Lord of the Isles is the first of seven books in the Isles’ series by David Drake and a solid contender for your dark, adult (as in adult themes not as in boobs and things everywhere) non-cutesy fantasy bookshelf. And this despite one of the early characters in the books being a three inch high butt naked sprite (So I take it back about the boobs but they aren’t truly everywhere) who does handstands and cartwheels instead of verbal punctuation (never mind!). Alright snark aside, that sprite is actually one of my favorite characters in the book and despite being naked and making continuous comments along the lines of ‘oooh you’re so strong!’ (urg) is quite a-sexual otherwise.
The story in short is that a great evil power, Malkar rises in the Isles every millennium and brings with it chaos, war and powerful magics. Instruments for and against this evil are able to prod people onto paths that will take them into conflict or on to solving tasks for these “players”. And in the sleepy shepherd’s village of Barker’s Hamlet great changes are afoot as destiny leads several of its inhabitants on a quest to save the Isles.
So plot-wise it’s pretty standard in that the nobody protag suddenly find himself (or themselves in this case) saddled with a new terrifying future and possibly some big bad that’s after them which turns out to actually want to mess with everybody. The fact that several young people in this tiny fishing port play the role of unwitting heir or wizard or both is a bit much to swallow but more on that below.
David Drake is a name that has been surfacing in my periphery for years now. Usually as one in a list of names in the back of an Honor Harrington book. I finally got around to reading one of his books and while publishers and reviewers the world over mostly think of him as a military SF writer (and I fully intend to delve into that side of his bibliography at a later date), he has also been very happy to publish, a number of fantasy series. One of which starts with The Lord of the Isles, a book Tor Books published in 2005.
David Drake, It’s authors like this that make me nervous about posting photos of myself with my writing. Perhaps I can get a model stand-in…
The setting of the book is varied and interesting and just enough different from your usual fare to hit the pro list. It’s a mix of medieval and renaissance-like cultures and societies which is par for the course for the genre. He liberally grabs into the goodie bag for other planes, demons, demon dogs, sprites, nymphs, undead, Bug-people, reptilian people and much more. So much more. It’s a crazy mix but it works. And interestingly the religion is based of Sumerian religion which also twists the setting off the well-trodden course of celtic/norse et cetera’s and therefore also a plus:
I based the religion on that of Sumer–for the heck of it, no real reason except that I had the background to do it and most people wouldn’t. It’s not as well known as, say, the Celtic milieu. I based the culture of the Isles more or less on that of medieval and early modern England, but with a heavy admixture of the Classical Mediterranean.
~ David Drake
The thing about everyone in this two-bit village being the heir apparent or the direct descendant of, or a powerful wizard or the most badass monk in the world who just happened to choose this particular nowhere to settle down as a crazy hermit, well… On one hand it’s sort of explained away with these powerful influencers prodding away at people’s lives in the background, but it’s also sort of over the top. But if you can get past that it will take you to all the good bits of the book though, including his very awesome action scenes.
One of the group of protagonists was a girl I instantly identified with. She has a disposition Jessica Jones would scowl and clink a glass of booze with. Obviously my spiritual sister there! She fucks up though, goes dark side and has to get rescued and immediately is kidnapped again and has to get rescued. Meh. Apart from that she’s bad ass and has a neat, neat magic weaving power that lent her the feel of what one of the Norse Norns might have been in their own action adventure (That’s who Odin had to pay the eye to to get access to some inside info and spend time hanging from the tree of life. Long story. Norns. Bad ass. Do not F*ck with!).
As many of us do, Norn girl picks them bad (S.O. excepted of course!) and has her heart set on the Vanilla hero who is about as interesting as my nickname for him implies. He gets a sword, a bloodline and an imaginary friend. Wewt, wewt…
Her brother on the other hand is an interesting character. Outwardly his appearance of a big slow ox is a deceptive frame for a deliberate, thoughtful and to the point sort of guy. He will take the time to think his options through, then he’ll pick one and do it, come hell or high water. He’s a tank mentality but Drake gave him a skillset of a mage. Or perhaps a shaman. It’s less with the funky symbols and weird herbs and a lot more with directly tugging at the fabric of reality. He too gets a new, secret friend to guide him in traversing this new life of his. Well, I guess you can’t be a hero in spe without a Gandalf to set you on your path.
The inn keep maid has more spunk and certainly more backbone than any of the other women save perhaps the old crone. I like her. Or at least she doesn’t make me cringe and want to burn my bra. Which would be a dangerous thing for me to do and should be avoided at any cost. She teams up with Nonnus, a assassin-monk-hermit-healer who wields a spear and a long dagger and can MacGuyver a boat out of two pieces of cork and a toothpick.
He’s also hitting all the daddy issues buttons by being on one hand the Maid’s protector and on the other encouraging her to fight and think for herself. Like this guy a lot. You will too. Those two are pitted against a pair of well-written super annoying nobles one of which is a mage with more hormones and skill than understanding. See that’s a combination that will put some action in your story. What a twat! Awesome!
On the con side of things I’m sad to say most of the Big bads will have to hobble together. They aren’t really that interesting or imposing or scary. Sad, pathetic evil for the sake of evil creatures that have to be put down, sure but don’t really touch the protagonists or the reader in any profound way. Oh well.
Still overall it was a solid good tale and if it flagged here and there I’d say the setting and some of the characters definitely hold up their end enough to go ahead and buy the book. Let’s call it 3 Bah Sheep and a little baby bah sheep out of 5?
So go buy it:
OR
Buy it directly from Baen books in every conceivable file format format!
And visit David Drake’s author page to learn more about his books and about Lord of the Isles.
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