Review: Relentless Blades by Russell Carroll

Blurb:

Debut author, Russell Carroll is excited to present the thrilling fantasy saga, The Prophecies of Zarune, Volume I - Relentless Blades! It promises heart-pounding action, rich world building, and unforgettable characters. With a gripping plot, heroes to root for and villains to despise, this is a must read for any fantasy fan craving an edge-of-your-seat adventure from beginning to end. The fight for Zarune begins-are you ready?

Cross the wrong men and meet their blades!

In Zarune, peace hangs by a thread as the vragoths, once tyrannical rulers, hunger to reclaim their dominance. When an ancient scepter capable of tipping the balance of power is unearthed, they will stop at nothing to seize it.

Burdened by shame and hiding in a frontier town, Vigilanton never expected to stand against them. But when his estranged brother arrives to investigate the discovery, Vigilanton is forced to confront his past and take action. Joined by Grimlock—a half-skron driven by vengeance and haunted by guilt—they may be the realm’s only hope of stopping the vragoths.

As fates collide, unlikely allies engage in a deadly pursuit of these wicked fiends, while old grudges and past failures threaten to tear their fragile alliance apart. Time is running out, and each knows that failure will doom the land to the vragoths’ brutal reign.

Review:

Until Russell Carroll commented on a post by TJ McKay (this one here), I had no clue who he was or what his book was about. And after reading his debut novel… I’d like to see where he takes his world and his characters, not only due to the way each of the characters behave at any given circumstance, but also the very fluid dynamics of a fight scene. Carroll is a D&D player, and with that role playing knowledge also comes a few other things that help set this novel up. But I digress, for I am not a bard who spends too long on the introductions (I don’t think I do).

Had I a library or store to hand out novels, and a customer came in wondering if I had anything that went towards D&D chaos with some spins on the map and a few homebrew races tossed in, I’d hand them a copy of this novel and tell them this short sell:

“Vigilanton is a thief in the night for a crime lord in a frontier town. That is until trouble comes aknocking. All bets are off, stakes are high. Care for more?”

If they do, indeed, want to know more, then I’d oblige, since that blurb is but a footnote of happenstances in the book, and it doesn’t really point out the D&D aspect, just one of the characters in the book who drew the short end of the straw. 

I’m getting ahead of myself though, since I’ve not yet talked about Vigilanton, or Vig to his acquaintances that don’t want his head on a pike, and Grimlock.

Vig… He’s the troubled child of a family of knights, and he’s dyslexic. It may not seem like much in the short term of this review… but, as a wise (or drunk) person once put it… “Just trust me bro”, because if I said anything more than that, I’d be getting into the spoilers of the book, which I’m trying to avoid as much as humanly possible. Aside from that, he’s good with a blade, thieving, and being a slippery bugger - with a somewhat bleeding heart of gold, when he feels up to it. Some hullabaloo drags him through the mud at first, some more events decide a ravine is too kind and go for the endless void, and he starts getting his hopes up… and those hopes get shattered. And at some point the novel’s over, with everything seeming all good - at least that is what Vig hopes, but we can’t because Carroll decided to write an ending that’ll have us readers coming back.

Then, with Grimlock… the best way to sum up his character development is:

Family drama with even more psychotic family members than Vig

He’s looking for his sibling, got stuck in a town and got pulled into Vigs adventure by association and gets to survive both the same and different scenarios as his acquaintance.

Next comes the plot of the book, which, aside from some similarities with the D&D movie, is completely unhinged in a good way, since it takes us on a ride through the land, and in extension the history of the world. Shenanigans happen, which set up the novel, more shenanigans, and after a twist and a turn, we find ourselves at the end, which is but just the beginning of the end. 

Adding to the plot, there’s the world building and to properly talk about that, I need to go into the map and how everything is placed on it. Through the map, the events of the novel can be slowly pieced together in a continuous trek through the world, and I liked being able to trace their progress through that. However, it isn’t to scale and it was probably made from the perspective of some sort of cartographer, so not everything fits with where one thinks it would be, so everything on it could be wrong or placed just out of alignment.

Besides that, there’s the lore and the dragons involved with the lore. The dragons were supposedly all dead, but eggs of dragons still existed so one thing leads to another and Vragoths want them back. As for the Vragoth… they are basically demons with various traits and magical abilities

Lastly, aside from the world building and the lore, there’s also the magic system to talk about. It’s very D&Desque, with necromancers, clerics and a few other mages just hanging about. I don’t know what’s happened with the bards - they probably all died out after attempting to woo dragons back when they still existed. There’s also pyromancers, but that’s, at least in regards to this novel, mostly limited to the Vragoth. As for the clerics, they are more in line with what one would have pictured as a paladin, but it’s not too much of a difference, they just have access to SMITE in limited circumstances.

Now, besides the fun parts of the novel, there’s also a thing that irked me, and it’s my own view on it, and it’ll be different for each reader, and that is the dialogue. At some point, it becomes more realistic, but it stumbles around in the beginning. It does get better, it just takes about the first eighth of the novel to get through to get to that part.

If you like Dungeons and Dragons, cool fights that are dynamic, banter, and so much more, Russell Carrolls debut novel, “Relentless Blades”, is for you.

As always, thank you for reading this review, and I hope I’ve been able to help nudge you towards your next read. If not, don’t fret, here’s a random link to another review on the site that may or may not be to your liking. But therein lies the fun. Journey before destination, as one great book put it.

Wherever you are reading this review, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night!