The Wanderer's Tale

The Wanderer's tale was my pick in Jay Tomio’s Blind Desires: Fantasybookspot.com's 2007 Speculative Fiction Picks, based on magic, weapons, and the epic fantasy blurb that Tor put out in their catalog. By the end of the first chapter, I knew it was going to be a win for me. A quest to stop an ancient evil by a rag tag band of heroes seems cliché, but nevertheless, it worked on many different levels for me.

From the back of the book:

I hope whoever wrote that blurb got a bonus check because it was right on the money.

The title of the book makes it seem like a single character’s tale, but the band of adventurers includes many different individuals. This worked well as no one character in the heroes group stood out, while they all seemed interesting. It was also quite interesting to see how they played off one another, as one would think of a group of people thrown together with different ideals. The group takes from each end of the fantasy spectrum with warriors, sorcerers, priests, mercenaries, squires, and the like. What was great is that each one of the people in the party was given a side story, which fleshed them out quite nicely. The side stories themselves were quite interesting, and a pleasant diversion. Hopefully we will get to revisit their effect on the overall larger quest. A famous hero of legend in the world of Lindormyn even makes an appearance and we find out he was not up to the standards of the bards.

Nibulus, the leader of the group, was given that title after his father appointed him to that position. This was done so Nibulus could have an epic quest of his own. One thing I found quite interesting was how Nibulus realizes he does not have the experience of failure because all the campaigns he was on under his father were successful. We get to see behind the man that Nibulus is – a leader that seems real – by watching him lead with a host of emotions floating around him.

The secondary characters of The Wanderer's Tale were really top notch. David created unique characters ranging from giants, to fairies, to a band of roaming thieves that have enough magic weapons to be featured in an ancient elven armory. David gave this world enough fleshed out races to keep the characters fresh, as well as the secondary characters that he introduced. It was nice to be in a world that is filled with more than just humans.

One of David’s strong points was his ability to create a world that feels real and imaginative all at the same time. He did not disappoint as I was immediately drawn into this world from the first page and was gasping for breath to the very end. A great example is the town of Myst-Hakel. David really does a good job with describing this town on the edge of civilization and the characters that inhabited it. The smoke, the smells, the watching for things hiding in the shadows, I felt as if I were really there! Eotunlandt, which is a little cluster of old fey land hidden in the far reaches of the world, is also done wonderfully by David, with a sort of Jurassic Park feel. An epic fantasy needs a world that the reader can feel is real, descriptive, and fun to read about. It has to have a real history to it where one could imagine the life of a peasant all the way to that of a hero. David accomplished this.

The author’s writing style gives the reader a lot of information and description, but in a way that you could digest it and not let it take away from the swift pace. It gave a wonderful first hand view of the world he created. Plus, I am always a fan of an author that loves weapons and magic weapons. Some of my favorite scenes come later in the book when the group of heroes came in contact with a band of thieves with quite a weapons arsenal.

There are a few stumbling blocks to the story itself, one of them being the way that the group was brought together. It did not seem all that realistic, and it was glossed over in the beginning of the tale. There was a full group of hundreds of warriors that are asked to go on the quest, but when they all pretty much refuse, this small band still decides to go? Hmm. Another point, which is the polar opposite of some other reviewers, is I personally felt there were what I call “television transitions” in the story. What I mean is that we can go from one scene to the next without really knowing what happened. Ever see the end of an old Batman episode where he is tied up and the next episode the first thing you see is Batman with Robin and they are free and have the Riddler in jail? Like how did that happen? Well, I felt a little bit of that with this book. I will even go out on a limb and say I wish this book was enlarged to encompass two books so we could get a little more of the characters’s backgrounds, filled in some of the parts of the story, and not feel rushed through the book.

One might perceive an issue with this story in that it brings nothing new to the genre, but I am not one who believes this is necessary for a book to be good. There have been hundreds of thousands of love poems written, but that does not mean that a poet in our current year cannot write a classic love poem. It can be of the same subject material but have a new take on it. This is how The Wanderer's Tale pans out. Remember when old school meant it was something in the past that was actually good? This uses the same formula as old school sword and sorcery, and I really liked the ride.