Fantasy

Book Review: Chronicles of Siala by Alexey Pehov

/ Peter Martuneac / Leave a comment

In the summer of 2011, I was in the middle of my first deployment to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, when we received a bunch of care packages from charity groups in the United States. One of these boxes was nothing but paperback novels, which, as a voracious reader who had already shot through everything on my Nook, was the best sight I’d clapped my eye on in months. I grabbed several books, added them to my pack, and eventually read through them all.

One of these books had been particularly enjoyable. A high fantasy novel, the first of a series, written by some Russian author. It was different than most other high fantasy books I’d read, and I was determined to acquire the rest of the series once I returned home. Well, things got pretty chaotic in the weeks that followed. Any thought of home, I pushed to the back of my mind as useless optimism. Survival became the only thing that mattered, and thus was the memory of this book cast out and forgotten.

It was nearly three years later when a random deployment memory triggered my recollection of this book, but I couldn’t remember the title, the author, or anything of note. All I remembered was that the protagonist was a thief, and in this fictional world, the dwarves never grew beards. In the days before advanced A.I. could have helped me search the interwebs with little effort, trying to find this book with so little information was a lost cause. Numerous Google searches got me nowhere, and I resorted to asking the owners of local bookstores if they had ever heard of such a book.

Well, last year, my search finally came to an end. A glimpse of a memory of the book’s title came to mind: Shadow-something. Armed with this new memory, I finally found it after 14 years of searching: Shadow Prowler, by Alexey Pehov, Book #1 of “Chronicles of Siala” trilogy. The entire series was gifted to me at Christmas, and I’ve finally read them all. Now, after an unnecessarily long introduction, allow me to review for you the “Chronicles of Siala”.

The Cast

All three books are told in the first-person point of view from a master thief named Harold. At the start of the book, we join Harold in the middle of a job he’s been commissioned to do: break into a rich man’s house and steal something valuable. Here we are shown a good deal of Harold’s character. He is old enough to be wise, but young enough yet to be nimble. He’s a cautious, patient man, traits which have made him the master thief that he is. He’s also a planner and preparer. He did his homework on this rich man’s house, found all potential hazards, and brought the proper tools of the trade (including some magical baubles) to deal with them all.

This is the only character of note we see for a while. It’s not for another hundred pages or so that we meet the rest of the main cast. An elf princess named Miralissa, a knight of the kingdom, Aliston Mirkauz, and the king’s royal jester, a goblin named Kli-Kli. These three stand out as the most important protagonists not named Harold. Others eventually join the party (too many to be frank), but going through them all would take hours.

The Plot

This series is standard high-fantasy fare: the world of Siala is threatened by an ancient evil, a god-like figure bent on domination and control known only as The Nameless One, and it’s up to a ragtag group of unlikely comrades to find the one magical item, the Rainbow Horn, that can forestall the enemy and keep him locked in the far north, beyond the icy, impenetrable mountains. However, this horn was locked deep in a place called Hrad Spein, the Palaces of Bone. An ancient labyrinth carved into the very heart of the world, it extends miles underground and contains countless dangers, known and unknown.

Harold’s job is to go with a group of mighty warriors known as the Wild Hearts, travel to Hrad Spein, and sneak into the vast catacombs below to retrieve the Rainbow Horn so that the magicians can infuse it with power and keep the great evil at bay.

There are a few plot twists, and later in Book #2, Shadow Chaser, we are even treated to some world-hopping beyond the realm of Siala. But at the end of the day, this one checks all the boxes for high fantasy without becoming a laundry list of cliches. There’s a lot more I could say, but I don’t want to spoil too much, as I’m a big believer in going into books with as fresh a set of eyes as possible.

The Worldbuilding

Here’s what really hooked me on this book. Siala is a unique setting that stands out from your typical fictional worlds. For instance, as aforementioned, the dwarves of Siala never sport a beard, a far cry from the usual depiction of dwarves. Why are they clean-shaven? Because the gnomes all wear beards as a point of honor, and the dwarves and gnomes are bitter, vicious enemies.

Another thing that sets these books apart is the depiction of elves. Don’t expect to see the beautiful, angelic, delightfully aloof version of elves popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien. In Siala, the elves are nearly identical to orcs. In fact, they are cousins. Both elf and orc sport sharp fangs, dark, scaly skin, and golden-yellow eyes. As much as they look like orcs, these elves also act like them, too. They are not bad guys, but I wouldn’t call them good guys, either. The elves of Siala are a notoriously brutal, vicious race. They will torture captives if they feel like it, and they are quick to kill at the slightest offense or insult.

Last of all, one of my favorite features of Siala is how shamanism and magic are distinct practices that exist side-by-side. Shamanism existed at the very birth of the world, first practiced by the ogres. But their shamanism grew too powerful even for them, and it destroyed nearly all of them. Orcs and elves next took up a more stunted form of shamanism, and they practice it throughout the books.

Humans, however, cannot wield shamanism. They practice magic, a separate branch of supernatural power that derives from shamanism. It sounds like splitting hairs, but the differences matter. Magic, practiced by magicians, is not nearly as powerful as shamanism, but magic can be wielded quickly. It is also predictable and repeatable, like a science. If you know the spell for a magical shield, you need only say the words, make the sign, and have adequate training to hold it.

Shamanism, on the other hand, can tap into wells of power with untold depths. It takes years to master, and each spell takes time to conjure up. A magician can raise his hand and blast out a fireball at a moment’s notice, but a shaman needs several minutes to scratch out markings, chant an incantation, and even perform rhythmic movements before a spell will be ready. But when it is ready, it dwarfs the magic of humans. However, as the ogres discovered, it is also chaotic. Unlike magic, a single wrong word or misplaced rune can completely change the nature of the spell in ways that the shaman cannot fathom, and this makes for a key plot point several times throughout the story.

Final Word

For high fantasy fans, I can strongly recommend this book as something that hits all the usual beats while simultaneously presenting a unique world of anti-hero elves and beardless dwarves. The pacing is a bit erratic, and at times the dialogue is clunky and odd, but I’m willing to chalk that up to the difficulties of translating Russian into English. But there were no dealbreakers, and about two-thirds into the first book, I’d become fully emotionally invested in our group of heroes. Book #2 got a bit heavy, I won’t lie, but Book #3 wrapped everything up nicely. While it’s not exactly a ‘happily ever after’ type of story (get ready for some tears), I was satisfied with how it ended.

If you’re not sure about high fantasy, I would advise you to steer clear of this one. I don’t think it would be anything close to something you’d enjoy.

Film Review: War of the Rohirrim

/ Peter Martuneac / 2 Comments

After a long wait, I finally got around to seeing the latest media entry into J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of Middle-Earth this Christmas season, the animated film ‘War of the Rohirrim’. My short, spoiler-free review is that the film was adequate. I kept my expectations low as the release date approached, having learned my lesson from Amazon’s ‘Rings of Power’, and that ended up being the correct choice.

The film is fine. No better and no worse than that. Now, on to the full review!

Spoilers ahead

The film is your typical high-fantasy fare: plenty of swordplay, orcs and other monsters make appearances, and a bit of magic. Hera, daughter of Helm Hammerhand, King of Rohan, is propositioned by her father’s rival, a warlord who seeks the throne, to marry his son. Insults are exchanged, the rival is accidentally killed by the king in a fistfight, and the man’s son, Wulf, vows vengeance.

(By the way, I will note that agreeing to a fistfight with a man who is literally called Hammerhand was probably not this villain’s wisest decision)

You can probably guess the rest of the plot. Some have always seen this level of predictability in Tolkien’s stories and any works derived from his writing as a weakness, but there’s something to be said for the simplicity of it. Not every piece of media we consume needs to be a series of curveballs. Is it nice to be surprised sometimes? Sure, but as we’ve seen with Game of Thrones, eventually you’ve turned convention on its head so many times that the twists become tiresome and expected.

So yeah. War ensues, lives are lost, families are broken, but Hera eventually leads her father’s people to prevail with a little bit of guts, a little ingenuity, and a healthy dose of high-fantasy magic.

What did I like about the movie? For one, the music was excellent. It always set the scene nicely and helped keep me in the story. The voice acting was also terrific. Brian Cox plays Helm Hammerhand the King and stole the show, as far as I’m concerned. As a matter of fact, seeing his name in the casting was what got me excited for this movie in the first place, over a year ago.

Miranda Otto, who played Theoden King’s niece Eowyn in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, served as the narrator. I really appreciated that nod to the original trilogy and hearing her familiar voice first was like a warm welcome by an old friend as we returned to Middle-Earth.

Speaking of returns, the opening shot of the film has one of my all-time favorite transitions. It begins with live footage of a flyover of a hilly meadow and a rushing stream, possibly archived from the original trilogy, and as we get closer to ground the picture subtly swaps to the animated version. You almost don’t catch it, and it is beautiful.

Everything else was either fine or a tad disappointing. The animation was inconsistent: at times breathtaking and at others a little sloppy. One fear I had going into the film was that Hera would be your typical ‘Mary Sue’ character, inexplicably fighting off entire hordes of orcs on her own. Mercifully, she only engages in direct combat with enemy soldiers twice, and neither encounter crosses over into the absurd.

Some of the relationships seemed ill-defined, especially between Hera and Wulf, the main antagonist. They give almost no background to these two characters who are supposed to be childhood friends, so the emotional climax of the film doesn’t hit like the director intended.

Finally, I know I said I appreciated the nod to Peter Jackson’s original trilogy by bringing in Miranda Otto to voice the narrator, but there is such a thing as too many nods. Some of the dialogue for Helm Hammerhand was ripped directly from Theoden King in The Two Towers or The Return of the King, with only a word or two changed.

Come on, folks. You’re writing what’s supposed to be an impassioned speech and call to arms just before a battle. Are you really going to take this opportunity to plagiarize yourselves?

Also, Saruman the White is introduced at the end of the film, which was delightful, but moments later Gandalf the Grey is then mentioned. Apparently, he heard of Hera’s telling that she overheard some Mordor orcs discussing their master’s quest for magical rings, and he’s sent a letter requesting that she visit him.

This is wholly out of character for a guy known as the Wandering Wizard. When Gandalf seeks information, he does not send letters requesting that people come to him. He hops on his horse and arrives suddenly to demand an audience. I suspect they chose this route as a way to write Hera out of history. In Tolkien’s writings, she is not even given a name but she was made the main character for this story. How then to make it so that this heroine is not sung of in the annals of Rohan’s great battles? By giving the crown to her cousin, sending Hera off to meet Gandalf in a distant land, where, according to the narrator, she remained wild and free to the end of her days.

There’s more I could discuss but this post has already run long. All in all, as I said above, this film was fine. If you’re a Tolkien fanatic like myself, I highly recommend watching it, but only once. I won’t be adding this to my collection of Blu-rays.

Rings of Power: Season 2 Review

/ Peter Martuneac / 3 Comments

I was a week late but managed to avoid any spoilers online for Rings of Power‘s season finale, which I think is no small feat. However, I almost wish I’d seen a spoiler or two because the finale was deeply disappointing. Overall, this season was much better than the debut season last year, which suffered from poor writing and odd pacing. Then the finale came and it fell right back into those old problems.

(Spoilers ahead)

I’ve mentioned on my Twitter account before that I don’t like how Numenor is portrayed in this show, even as I accept that it’s largely due to the compressed timeline compared to the books. The decay and fall of Numenor took place over many centuries and obviously that won’t work when trying to make a show about all this. I get it, and I accept that.

What I refuse to accept is the infantile portrayal of Numenorians. In the previous episode, the rightful queen, Tar-Miriel, had passed what is essentially an ancient witch trial: jump into the sea and if the sea monster down there doesn’t eat you, then you have the Valar’s favor. The Numenorians in attendance cheer and accept her as their queen.

Fast-forward to this episode and Ar-Pharazon, the usurper of the throne, hands a committee of citizens called The Faithful a letter that says Tar-Miriel is in league with the enemy Sauron and based on this she is to be arrested. We never get to read this letter, all we get is the character saying, “Sauron?” after he glances at it for a second.

Worse yet, nobody questions the letter at all. Not one person wonders if maybe, just maybe, this convenient admission of betrayal was fabricated by a man who stands to lose everything if Tar-Miriel is installed on the throne.

The Numenorians are basically a race of demi-gods. They have seen the Valar, their very island was raised from the depth of the sea as a gift from the Valar for standing with the Elves in their war against Morgoth. But in Rings of Power they are stupid, fickle, cowardly, and worst of all, boring. Almost every scene set in Numenor is a colossal bore.

Which segues nicely into my next problem with the show. As aforementioned, I can deal with compressed timelines because it’s a necessity. But things wouldn’t have to be so compressed if the showrunners didn’t waste so much time on useless characters who add nothing. Isildur is given a short-lived love interest who added nothing to his character development. Both Theo and the elf warrior Arondir lost all use as characters when Theo’s mother, the only thing tying them together, was written off the show after Season 1, yet they receive vast amounts of screen time.

And the writing, which had been so much better, was just atrocious. If you’re going to shoehorn in not one but two names of the story (Rings of Power and Lord of the Rings), don’t put it in the same sentence. It wasn’t a cool moment as intended; it was just awkward. Galadriel also had a really dumb ‘go screw yourself’ line delivered to Sauron near the end of the episode that made no sense in the moment. And in another moment, one of the faithless Numenorians, instead of artfully deceiving Isildur about the state of affair back home, immediately revealed his evil intentions. What could have been a cliff-hanger of sorts was thrown away.

The storyline at Khazad-dum and the struggles the dwarves face is by far the best of the show, and I really have no complaints here. The casting is excellent, the sets and costumes are gorgeous, and the writing is brilliant.

In a climactic scene in the finale, when Durin faces his father the King who has been driven mad by the ring he received from Sauron, Durin tearfully says (I’m paraphrasing), “Remember when I was a wee lad and we would arm wrestle? You would let me push your hand down sometimes and I would think that maybe I had finally grown strong enough to beat you. Then in an instant, you’d flatten my hand back down. And I’d be reminded that no one and nothing was stronger than my father. Be strong for me again, Father. Take off the ring.”

Moments later, as the King prepares to sacrifice himself in combat with the awoken Balrog, he turns to Durin and says, “I never let you push my hand down, my son. Not for a second. You are stronger than you know.”

As both a son and a father myself, that really got to me. I grew up the same way, believing that no one and nothing in the world was stronger than my dad. Even well into my adulthood, when my dad had grown into his sixties and I had surely become the stronger man by then, I wasn’t sure I’d want to get in a fist fight with him. He was Superman to me as a kid, my own Man of Steel, and that image lasted for decades.

Sauron himself has also been a bright spot in the series. Charlie Vickers is brilliant as the corrupted Maiar, known in his deceitfully fair form as Annatar, the gift-giver. Vickers masterfully projects a subtle, malevolent aura, straddling the line between good acting and corny showmanship. It would have been so easy, I think, for a lesser actor to fail in this titanic role and come across as a Snidely Whiplash type of villain, but Vickers has nailed it, stealing every scene he’s in with a wicked gravitas. A sly look here, a carefully worded lie there, convincing others to do his bidding all while they believe it was their own idea, it all gives us just a glimpse of the unfathomable evil that simmers just below his surface.

There’s more I could say but this post has already run long and I wouldn’t ask you to surrender more of your time reading my complaints. I’ll conclude by saying that if there is a Season 3, I’m going to watch it. There was enough good from Season 2 to make me believe that the showrunners have at least a faint idea of what they’re doing. Their biggest crime of this season was, in my opinion, wasting our time with useless characters.

But man, that finale was a massive killjoy. It’ll take a while to rinse that foul taste from my mouth.

Book Review: ‘Shadow Prowler’ by Alexey Pehov

/ Peter Martuneac / 1 Comment

When I was deployed to Afghanistan many years ago, we would routinely receive care packages from businesses, churches, and charity organizations, packages containing myriad items. New socks, snack, and sometimes even books. As a voracious reader since childhood, I always appreciated the assortment of books. I had my Barnes & Noble Nook loaded with some of my favorites, but sometimes I wanted to read something new.

One book I’d picked up was a fantasy story, the first of a planned trilogy, written by some Russian author. I remember enjoying it and planning to get the rest of the books in the series when I returned to America. However, the months passed, the book series faded from memory, and by the time I remembered there was a book I’d really enjoyed, I could no longer remember the name of it or even the name of the author. Even Google searches of Russian fantasy authors were mostly unhelpful. The only thing I remembered for sure was that the protagonist was some kind of rogue, and that in this world the dwarves were all beardless, a significant departure from standard fantasy fare.

Finally, 10 years later I found it! Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov. I got the book for Christmas and dived right in, hoping that it would be as good as I remembered. Much to my delight, it was.

The plot is pretty typical for the genre. A nefarious, ancient evil referred to only as ‘The Nameless One’ is brooding far away, biding its time until it can unleash its full power on the kingdoms of men and elves who defeated him once before. In his service are vast hordes of orcs, corrupted men, and wicked shamans. The only thing keeping him locked away behind mountains of ice and snow is the Rainbow Horn, the most powerful magical artifact in the all the world, created long ago by the greatest shamans of the ogres.

The problem? It’s weakening, and that’s where the protagonist, master thief Shadow Harold comes in.

The pacing of the story is interesting. While the world of men is in mortal danger, the protagonists aren’t exactly rushing into action. They do have time to complete their mission of retrieving the Rainbow Horn, but they’ll only get one shot at it so they need to be prepared. And before Harold can even depart on this quest, he has a shadowy demon dogging him, and he has to deal with that. There’s also a mysterious magician known only as The Master, who is either working for The Nameless One or against the men and elves. Either way, he’s bad news.

As for the world itself, it’s a very unique world for a fantasy story. As aforementioned, the dwarves here are beardless and are proud of it. The reason being their ancient and hated rivals, the gnomes, grow beards. Goblins are present in the story too but are not bad guys. In fact, they are a formerly oppressed race, nearly driven to extinction by men and elves who believed them to be no different than orcs when in fact they tend to be good and fair.

Speaking of elves, they are fascinating in this world. Instead of the wise, restrained, angel-adjacent type of elves normally seen in fantasy, elves in Shadow Prowler are a bit terrifying. Their eyes shimmer with gold, they have razor-sharp fangs, and they are famous for bad tempers. A passing insult from a non-elf can expect to be returned in the form of an elven blade pressed against one’s throat.

So while the plot is pretty typical, the world itself feels different, which is good as far as I’m concerned.

One negative that I’ll bring up is sometimes the writing feels a little choppy. It’s told in first-person present, through the eyes of Shadow Harold, and sometimes the dialogue or his inner thoughts don’t seem to flow very well. However, I’m inclined to believe this is the result of a book being translated from Russian to English. I’m sure there are Russian phrases or sentence constructions that are perfectly good in their own language that just don’t hit the same when translated to English.

I highly recommend this one to any and all fans of fantasy. I’ll be ordering the rest of the books in this series soon and can’t wait to see where the story goes next.