Charles Saunders' Abengoni Gets Reviewed

My review of Charles "Father of Swords & Soul" Saunders Abengoni: First Calling went up this morning at Black Gate. It's his first effort at writing epic fantasy instead of his more usual S&S. He's succeeded brilliantly.

Abengoni features a larger cast and number of narrative lines than anything else I've read by Saunders before. There's even a glossary of people, places, and things in the back.

Unlike they typical fantasy doorstopper, A:FC comes in at under 400 pages unlike Erikson's bazillion page long Malazan tomes. Saunders doesn't wast time and wordage, instead keeping things on target.

The sideplots he does include never lose sight of what they're doing; introducing characters and exploring things not readily important but that will be. Too many epics get lost in jungles of extraneous matters that make you pine for the them to get back to telling the main story. A: FC doesn't do that at all.

I was surprised when a commenter over at Black Gate said he had never heard of Saunders. That he isn't a much more well known writer is one of those things that just makes me scratch his head. Imaro was groundbreaking as well as great S&S. It's one of the first times African themes were used as the basis for a fantasy world, eschewing the typical European tropes of Fantasyland.

But I get it. I only became aware of Saunders in 2001. At that point he'd fallen silent for a decade an a half and his novels were long out of print. I tracked them down in used book stores but it wasn't easy. Getting my hands on The Trail of Bohu, the third and final book in the series (At that point. A fourth has, The Naama War, has since been published), was extremely satisfying.

Now the man is on a roll. He's cranking out books, getting them published come Hell or highwater. He's working with Milton Davis editing anthologies. Which is great for me as a reader.

Last week I learned the Muffs, one of my favorite bands, have a new album out. It's their first in ten years. When I wrote this past weekend I listed to all their albums.

Vlad Taltos and Something Very Special

Wanting something quick to read for this week's review, I picked up the second Vlad Taltos book, Yendi. It's got it's problem (go read my review at Black Gate), but the characters, world, and writing are all a blast. I'll definitely read more. 

Over the summer, Milton Davis, publisher, writer, sword & soul/steamfunk mastermind, asked me if I'd like to read a book he was going to be publishing later this year:  Charles R. Saunder's first novel in a new series. Sure, I said. Why wouldn't I want to get an early look at something brand new from one of the real greats of S&S? 

The book, Abengoni: First Calling is an epic. I won't say too much at this point, but dang, this is good, exciting stuff. It's a huge-canvas work, with dozens of characters, and lots of plot, but written without a spare word or fat. This is what epic fantasy should be. 

It's been about a year since I started blogging reviews for Black Gate. Looking back, I'm pretty happy with what I've done. Hopefully, readers have enjoyed them and picked up some good books that they might have missed. 

I've read thirty-seven books and thirteen batches of stories for the monthly round ups (that's about sixty-five stories). Twenty-five of those novels were first time reads for me and most were pretty damn good. I'm glad John O'Neil gave me the chance to do this and I hope to keep it up for as long as I can manage. 

As I often do these days, I'm going back in time for my music this week. Here's some Black Dio and early Deep Purple. In the video for "Lazy", watch Ritchie Blackmore's face as during the bit before Gillan comes in. Absolute fun.