Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes
Sam Sykes. Heard of him? Funny dude and possibly the best Twitter follow anyone could wish for. His interactions with Chuck Wendig are freakin’ hysterical. Look it up if you don’t believe me. Anyway, he also writes books which, like his Twitter persona, are funny and irreverent. Seven Blades in Black is no different. It tells the tale of Sal the Cacophony, a Vagrant who wanders the Scar tracking down other Vagrants and putting an end to their, eh, Vagrancy.
The Vagrants in this case aren’t poor hobos with their few belongings stored in a bindle, these are powerful mages who turned rogue after the empire they fight for put a nul (think muggle) on the throne. Why is Sal hunting down what are essentially her own people? Well, that’s part of the story, so I ain’t blabbing.
The story begins in an interrogation room, where Sal’s being questioned by the Revolution (the enemies of the Imperiium). We hear the story mostly from Sal as she’s interrogated, and she’s an entertaining tale teller and general love/hate type of character. We also hear (eh, read) occasional viewpoints from her interrogator Tretta, who struggles with her own beliefs as Sal babbles on.
As mentioned, Sal makes the story a lot of fun with her asides and self-deprecating humour, but her cronies are also an interesting bunch. Her on/off lover Liette is a wright, a different type of mage, and is responsible for putting Sal back together on occasion, as well as trying to save her from her dangerous life. Cavric is a soldier for the Revolution who gets dragged along for the ride. His naivete is a counterpoint to Sal’s biting cynicism, and his innocence and belief in how the world should be is sometimes all that keeps her going. Also part of the gang are Sal’s flightless bird and mount (cool, eh?) Congeniality, almost a character in her own right, and her gun, the Cacophony which appears to have a life of its own.
The bad guys are an entertaining and diverse bunch, which echoes the theme of opera that runs throughout this story (I think I forgot to mention that, oops!). The Scar is a desolate setting, occasional towns dotting the landscape, but also some horrific ruins of previous wars. We don’t get to see too many denizens of the Scar, only hear them alluded to, which is a pity, but the critters the Vagrants call upon can be spectacular.
So this all sounds very fun and entertaining, and it is, but…it’s too freakin’ long. Like 768 pages long. This is great when you have multiple story strands and differing viewpoints, but when it’s told by one person it just seems too rambling. For example, the first 100 or so pages are basically worldbuilding, which isn’t unusual, but when it’s the protagonist who’s explaining to her interrogator, who lives there and should know what’s going on, it’s a bit weird and doesn’t make sense. There’s a lot of repetition of some of Sal’s phrases that get to be a bit naff after a while too. This book could easily have been 450 pages and still be just as entertaining (or moreso) and tightly plotted. I also would have enjoyed it a lot more, as it got tiresome at times when it should be amping up the tempo.
Still, for the most part I enjoyed it, but I can’t give it any better than 3.5/ out of stars.
