2014; 204 pages. Full Title: Under
A Colder Sun: A Grim Dark Fantasy Adventure. Book 1 (out of 3) in the “Khale the Wanderer” series. New Author? : No. Genres: Grimdark Fantasy; Action-Adventure. Overall Rating : 6½*/10.
By all reports, Khale the Wanderer is a nasty
guy. A brigand. A killer.
A rogue. A sorcerer. A mercenary.
And some say, an immortal.
Leste, a member of the City
Watch of Colm, is aware of all that. But
orders are orders, and King Alosse has sent her on a mission to locate Khale, establish contact with him, and arrange a meeting between the brigand and the
King. Alosse has an errand for Khale.
The King understands
mercenaries, of course. He is willing to
pay Khale for his time. One thousand
golden-eyes. That should get Khale’s
attention.
It does. Khale laughs at the offer. He’ll accept nothing less than twenty
thousand golden-eyes. It is, after all,
a royal errand.
What’s To Like...
The subtitle says it all. The tone of Under A Colder Sun is grim and dark, with plenty of bloodshed, a lot of which falls into the category of “senseless”. Khale’s task seems like an easy one: deliver King Alosse’s daughter, Milanda, to the Autarch, the despotic ruler of a neighboring city, Neprokhadymh. Yeah, try saying that six times real fast.
Milanda is to be wedded to the Autarch. To get there, she and Khale will have to cross dangerous territory. It is filled with lawless men and
creatures, and two other neighboring kingdoms, Barneth and Farness, might
think it in their best interests to put a stop to the marriage.
Greg James is a British
author, which means the book is written in English, not American. For American readers, this entails encountering strange
spellings such as humour, centre, knick-knacks,
draught, foetus, and haemorrhaged. Personally, I think it adds a touch of classiness to the narrative.
The world-building is great,
albeit mostly limited to the two cities, Colm and Neprokhadymh, plus the
wilderness in between. I liked the
otherworldly creatures that beset Khale and Milanda, including the blood-banshees and the ultra-deadly mirror-beasts.
It was fun trying to figure out the character-alignment for Khale. It’s quickly apparent he has both good and
evil traits, but is he mostly "dark" or mostly "light"?
The saga stops at a logical point, more like a pause than an ending. It included a couple of neat plot twists, and the main plotline was
wrapped up, albeit not happily. I got
the feeling the main purpose of Under A Colder Sun was to introduce the
reader to the main characters in the series and set the stage for the main storyline in the sequels. That might sound negative, but hey, it’s
also the way I felt about Book One in The Lord of
The Rings.
My Kindle version came with two bonus short stories at the end, Timestone and Each Dawn, I Die. They are both worth your reading time, and Timestone in particular gives you some background to the foreboding world the story is set in, although the main story also gives some hints about earlier kingdoms.
Kewlest New Word ...
Ordure (n.) : something regarded as vile or
abhorrent.
Others: Canopic (adj.).
Ratings…
Amazon: 3.9*/5, based on 63
ratings and 50 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.25*/5,
based on 146 ratings and 22 reviews.
Excerpts...
“Hospitality? Is that what you call it when your men ride
down my own, run them through, and toss their bodies in the marshes to rot?”
Leste spoke before she could check
herself. “They are brigands. They steal and kill. They get what they deserve.”
Khale turned on her and his face was tight
with rugged lines. “You seem very sure
of dealing in life and death, girl.”
“Those who kill without honour deserve the
same fate.”
“Ah, deserve. There’s another word you don’t understand.” (loc. 250)
“Aye, we rode together before things in the
world got this rotten. We hunted, we
pillaged, and we stole. Don’t believe
your father, the good King Alosse, could be a thief, do you? Well, he was.
All kings are thieves; it’s how they get to where they are. People, land, ideals: you’ve got to steal
these things yourself before you can convince someone else to believe in them
and fight for them on your behalf.” (loc.
852)
Kindle Details…
Under
A Colder Sun sells for $0.99 at Amazon right now. The other two books in the series, Lost is the Night, and Hordes
of Chaos, cost $2.99 apiece. Greg James has two other series and several
standalone books available on Amazon, ranging in price from free
to $2.99.
Yes, she thought,
for an idiot I’m very lucky. (loc.
1018)
As shown above, Under A Colder Sun has garnered some less-than-stellar
ratings, particularly at Goodreads.
Several Goodreads reviewers were turned off by the dark tone of the storyline. Lots of characters die, including some I didn’t expect to, and there are references to rape and sexual assault. I wouldn’t recommend this book to a 5-year-old, but for adults, well, the subtitle does warn you to expect a story grim and dark. OTOH, the cussing is surprisingly sparse. I counted just 11 instances in the whole book, although that included a pair of f-bombs.
Other reviewers mentioned the
frequency of typos, although I only noted one, a breath/breathe miscue. Either the book has undergone another round
of editing subsequent to its initial release, or else some readers might have been mistaking British grammar and spelling for outright errors.
For me, the biggest drawback
was the storytelling, which I (and others)
found to be a bit weak. Our
protagonists go on a quest—to deliver Milanda to the Autarch—things go awry, and
that’s about it. The plotline as a whole is rather
“un-epical”.
Still, the story held my
interest enough to continue reading this series. I'm anticipating Khale's character undergoing some
significant changes before this story runs its course.
It will be fun to see.
6½ Stars. There really is a literary subgenre called Grimdark. Wikipedia has a page about it. You can read about it here.
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