Friday, April 5, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes




Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the novel's release on April 9, 2019 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way (if I'd hated the book, I just would not have reviewed it). 

 Seven Blades in Black is the first in a new epic fantasy trilogy by author Sam Sykes.  I enjoy Sykes on twitter (you may be familiar with his comedic interactions with Chuck Wendig) but my experience with his actual work has been a bit more mixed - I enjoyed the first in his "Bring Down Heaven" fantasy trilogy (A City Stained Red, review here), but found the second in the trilogy (The Mortal Tally, review here) to be a massive disappointment, with some unlikable characters and a way too slow storyline.  So I had some mixed feelings going into Sykes' release of the first in a new trilogy, but put in the request for a prerelease ARC anyway to see if I'd feel differently.

The result is....mixed, but mostly positive I'd say.  Seven Blades in Black very much feels like a mash-up of "Kill Bill" and "The Usual Suspects" - except you know, if those movies had magic, giant mecha, gunslingers, demons....you know, the usual fantasy smorgasboard.  Sykes crafts a really interesting (though crapsack) world for this revenge tale that kept me engaged from beginning to end, even when several of the book's big "reveals" were rather obvious and easy to see coming.  Best of all, while this is apparently the first in a trilogy, it works quite well as a stand-alone, so there's less of a commitment needed to go into this book - well, less of a commitment other than committing to reading a 700 page book.  Still, there are some pretty serious flaws as well that keep Seven Blades in Black from being a real winner, particularly the way its female protagonist is written.

------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
Sal the Cacophony is scheduled for execution by her captors: the revolutionary army who fights on behalf of non-magical people against the Imperium, the government of mages which Sal used to serve.  Sal is a Vagrant - one of the mages of the Imperium who went rogue when the Imperium fell into the hands of a boy without any magic.  But the General who captured Sal wants answers to what happened to a Revolutionary Soldier who crossed Sal's path, and so Sal agrees to tell her the story:

The story of how Sal the Cacophony, armed only with a powerful magical gun known as The Cacophony, went out to track down seven of the most powerful Vagrants alive, in order to wreak her revenge.  But the seven names on Sal's hit-list are the names of the Imperium's greatest traitors, who each posses incredible power, and seek to use such power once again to transform the world without any thought to the thousands of lives that will perish if they get their way.

Not that Sal cares much for the innocents who get in the way either, mind you.  All she cares about is the names on her list dying by her hand, and no one else's.  And the result will be bloody and destructive, leaving no one happy by the end....if they even survive.
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Seven Blades in Black is told mostly from the perspective of Sal in first person - using a Usual-Suspects-esque framing device of Sal telling the story to an interrogator right before her execution.  The parts that aren't from Sal's perspective are in third person from the point of view of her interrogator, but they're quite clearly more there for the framing device of this novel.  Still, the real story told by Sal is compelling enough on its own that it's hard to complain on that front.

Mainly (with the major exception noted below) that's because Sal is a really fun and generally interesting character at the heart of the story.  Jaded and bitter, but still with some appreciation for naive idealism (sort-of), Sal's most noted trait is something she notes herself more than once - given a roadblock in front of her, Sal's response is pretty much always to take the option that is seemingly the most stupid insane and impulsive way to go around or through it.  Intensely capable and yet not really caring for either of the sides in conflict in this world, but still caring a little bit for a few characters she loves, Sal is a walking contradiction and Sykes makes her work rather well.  Which is good, because she's the only really really well developed character in this novel.

Still, the book works really well despite the lack of major developed other characters because it sets up a hell of a world - with two feuding major powers that Sal frequently finds herself caught between and more than a few minor powers causing problems for her as well - and Sykes does an excellent job making them each work well.  The combination of technology and magic make for a really strong backdrop for this plot, which only made me want to read more about this really shitty (for the people who live in it) world.

Sykes does an excellent job with the plot and action as well - the book is 700 pages but it moves rather quickly and I got through it in two days, which is pretty quick for me believe it or not.  The action scenes - and there are many as you might imagine for a revenge tale - are excellently done and very creative, and while the plot is predictable at times, it is rather satisfying, particularly in the ending.  This is the first of a trilogy supposedly, but the book functions perfectly find as a stand-alone, so the result is very satisfying even if you're not looking to start a brand new series.

The biggest flaw in Seven Blades in Black for me is a weird one to describe, but it's so blatant it's impossible to ignore: its protagonist is a (queer) woman, but the way she is written is as if she's a man.  As noted above, most of the book is written from Sal's first person point of view and yet it's fairly common for her to use gendered language, and it's always male language - from talking about how you can know "what a man is made of" to calling someone a "bitch" to mocking a male character by saying she's going to give that character a "girl's voice" in her retelling of the story.  I kept forgetting she wasn't a man, and once I noticed it, it was kind of distracting - it's too obviously a male author trying to write a female character....and failing (oddly, I don't recall this issue in Sykes' other books).

That's really the only major flaw in the book.  There are some minor flaws: for example, the book at times is incredibly predictable, and you will guess some major reveals well ahead of time (I did on twitter, so I can call those).  Also, the relationship between one of the two main antagonists and Sal isn't shown enough in the flashbacks to my taste.  Still these are minor compared to the above, and the book executes even its most cliched or predictable twists rather well, to make a pretty strong ride all the way through.
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