This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 22, 2012.

Thieves' World: First Blood

Edited by Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey (Editor) – Tor Books – December 1, 2003

Review by Robin Marx

The volume collects the first two Thieves' World anthologies, Thieves' World and Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn. While it was great finally having a chance to read these (previously long out of print) stories, I don't think many of them lived up to the great premise.

The Thieves' World I expected was quite similar to what was described in the Making of Thieves' World essay included in the book: a massive slum various sword & sorcery heroes call home, their adventures tangentially intersecting and their paths crossing. While there are some stories that deliver—those stories tend to be the highlights—there are surprisingly few actual thief protagonists, and far too much high fantasy mucking about with competing gods. Fritz Leiber is cited as an influence, but Thieves' World's city of Sanctuary is nowhere near as lush, decadent, and dangerous as Lankhmar, and few of the adventures found here have the same kind of personal stakes and gritty, street-level action of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tales. The Making of Thieves describes a teeming hive of corruption that could play home to Conan, Elric, Karl Edward Wagner's Kane, etc., but then it has too many stories about humans acting directly as pawns for interventionist, physically manifested gods. This felt like a bait and switch to me. For something called “Thieves' World” there were surprisingly few heists; perhaps “Prophet's World” would have been a more appropriate title.

Perhaps it can be said that Thieves' World shows the fantasy genre in transition. It was released in 1979, when pure sword & sorcery was on the decline and Tolkien-inspired high fantasy (as embodied by Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara, released in 1977) was becoming increasingly commercially successful. I suspect that's the reason for the tension between the few gritty street-level tales and the more high flying epic stories. This is interesting from a genre history perspective, but not really what I was looking for. I don't think I'll go out of my way to seek out the sequel anthologies, as it appears that the competing pantheon aspect of the stories only grows more prevalent.

As a final note, the Kindle edition of this book is probably the most poorly formatted commercial e-book I've seen to date. There are numerous cases of OCR errors (spelling errors are particularly obnoxious in jargon-prone fantasy), several instances of strangely hyphenated words, and even a few snippets of missing text. While I didn't factor this into my rating, I expect better from a major publisher like Macmillan/TOR.

★★☆☆☆

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This review originally appeared on Goodreads on August 25, 2016.

Gloriana

By Michael Moorcock – Allison & Busby – April 1, 1978

Review by Robin Marx

This is an incredibly lush story about an idealized England. Albion has emerged from tyranny and into a Golden Age, brought about by its perfect queen, the titular Gloriana. As with most empires, there's corruption behind the scenes, however: the queen's advisor, Montfalcon, breaks quite a few eggs making the omelets necessary to keep Albion running while protecting her from his scheming. A careless mistake leads to hurt feelings and a growing sense of enmity that threatens to topple the whole kingdom.

The novel is tightly-plotted and evocative. Everything ties together and the twists and turns keep the reader guessing until the satisfying end. Even more than the plot, the richly described world is the main draw for this book, however. Moorcock crafts a world that I enjoyed visiting immensely. And although there are a few allusions to his Eternal Champion series, this novel stands alone, serving as an approachable introduction to his work. Highly recommended.

★★★★☆

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This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on April 17, 2023.

Wraithbound

By Tim Akers – Baen Books – April 4, 2023

Review by Robin Marx

Wraithbound presents a world that is literally coming apart at the seams. Reality-warping elemental Chaos is only barely restrained by monumental, magically-infused barricades. The fortunate and affluent live deep within the Ordered Lands, while those less privileged are relegated to the outer borders, suffering the corrosive influence of the roiling Chaos just outside the walls. As the creators and maintainers of the so-called “orderwalls,” the mages of the Iron College have become a prominent pillar of society. Known as spiritbinders, these mages interweave a portion of their souls with an elemental spirit, gaining power over that spirit’s domain. Each spiritbinder dedicates themselves to a single element. Air, water, fire, and stone are some common choices, while others form pacts with more abstract entities, such as manifestations of law or life. Rumors also exist of renegade spiritbinders who entangle themselves with darker entities, such as demons or the souls of the deceased. With the continued survival of civilization at stake, the Iron College has established the justicars, a ruthless security force tasked with both policing the ranks of the spiritbinders and also hunting down unsanctioned “feral” mages operating outside the strictures of the College.

Young Rae Kelthannis finds his comfortable lifestyle turned upside down when his father, a minor weather-controlling stormbinder in the employ of Baron Hadroy, becomes entangled in a justicar-led purge of heretical magic. The Kelthannis family flee to the edge of civilization, eking out a meager life in the shadow of an orderwall. Despite the risk of justicar scrutiny, after a miserable decade of self-exile Rae gives in to the temptation to follow in his father’s footsteps. He attempts a spiritbinding of his own, using his father’s fractured sword as a focus for the magic. Instead of joining with a minor air elemental as intended, he finds his spirit entwined with something much more treacherous: a wrathful soul from the realm of the dead. This disastrous summoning has lethal consequences for Rae’s loved ones, and he immediately finds himself pursued by both justicars and an even more implacable foe: a brutal mage encased in a mechanical suit. To survive, Rae will have to come to grips with both his father’s hidden past and his dangerous new spiritbound partner.

Wraithbound is an epic fantasy where magic takes center stage. The various types of spiritbinding and their myriad manifestations are examined in intriguing detail, providing fun daydream fodder to readers and making this book an easy recommendation to fans of Brandon Sanderson’s intricate magic systems. Command of elements like fire and water are common enough in fantasy stories, but Rae’s tumultuous alliance with the wraith is both fresh and compelling. Rae is reckless and untrained, while the wraith bristles at being compelled into servitude. With the wraith seeking ever more control over his earthly host’s body, the reader is given the sense that Rae has caught a tiger by the tail. He requires his deathly companion’s dark assistance if he is to live to see another day, but the wraith’s agenda and Rae’s own are often at odds.

Wraithbound is also rich with layered mystery. Although it’s given away in the title, Rae doesn’t discover the true nature of his bound spirit until the halfway point of the book. The actual identity of the wraith isn’t revealed until much later. The role of Rae’s father in the magical catastrophe that has come to be known as the Hadroy Heresy and the ultimate goal of Rae’s pursuers are also crucial parts of the puzzle he must solve. I felt clever whenever one of my suppositions turned out to be correct, and absorbed even further into the narrative with every unexpected twist. Akers keeps the reader guessing.

Promoted as the first book in The Spiritbinder Saga, Wraithbound concludes with some tantalizing hints about the future direction of the series. However, prospective readers can rest assured that Wraithbound provides a self-contained tale with a proper ending, rather than merely a fraction of the story with an arbitrary or abrupt conclusion.

Much like Rae himself, the reader is whisked from one danger to the next, with very few pauses to rest. Rae’s perilous journey takes him far beyond the Ordered Lands and into the Chaos-infested wilderness, the skies, and even the shadowy land of the dead. Fast-paced and packed with cinematic magical duels, Wraithbound is an exhilarating ride from start to finish.

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