This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 9, 2013.
Witch of the Four Winds / When the Idols Walked
By John Jakes – Open Road Media – July 31, 2012
Review by Robin Marx
This ebook volume collects the third and fourth Brak the Barbarian novels as well as two subsequent short stories. I enjoyed the first volume well enough, but this one left me pleasantly surprised. The novels here are much stronger than those in the previous book.
Witch of the Four Winds was the highlight of this volume. The premise is pretty standard; Brak must stop an evil sorceress from using her magic to destroy a beleaguered kingdom. But the great thing about the story is how lean it is. There is nothing extraneous here. Every character has an important role to play in the story, and no plot threads are left dangling. Everything comes together in the end to form a neat and tidy package.
The fourth novel, When the Idols Walked, was interesting, but not quite as strong as the third. The antagonists' motives are less clear than in other stories, and apart from a perceived debt of honor, Brak doesn't have much reason to stick around and become involved in a war that doesn't involve him. Still, the use of bound souls to control inanimate objects is an interesting one and leads to a pretty spectacular finale.
The novels are followed by “Brak in Chains.” While it wasn't quite as action-packed as the novels, the premise was an interesting one. Taken as a slave and blamed for heresy in a drought-cursed land, Brak is ordered to make it rain within two days or be executed. Like Witch of the Four Winds, the plot he uncovers is a clever one, and there's very little wasted verbiage or exposition.
Unfortunately the concluding story, “The Mirror of Wizardry,” is the dog of the collection. While it had a neat monster appearing it (piranha-like stones), the rest of the story is rather unremarkable and the characterization thin. It's a shame the book ended like this. To the best of my knowledge, this is the last Brak story, and with John Jakes' considerable age and the fact that his historical novels are so much more commercially successful, it doesn't look like Brak will ever get a worthy send-off.
While it didn't affect my opinion of the stories either way, one thing I noticed was how chaste the stories are. There's a pretty significant amount of gore (people reduced to “red slime” by falling rocks, enemies getting stabbed in the eyes, etc.), but zero sensuality. Every story has a beautiful girl appearing in it (or two: a companion/damsel and a femme fatale), but unlike Conan, Brak doesn't get any action at all. The evil girls tempt him but are ultimately rejected, and the good girls are either already romantically involved with other characters or lamely rejected by Brak by the story's conclusion. Brak has to be the most celibate literary barbarian I've come across.
While nowhere near as innovative and indispensable as the Conan, Elric, Kane, or Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser stories, the Brak stories are still worthwhile reads for fans of sword & sorcery. If you're new to the subgenre, however, I'd recommend you stick to the classics.
★★★☆☆
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