So: you’re a soldier, paid for hire. What do you do when the wars are over and the battles are done? When your friends have all gone home? Kings of the Wyld is an extremely entertaining debut tale of a group of mercenaries, one of the best, who have gone their separate ways but get together for one last fight.
From the publisher:
“Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best – the meanest, dirtiest, most feared and admired crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld.
But their glory days are long past; the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk – or a combination of the three. Then a former bandmate turns up at Clay’s door with a plea for help: his daughter Rose is trapped in a city besieged by an enemy horde one hundred thousand strong and hungry for blood. Rescuing Rose is the kind of impossible mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for.
It’s time to get the band back together for one last tour across the Wyld.”
What surprised me most about this novel is the assurance with which the author tells his tale. Though the plot is nothing particularly new, the pace and style is unexpectedly adept. There’s a pace that scarcely gives the reader chance to catch his breath, but simultaneously there’s a wealth of little details throughout the tale that allows the plot to progress whilst we also get to discover past and present details about the Wyld.
Most importantly, whilst setting up the story the beginning also allows us to get to know the characters, so that we care about what happens to them. The ex-bandmate who turns up on Clay’s doorstop is Gabe, once Golden Gabe, the leader of the group famously known as Saga. He persuades Clay that in order to rescue his daughter Rose, besieged in Castia, he needs Clay to help get the Kings of the Wyld back together. Reluctantly, yet resignedly, Clay goes with Gabe to find wizard Moog, ex-thief Matrick, now (surprisingly) King of Agria, and even Ganelon, the very reluctant group member whose falling-out broke the band up, so that they can save Gabe’s daughter.
The whole tone of the story is sufficiently self-depreciating, yet suffused with a wry cynicism that makes it rather Joe Abercrombie-like without being too grim. It doesn’t always work for me (as I’ve said before, humour’s a tricky thing to get right) and it’s occasionally over-the-top but rarely silly. The general tone is that of a bunch of mates getting back together to reform a band – more like the everyday tale of a music group than a Fantasy trope, but it works. Motorhead would love it. Think Hawkwind with a touch of Spinal Tap.*
The middle part of the book is the perilous journey the band undertakes. The enormous vanquishing army at Castia are led by Lastleaf, the self-proclaimed ‘Duke of Endland’, a druin who clearly has designs upon ruling the kingdoms and coincidentally is an ex-adversary of the band. He has persuaded everyone – or rather, everything – in the Heartwyld to rise up against the humans and this means the group must face many horrors to get to Castia, hundreds of miles away.
It’s not going to be easy.
Kings of the Wyld scores for me because, unlike some of the recent novels I’ve tried to read, it’s clearly a book written with intelligence. Even more impressively for a debut novel, not everything is explained ad nauseam – some things just are. The author knows his Fantasy tropes and has a great deal of fun playing with them. The fight scenes are appreciatively epic and superbly well done.
There’s wyverns, goblins, ogres, centaurs, dragons, kobolds, goblins and a few of the author’s own creations as well. (It may be just coincidence that the band are called Saga, which here in the UK is a British company and society group serving the needs for those aged over 50, but I doubt it.) Nicholas has clearly done his homework on this one.
This is not Fantasy-by-numbers, though admittedly at first glance it could appear to be so. There’s a deceptively original element to it once you get past the familiar. Rather than being a typical quest novel with young teenage protagonists, Kings of the Wyld instead is one where the oldies are determined to save the brash young ‘uns, or die trying. Whilst doing so it raises themes that regular readers of Fantasy will appreciate: courage, loyalty, friendship, and the consequences of the passage of time. These ground the novel in easily recognisable and clearly empathetic situations which make the ending all the more poignant.
Above all, what this does is give the reader a great feeling at the end, about characters that you quickly grow to care about and want them to succeed. The writer’s skill is such that whilst you know that there are clichés, and things you expect to happen, as well as some you don’t, in the end you don’t care. The ending is a rip-roaring, glorious, unashamedly-feel-good success.
In summary, Kings of the Wyld is great fun, and written with panache. With characters you get to like and care about, it’s an impressive debut that drags you in and keeps you reading. It’s not to be taken too seriously but it is a knowing and pleasingly skilful take on old tropes. A very pleasant surprise, which I am very pleased to see will continue in further books. Thoroughly recommended.
*There are some nice little musical homages in there too. Particularly appreciated were mercenaries named ‘Neil the not-so-Young’ and ‘Syd, son of Barret’.
Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
Published by Orbit Books, February 2017
528 pages
ISBN: 978 0 356 50902 0
Review by Mark Yon
The review brings to mind the Black Company books.
More dragons and associated creatures here, perhaps! Also more humour here, I think, Jacques, albeit rather of the gallows type (as was The Black Company, if I remember right!) – but agreed.