Kell's Legendby: Andy Remic
Pub: Angry Robot
Cover Illus: Adrian Smith
Genre: Epic Fantasy
First in a series
Kell is a legendary hero according to the stories, of course stories don't tell you everything and having tried to put that life behind him Kell married and raised a family. When we meet him the only person in the world who still seems to be speaking to him is his granddaughter Nienna.
When the albino army marches on their home all Kell cares about is getting himself and Nienna out alive, so they run, with a couple of companions and try to stay far enough ahead of the army to warn their king. So the bulk of the book from Kell's point of view is spent running and fighting. That's a huge simplification. On the other side of things we are following Anu, a vachine through her trials and her own journey of discovery. Through Anu's experiences we learn more about who the invaders are and their purpose.
First off then, this is not for everybody, it's violent, a bit gross at times and the female characters get an extremely rough time of it with their character development also turning up a bit late. Now that's out of the way, I loved it!
The vachine are an absolutely incredible concept, fascinating and slightly appalling and something I would never have expected. I loved the way they worked and found their society fascinating although clearly unpleasant.
Kell himself is an absolute bastard in many ways, his humanity largely tied to his grandaughter but he is trying to do the right thing and be a decent man. The strange relationship between him and his axe is wonderfully managed so that it feels natural and i'll admit the axe is a great character in her own right.
I get the impression that some of the female characters will come into their own much more in the second of the series, which I am looking forward to as there was an element of them blundering from one set of danger and abuse to another in this one. The writing was ocassionally a little jarring to me, but not enough to throw me out of the story and I think that's down to my reading preferences rather than the authors ability.
It's a fast brutal fantasy adventure with some fun characters and some fantastic ideas. I am really excited to see the series develop.
2 comments:
Would you consider Kell an anti-hero?
Not as such, he has typical hero qualities, loyal, determined, does the right thing, but he's not a pleasant personality always and his blood bond with the axe has led to him doing things he was ashamed of.
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