge’ in harry potter and the Order of the Phoenix (a very diluted version though, I’ll give you that). I groaned every time she was mentioned and wanted her to punch her in the throat. One can easily imagine Imelda Staunton (she played Umbridge in the Harry Potter movie) playing the role if this book is made into a movie.

I also did not like that the world created here was totally patriarchal.
This is a problem with most books with a medieval/fantasy settings, the only exception being the dark elf series by R.A.Salvatore.
This is just the first book though and a couple of female characters are showing promise. I’ll reserve my judgement until after I finish reading the entire series.

That said, this has been a very satisfying read.
Can’t wait to get on with the next book.