Spellslinger – Sebastien de Castell
In the build up to Christmas I was looking for something to read, I wanted something that had a slightly more optimistic tone, before I immersed myself into a nice dense series in January. Fate stepped in when Crownbreaker, the final book in the Spellslinger series, appeared in a Kindle daily deal. It just so happened that I had the other 5 books already, and a 6-book series would obviously be the perfect thing to slot in before I commenced on the January denseness. Spellslinger certainly seemed to fit the bill, there was a certain snarky overtone, a self-deprecating protagonist with a wry sense of humour, an amusingly abusive animal sidekick, and a frustratingly/comically obtuse mentor character.
The Jan’Tep tribe operate a sort of familial magical meritocracy, the more powerful you are, the more useful you are to the Jan’Tep, the more important your family become, and the more power and influence you wield in their society. The primacy of magic and those most skilled in its use has created an intolerant culture obsessed with Jan’Tep exceptionalism. Any Jan’Tep who has exhibited little or no magical ability by the age of 16, is viewed as a stain on a family’s reputation, and demoted to a lower class, called the Sha’Tep, who are basically treated as slaves. The Jan’Tep view other nations as vastly inferior, only their relatively small size and reliance on the geographically fixed source of their power, has prevented them from attempting to subjugate the rest of the continent, which isn’t to say that they don’t intend to try. The old Clan Prince recently died, his replacement will be the head of the most powerful family, there’s a lot of political manoeuvring going on as prominent family’s jostle for position, to become rulers of the Jan’Tep.
Kellen’s family is near the apex of society. His father is a very powerful mage, so powerful that he’s touted as a potential leader of the Jan’Tep. Kellen is fifteen, his mage trials are just around the corner, and he’s going to fail. This is not a situation that his family are thrilled about. Fortunately(?), before Kellen can fail his trials, the wrangling for the throne turns nasty and Kellen finds himself in all sorts of trouble and his previously comfortable existence turned upside down. The process is nudged along by two new companions, the mysterious interloper Ferius Parfax, a wanderer who seems determined to take Kellen under her wing and dislocate his Jan’Tep thinking, and Reichis, his new chaos loving, eyeball eating, business partner.
There’s somethings that I really like about Spellslinger, the mentor character, Ferius Parfax, would be one of them, a strong character with an intriguing backstory, sadly it’s never really explored as the narrative focuses on Kellen (Update: a seventh book has recently been announced which focuses on Ferius’ backstory, wishes do come true!). Reichis is another entertaining addition, although occasionally some of his barbs feel a little behind the times. As a break from some of the more heavyweight fantasy out there, this fits the bill, but (there was always a but coming after the first sentence of this paragraph) for reasons I’m struggling to put my finger on, something prevents me from wholeheartedly recommending this series. Could it be the main character? He swings from cocky, cold blooded killer to insecure teenager at the drop of a hat, he’s also far too self-absorbed to be immensely likeable. As the whole series is presented in the first-person from Kellen’s perspective, this is a problem, it doesn’t help that other characters are more interesting, and likable. One thing that definitely grated on me was the repetition, each book could be read independently as a separate novel, however they’re not separate, they’re a series, and when the author explains certain things in the exact same way in every book, that becomes tiring. I certainly don’t want to read the words ‘somatic’ and ‘esoteric’ again for a little while.
Despite my criticisms, this series does offer something a little different to the litany of Grimdark series which are out there currently. I’d probably have enjoyed it a little more, and been less frustrated with the repetition, if I’d had a break between each book. Overall, I’d class it as good rather than great.
One final observation, the tag line attached to the first book is ‘Magic is a con game’, this in my opinion gives the wrong impression of this series, you might be expecting a series about a magical grifter devising elaborate long cons and swindles, something similar to The Lies of Locke Lamora. That’s really not what this is, I can only really remember one con, it takes place in the second chapter of the first book and it is not long lived.