In the vibrant city-state of Castellane, Kel is an orphan, stolen from his old impoverished life to become Prince Conor Aurelian’s body-double. As his ‘Sword Catcher’, he and Conor will become as close as brothers. Yet Kel lives for one purpose: to die for Conor.
Lin Caster is an Ashkar physician, part of a community ostracized for its rare magical abilities. After a failed assassination attempt pulls her and Kel together, they are drawn into the web of the mysterious Ragpicker King, who rules Castellane’s criminal underworld. But as long-kept secrets are uncovered and forbidden attractions blossom, will their discoveries plunge their land into war – and nations into chaos?
In Sword Catcher, Cassandra has made the transition from best-selling Young Adult author to Adult Fantasy writer. As you might expect, it is a story that’s character-driven, with the Fantasy world your typical Renaissance Fantasyland experience of Kings, Queens, courtiers, spymasters, medievalesque castles and towns, markets and magic. If you know these tropes, you’ll know what you’re getting.
My immediate thought on finishing his hefty book was that it ticks all the boxes of what you would hope for in an immersive Fantasy novel. Cassandra clearly knows what works and has played fairly safe with the tropes of the genre.
So I guess that the next question is that as a book from a best-selling writer, moving into a more adult market, is this an ideal Fantasy book to try? Well, it seems to have a lot of elements that Fantasy readers like. Although it is being sold as an ‘adult’ Fantasy, there is a lot that clearly has origins in YA work. The story is straightforward, which means that the writer and the reader can focus upon character.
The main characters of Kel, Conor and Lin are young and innocent enough not to be that far from the sort of story Clare is known for, which means that if you like her earlier work this is a logical extension. Many of their actions are what we would expect teenage boys or young men in their twenties to do.
There are concessions to elements that might be seen as more adult – there’s a few gruesome deaths, Conor, Kel and their assorted hangers-on visit a brothel, and there’s talk of pornographic drawings, for example – but there’s no Game of Thrones – level explicitness or fruity language here.
It’s also interesting that whilst we are clearly meant to be on the side of the young heroes and heroines of the tale, the more-adult characters, such as the King and Queen of Castellaine, are more monstrous, another trope recognisable from young adult work.
Thinking more, though, I think that such a view is not quite fair. There are new elements that Clare has introduced to make the story her own. Lin’s world, the world of Ashkar outsiders, clearly uses names and themes that (I think) are based upon Hebrew teachings, and readers – even those who, like me, are not experts by any means on such spiritual matters – will appreciate how this idea has become part of this world, of how being part of a persecuted society within the mainstream majority could apply to Fantasy stories as well as real life. It’s not ‘in-your-face’, it is subtly done, and perhaps relevant to today.
And this is what Cassandra does here – she takes elements of a society – morals, ethics and religions – that may be familiar to some, and then adapts them into her own environment. What good writers do is take elements that many readers will recognise but then give them their own little spin. I’m reminded a little of writers of the past who did this, such as David Eddings, or Orson Scott Card – I’m sure you can think of others yourself.
In summary, Sword Catcher is pretty much what Cassandra’s legions of readers would hope for. It is accessible, readable and entertaining, set in an immersive world that despite its 600-page length, grips from the start. More importantly, there’s enough of a difference from hundreds of similar books to make the book memorable. Whilst I found the twists in the book pretty obvious from the start, much of the fun in reading Sword Catcher is that you will want to know what happens when they get to those points.
Of course, there’s a big cliffhanger at the end, but I suspect that if you make it to that point you will want to know what happens next.
Sword Catcher is a good, solid Fantasy read – recommended for that big Summer read on holiday, perhaps – a book you can get stuck in to whilst the rest of us wait for the next one.
SWORD CATCHER by Cassandra Clare
Published by TOR.
Hardback: 978 1 5290 0138 9 (October 2023);52900 Paperback 978 1 52900 1402 (August 2024)
612 pages
Review by Mark Yon
