Dave Duncan – A Man of His Word / A Handful of Men
Following on from the my previous post on the merits of Dave Duncan’s The Seventh Sword, here’s a look at a couple more of his collections, although it’s really one series in two parts.
A Man of His Word/A Handful of Men
Pandemia is a world populated by all the major fantasy races, Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, Trolls, Fairies, Mer folk, Gnomes, Djinn, Fawns, and perhaps most importantly for this particular story, Jotnar (Viking types) and Imps. In Pandemia words of power bestow abilities onto their owners. One word amplifies an already present talent to genius levels. Two words creates an adept, someone who can successfully master any talent. Three words makes a mage and with it the power to perform temporary magic. Knowledge of four words creates a sorcerer, an immensely powerful being capable of changing reality. There’s a few other rules, some words are more powerful than others, natural talent allows an individual to better exploit the power within a word, and words can be shared which shares out the power of the word amongst the owners, the more owners of a word the weaker it’s effect on the individual owners. Words of power are highly prized and ruthlessly collected, to own just one or two can be very dangerous, owners of three or even four may come looking to harvest additional power, either by gaining the word for themselves or by gaining control of the individual.
Inosolan is the charming, intelligent, and independent, Princess of Krasnegar, a tiny kingdom in the far north polar region of Pandemia. Tiny but not insignificant, unusually it is the only place in Pandemia where Imps and Jotnar co-exist (somewhat) peacefully. The Kingdom is also strategically important as a neutral trading port for many goods. Krasnegar has been ruled by a line of Kings since its formation, a situation mostly tolerated by both Imps and Jotnar each, as the alternative would be control of the port for the other. Princess Inosolan is an only child though and approaching a suitable age for marriage, a poorly chosen match could lead to a war. The time has come for Inosolan to leave Krasnegar to attend a finishing school in the Impire (home of the Imps, obvs).
Rap is Inosolan’s childhood friend, an orphan and a stable boy in the castle at Krasnegar, as they’ve grown up he realised that his feelings extend beyond friendship, he also recognised that his lowly status will prevent him from ever expecting anything in return. As Inosolan is leaving, Rap is coming to terms with his own transition from child to adult and attempting to discover his place in the world. Aside from the standard growing pains, Rap begins to exhibit some unusual abilities, a development that Rap is distinctly uncomfortable with.
Then the King becomes ill, like sharks, certain undesirable players begin to circle Krasnegar. Not only is there the chance to gain control of the important town, but there have long been rumours that the King possesses a word of power, something his daughter will inherit along with the Kingdom, both of which her eventual husband could reasonably be expected to gain control of.
A Man of His Word (AMOHW) is a far cry from the current trend for gritty, grimdark fantasy, as per Joe Abercrombie or George RR Martin. This series romanticises a much more upbeat, old fashioned, good vs. evil brand of fantasy. You could be forgiven for reading the synopsis above, ticking off the cliches – Standard fantasy races and stereotypes? Tick; A beautiful but impetuous Princess? Tick; A lowly orphan with unusual powers? Tick; and writing the series off as just another Tolkien clone. From a purely cynical viewpoint you’d be correct, but the strength of this series is not in the development of new tropes, it is very much in the implementation of the existing ones.
The author has created a strong collection of central characters, while they don’t have grimdark levels of ambiguous inner machinations, they do all exhibit enough flaws and weaknesses to become fully fleshed, believable people. Pandemia makes sense as a world, complete with political and cultural histories. The various races are not fully fledged versions, rather they seem to be humans with traits borrowed from the classical fantasy races: Elves have pointy ears and artistic tendencies; Dwarves are short, grumpy and love precious metals; Goblins, green tinge and poor house guests; Jotnar, rape, pillage, quaff beer, repeat. Each race interacts with others in the way you’d expect, e.g. Dwarves and Elves, not best buddies.
All of that is not to say there is no ingenuity on display, the magic system is unique and very well developed, the rules governing its use are applied consistently. And having just skimmed a few parts of the series to help write this review, I realised that certain aspects of the magic system, which don’t become material until the end of the follow on series, A Handful of Men, are present in the first few chapters of The Magic Casement. While I found this surprising, it just reaffirmed the strength of the system and the skill of the author.
I unapologetically love this series, I love the characters, I love the setting and I love the story. If you held a gun to my head and forced me to pick a fault in this series, then I would probably tell you that the adventure takes a while to get going, probably half of the first book. But I’d then argue that there is no fluff or waste, just a highly skilled author building solid foundations that pay off over the rest of the series. Half a book of scene setting for seven and a half books of high-quality storytelling feels like a fair compromise to me.
Just in case there is any doubt, this is one of my all-time favourite fantasy series, I can’t recommend it highly enough.