Review: The Envoys of War by Dave Lawson

Blurb:

Don’t kill the messengers.

As a bodyguard for the King’s Envoys, Gen is content with her life of traveling, drinking wine, and hitting things with her sword. It’s the perfect job. Until the King sends her and her friend Cordyn into war-torn enemy territory on a mission to deliver vital military intelligence to an allied nation.

The problem? The mission is a sham.

Gen is tasked with determining if Cordyn is a spy who is selling information to the enemy. Cordyn is the worst kind of libertine: brash, arrogant, and on the run from half the husbands in the kingdom, but Gen can’t imagine him betraying her or their nation.

With obtuse bandits, vengeful mages, and a resolute lutist, they embark on a daring rescue mission, complicated by Cordyn’s increasingly complex schemes. As ominous enemy plots surface, Gen and Cordyn must decide what matters most. Their nation or their friends.

A rollicking fantasy adventure for fans of Dungeons and Dragons, Nicholas Eames, and Michael J. Sullivan.

Review:

Due to this book coming out in two months, it doesn't feel necessary to write a review right now, but because I read so much, it behooves me to write this now instead of later, since I might have gotten through 20-30 books before "Envoys of War" officially comes out. My first interaction with Dave Lawson was a few messages traded back and forth on Discord over Ryan Skeffington's novel "Lost Souls". Then, a bit later, there was a community hang out in the VC and we, alongside Boe and a few others, talked for a while. Fast forward to a few days ago, and I forgot to download a book from an email, with "Envoys of War" suspiciously already on my device. So I started reading and inhaled the novel without much of a second thought.

If I wanted to talk a friend into reading "Envoys of War", I'd give them this small snippet to garner their attention:

"Gen is asked to do the unimaginable, spy on her best friend while on a mission. Unbeknownst to her, something worse is brewing in the shadows."

, alongside my usual question about whether or not they'd like to hear more. If they do want to hear more of my ramblings (*if you are still reading this, you are also included*), well, what will follow this paragraph would be my book monologue to them.

First off, we have the characters. Gen and Cordyn. Gen is asexual, way too attached to her blade, and is good at hacking and slashing away at anything the crown points her at. She doesn't get the social need to be with people. On the other hand, Cordyn is a less drunk, more or less asasine Jack Sparrow who wants for nothing and buys the most luxurious clothing possible. Throughout the book both Gen and Cordyn get tossed into the lion's den multiple times.

With Gen... she battles with her desire to be a good friend with the order to spy on Cordyn, almost cracking under the pressure multiple times.

And with Cordyn, he has a superiority complex and a need to be with people. And he likes antagonizing them. Needless to say that that leads to many incidents where he ends up in a pickle. For him, he learns a bit in the ways of actually being there for his friends, and is not always an asshole to others.

After that, I'd like to dive into Lawson's worldbuilding. He drew up a map before the actual map copy was available so that we ARC people could have our satisfaction with a good map. The only gripe about it is that there is a former village marked on the map. WHICH FORMER VILLAGE??? Besides that, the map shows us where exactly Gen and Cordyn are traveling. Each region has their own specific tastes, traditions and values, as well as climates, both political and ecological. For this specific book, I’ll be staring at three of them:

Oban, Piran and Rosenfel, with the isle of Winn, Trunel and Kosel taking a small part in the whole thing. Oban is on the southeast side of Sarakan, stretching all the way inland into the Sarakan range. Rosenfell is in the center of the map and has the imperial forest down south as a border, the Sarakan range as another border to the east and northeast, with the Sea of Dread separating it from the isle of Winn in the north. And Piran is at the southwest side of the map, being cut off in the east by the country of Nazlin.Oban has some strange fellows who are obsessed with the word sword, Rosenfell loves its mage academy and experiments, whereas Piranians are mostly cold and enjoy a lot of winterplum wine. The other countries are all off doing their own thing and are posing relatively no inconvenience to the general line of the story.

Then, the plot exists. Ah yes, the plot with a murderhobo and theater kid. Is there anything that could go wrong with that? Many things.It starts out simple enough, and then goes down a rabbit hole of more and more hullabaloo until the somewhat final battle of the first in a series happens. However, it is more than just Gen and Cordyn being mayhem incarnate on their journey for the crown… no, there’s a lurking figure in the shadows who has his own plot going on, and it turns from a relatively straightforward theater kid escapade with someone who can hack and slash to… the same thing but with someone actively contemplating whether he should or shouldn’t kill one of the characters in a simple way or a brutal and humiliating way. That adds more shenanigans, and by the end of it, the only real villain is one of the mages from Rosenfel.

Speaking of mages, let's talk about magic in “The Envoys of War”. If you have a bingo card and there’s a tile that says “book with mages that can only control water”, put a mark on it, because this book is that. Now, at first glance, the water aspect is just boring… “manipulate water? The only thing I can do with that is create fun twirly shapes and maybe drown people with it.” To which this novel would reply: “Hold my beer”. Because, while at first glance it is just water, they’re able to heat it up or cool it down to whatever they desire, as well as control anything that has water in it, leading to the more advanced mages being able to enhance beings. And they can create unbreakable objects that can only be dissolved by another mage. Needless to say, normal foot soldiers stand no chance, so most armies have at least one of those watery fellows wandering about. And the isle of Winn… full of those watery fellows.

Finally, I need to talk about what wasn’t on par with me. Some of Cordyns stunts happened too fast, and it would’ve been nice to see more of his thought process and less of the “where’d he pull that idea from?” from the rest of the characters. However, besides that, I had a blast reading this ball of chaos that would have only been at least partially influenced by a few nat 1s.

If you like theater, sword slashing, and absolute mayhem caused by at least one of the two main characters, and a few harrowing moments with a bit of comedy, “The Envoy of War” by Dave Lawson is for you.

As always, thank you for reading this review, and I hope I’ve helped nudge you towards your next read. If not, don’t fret, we have a huge collective of reviews in the back of the site, and this link here should send you to a random page of reviews, author interviews and cover reveals.

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