SF/F Review: The Armored Saint by Myke Cole: https://t.co/gXbxYuX8XC Short Review: 8 out of 10 (1/3)— garik16 (@garik16) March 17, 2018
Short Review (cont): The Armored Saint is a short dark novel featuring an origin story of a young woman Heloise who can't help resisting a fascist military authority that purges people for potentially being wizards...for good reason. A good start to a series, tho short. (2/3)— garik16 (@garik16) March 17, 2018
The Armored Saint is Myke Cole's debut into the fantasy genre, being more known for his MilSFF Shadow Ops series. It's a short novel - coming in at 200 pages, it straddles the borderline between novella and novel - and is the first in a series (the sequel, clocking in at 256 pages, comes out in October). I'm treating the book as a novel instead of a novella for this review since the sequel is definitely too big for the novella definition, and the book is definitely more substantial than a novella (although just barely).
I read the first in one of Cole's two MilSFF trilogies (Gemini Cell) and wasn't particularly enthused by the result - feeling the book felt way too much like a prologue and didn't have enough substance to keep my interest. In a way, The Armored Saint is similar - the story is very much another origin story in this new genre and readers will be spending most of the book waiting for the event on the cover to come to pass. But this book still worked a lot better for me than Gemini Cell, and I do look forward to what is coming next.
Note: As you should be able to tell from the cover, this is a DARK book. Do not read this if you want something light and fun.
More after the jump:
-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
In the distant past, the Empire and its Palentines - holy warriors or saints - fought against an invasion of demons. These demons entered the mortal plane through the eyes of those who dabbled in Wizardry, and the Palentines gave their lives to kill every last one of them and save all of mankind. In order to prevent this from ever recurring, an Order was established and a creed was spread all across the empire: "Suffer no wizard to live."
Heloise is a young woman living with her respected father Samson in a small town in the Empire. She's secretly in love with her best friend, the local smith's daughter, and simply wants a happy and fair life. But when the Order forces the village to help them slaughter a neighboring town just because of the suspicion of wizardry, she cannot help herself from struggling against their orders and her father is forced to act to protect her. Having defied the Order, she and her family are suddenly wanted fugitives and have to hide in the village to survive reprisal.
But Heloise isn't one to be content solely with life in hiding, and her wants and desires for fairness may cause the destruction of all she knows.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, like the first book in Cole's other trilogy that I've read, The Armored Saint is very much its protagonist's origin story. The main difference is that Heloise is such a better character - an innocent young woman who desires not only something that is generally forbidden as well as a fair just world, she makes a fascinating protagonist in her decisions. Her actions make sense and like the best characters, I really wanted to root for her and felt for her whenever things weren't going her way. The other characters in the book are also well done, particularly the gay Ranger who tries to make sure things are going okay for Heloise.*
*My loan on the book ran out, and I forgot his name, sorry!*
The world is also a lot more interesting. The idea of a tyrannical military force/organization whose purpose is still valid and might justify the means is not a new one (and certainly relevant in these times) but Cole pulls it off very well. And the other features of the setting - the village, the war machines (see the cover), and magic are also done well.
That said, it still does suffer from the same problem as Cole's other novel I've read - in that the reader is quite aware where the plot is eventually going to go from the beginning and the book ends right after it gets there, which is kind of annoying. I'm not kidding here - the ending is more or less spoiled by the cover and title of the book - you're going to be wondering when his Heloise going to use that armor and become "The Armored Saint" from the start, and while the cause for it happening isn't totally predictable, it's annoying that it doesn't actually happen until the very end of this work. Given the length of this book and the next one, it makes one wonder if the two couldn't simply have been combined into a single book.
Still, overall The Armored Saint's character development and worldbuilding at least make the journey worth it, even when the destination is quite well known. I will be picking up book 2 when it comes up in October, to see how things turn out (thankfully the cover and title of that book don't seem to give away anything obvious to me).
No comments:
Post a Comment