Review of The Iron Wolves, by Andy Remic

Book 1 of the Rage of Kings

The Iron Wolves
Andy Remic

IBSN 978-0857663566

Angry Robot
Release Date: December 31, 2013

From the book’s description:

Thirty years ago, the Iron Wolves held back mud-orc hordes at the Pass of Splintered Bones, and led a brutal charge that saw the sorcerer Morkagoth slain.

Now, a new terror stalks the realm. Orlana the Changer has escaped from the Chaos Halls and is building an army, twisting horses, lions and bears into terrible, bloody hunters, summoning mud-orcs from the slime and heading north to battle the mighty region of Vagandrak where, it said, the King has gone insane.

General Dalgoran searches to reunite the heroes of old for what he believes will be their final battle. But Dalgoran discovers the Iron Wolves are no longer the heroes of legend, and they might just be more dangerous than the invading hordes.

My insanely short synopsis: The Iron Wolves, a band of seven unlikely and (somewhat) unsavory heroes punch, kick, bite and slash their way across the kingdom to reach Vagrandak, the land of legend and the Iron Wolves’ past glory. Their goal: to do battle against the great Sorceress Orlana to stop her from enslaving and slaughtering the entire population of the realm.

On his seventieth birthday, General Dalgoran witnesses a scene so gruesome, it forces him to end his retirement and reassemble the Iron Wolves, his band of seven warriors, now past the prime of their hero years. But General Dalgoran believes they are the only ones capable of combatting the horror he has witnessed. But first he must find them all and convince them of his cause.

The Iron Wolves seethes with action; indeed, it stomps across every page.

Remic has a very precise way with descriptions of battles and fights and with weapons of every type (including head butts). The scenes leap and snort off the page, making the heart race with anticipation about their outcomes. The journey of the Iron Wolves entails many such battles including those against insanely powerful creatures called the splice – amalgams of human and beasts that are very tough to kill – and mud orcs as well as more human enemies. Including the Iron Wolves themselves.

If you enjoy sword and sorcery, The Iron Wolves will not disappoint. The heroes themselves, although not necessary likeable, present a convincing case for their role as the only ones capable of confronting the powerful and merciless Orlana. I felt there was adequate backstory from each of the seven warriors to comprehend something of their motivations; these stories do not necessarily make the characters more likeable. But it did help me to understand them.

Orlana, not born of this world, has an agenda. I didn’t understand what that agenda was in any great detail, this is Book 1 after all, but I learned enough to know that her plans entail much more than crafting nasty and menacing creatures. Her very evilness contrasts starkly with the dubious nature of the Iron Wolves’ heroism. I never had any doubts about who I was rooting for.

On the other hand, although the story has its straightforward components, there are plenty of subplots and interesting complications to occupy the mind while reading. Even though the it is the nature of epic fantasy with good versus evil made me want to think that good will triumph, I never felt sure about the outcome at any point in the story.

And that is what kept me reading. Sometimes, the fights went on too long for my liking so that I had to put the book down for a while, but I think for those who read graphic and gritty sword and sorcery with gusto, and who enjoyed The Clockwork Vampire Chronicle series by Remic, this will be a positive feature. For me, it’s guilty candy. Something I don’t read often because, while I enjoy it in small doses, most of the time slash and gore are not done well. But here it is done well and is dictated by the nature of the story.

On a less positive note, there’s a reader cheat in here. It marred the story for me somewhat, and I can’t talk about because it would be a spoiler. In all fairness, we do get hints about it, but not enough that I felt I could have figured it out on my own. That said though, I could live with that and hope the rest of the series will live up to the promise of the first book, an uncompromising but ultimately entertaining romp through a fantasy landscape pockmarked with treachery around every corner.

Double Trouble

I have two short stories out this month and so will give them equal billing. I am equally proud of both publications and honored to be a part of them.

The Colinthology, edited by Joanne Hall, Roz Clarke and Rick Novy is on sale at Wizard's Tower Press. All profits go to Above and Beyond, a charity organization that raises funds for local hospitals in Bristol, U.K. The anthology honors the memory of Colin Harvey from all of the contributors who have donated their stories to the anthology. My flash fiction piece, A Better Bred Woman (TM) Makes Good Her Escape appears here.

A Better Bred Woman (TM) Makes Good Her Escape

 The Fall 2012 issue of Big Pulp Magazine, titled We Honor Those Who Serve and edited by Bill Olver, contains a lovely mix of stories including fantasy, science fiction and horror and is available from Exter Press (ISBN-10: 0983644941) in both print and electronic format. My hard SF flash fiction story, For Now, However, the Dragons Have Free Reign appears here.

For Now, However, the Dragons Have Free Reign

Primary Fault Reviews, September 2012

The month is progressing well. I've three very nice reviews this week for my debut novel, Primary Fault.

The first was from Martha Hubbard writing for The Future Fire Reviews.  I liked her description of the book and her take on the Celtic mythology aspects. The Future Fire is per their manifesto: an e-published magazine showcasing new writing in Social-Political Speculative Fiction, with a special interest in Feminist SF, Queer SF, Eco SF, Postcolonial SF and Cyberpunk.

The second review was from Annette Gisby at her Books and Tales blog. I also liked her take on the story and the characters. Annette writes thrillers as well as erotica, therefore the adult content warning when you enter the blog. But don't let that stop you. Go on in and have a look around the site and check out her published works as well. I am sure that I'll enjoy her writing as well and look forward to reading it.

The Midwest Book Review, overseen by James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, is a sprawling enterprise, with several different categories of review catalogues that, according to their website, are specifically designed for community and academic librarians, booksellers, and the general reading public. They are very supportive of Indie publishers. One of their reviewiers, Willis Buhle, also gave Primary Fault a favorable review in Reviewer's Bookwatch.

I'd like to thank these reviewers for their honesty and thoughtfulness.

Onward!

The Official trailer for Primary Fault

Books and Gods

Needing to get away from the computer last week, I visited the Römisch-Germanisch Museum in Cologne to see the current exhibit, The Return of the Gods, premiering marble sculptures and ancient paintings on loan from the Pergamon Museum and the Collection of Antiquities (through end of August, 2012), featuring such reliefs as  Neptune from Greek times.
 

I then revisited the rest of the museum which contains the (in-situ) Dionysus mosaic (at right).

The museum is a must-see for all tourists visiting Cologne. That means the locals (like me) often don't go. I frequent the Praetorium often, but hadn't been to the RMG in years.


The best part was browsing the Museum Shop afterwards. It contains an impressive collection of historical books about the Greeks, the Romans, of course, and, to my surprise, some excellent books on the Celts and the Germanic tribes. I bought three, all in German (sorry for those not fluent in German).

 Die Kelten by Martin Kuckenburg (ISBN 978-3-8062-2274-6), a nearly-coffee table size book with gorgeous color pictures and adequate coverage of the Continental Celts.

Die Germanen, by Bruno Bleckmann (ISBN 978-3-40658476-3), B&W pictures and much text. I'm looking forward to dipping into this one

Auf Römerwegen durch die Eifel, Thomas Schiffer (ISBN 978-3-93972247-2), a bargain buy, contains a compilation of the traces of Roman presence from Cologne through the Eifel region of Germany. This will be useful for side trips, especially when on the way to somewhere else.

Review of Outlander

Outlander

 Diana Gabaldon

Dell (paperback) reissue

ISBN 978-0440212560

Some say this is a time-travel story, others say it is a historical romance, and a few grumpy people liken it to a bodice-ripper with a smattering of history thrown in. After several years of being curious about this series (six books so far, the seventh and final book due out in 2012), I finally bought the paperback this summer. It's the twentieth anniversary of Outlander's first publishing, and judging from its rank on Amazon (#3 in Time Travel Romance at amazon.com and #8 at amazon.de), its appeal is still strong no matter how you categorize it.

I whipped through the nearly 900 pages in two days and hurriedly ordered the second book. Yes, there is the time-travel aspect. Brits Claire Beauchamp, a World War II nurse, and her husband, historian Jack Randall, reunited after being separated during the war, take time to rediscover their relationship in Inverness, in the Scottish Highlands. Their holiday is disrupted when Claire takes a trip through some standing stones to eighteenth century Scotland. Once there, Claire adapts remarkably quickly to the unsanitary conditions and rough living characterized by meager diets and lack of knowledge of the benefits of personal hygiene. 

The real trouble starts when Claire is forced by an accumulation of dire circumstances to marry Jamie Fraser, a dashing (this is absolutely the correct word) Scottish Highlander. But before that, we get close to fifty pages of twentieth century Inverness, then another couple of hundred pages of castle life in eighteenth century Scotland. Readers looking for a quick read may be discouraged by the slow start.

On their wedding night, Claire finds out twenty-three-year-old Jamie is a virgin, and despite her desperate longing for her husband, (who isn't yet born!), she willingly rids Jamie of this affliction. Their abundant sexual romps as newlyweds are interrupted only by such things as kidnappings, escaping from the British, and Claire being accused of witchcraft. So, yes, this (and the other books in the series), are definitely of the bodice-ripping variety. Those who do not enjoy explicit sex scenes, be warned.  

The reader is also treated to a well-researched and faultlessly presented historical romance set in the Scottish Highlands in the days before the Jacobite uprising that ended with disaster at Culloden in 1746. Although the graphic violence may offend a few readers, and it can be questioned whether it was actually necessary, it does make for an exciting read. Jamie and Claire's travels take them through the Scottish Highlands in their quest to free Jamie from the price on his head before the English can arrest him.

Despite the slow start, I quite enjoyed this first book in the series and would recommend it to anyone looking for an enthralling read with an unforgettable character, the Scottish laird, James Alexander MacKenzie Fraser. No serious attempts are made in the first book to 'scientify' the time travel itself, so those looking for a science fiction rendition of how the standing stones can transport someone through the centuries will be disappointed. It could be argued that the time travel is more magic than science, but even magic must have rules, and we are not privy to them here.

Even though Outlander is told entirely from the first person point-of-view of Claire Beauchamp, once we reach the eighteenth century there is nary a page without Jamie Fraser in it. And that's a verra good thing. Later books suffer from an omission of this fact – we keep reading to find out what happens to this man and quickly become irritated if he is not on the page. Diana Gabaldon writes well; her detailed and concrete prose holds the story together throughout its length. The secondary characterizations often don't quite ring true, but with two such very strong protagonists, I didn't mind this overmuch in the first book. 

So, grab your bowl of parritch and start reading – if you enjoy historical time-travel romance, this book is just the right thing for long winter nights.