When Falcio val Mond became First Cantor of the king's Greatcoats, traveling administrators of the King's Law and defenders of the common folk, it was the fulfillment
of a childhood dream... a dream that became a nightmare the day the power-hungry Dukes struck down King Paelis and disbanded the Greatcoats. Now called Trattari,
tattercloaks, traitors and cowards, they have been scattered to the four winds as the Dukes and Dutchesses crush their people beneath heavy heels. But, before his
execution, Paelis swore each Greatcoat to a personal quest, and Falcio means to complete it. Even when that quest marks him and his two remaining Greatcoat companions as
assassins. Even when they are drawn into royal machinations in the most corrupt city of the realm. Even when the Gods and Saints themselves seem to have abandoned him. To
give up on his quest is to abandon the last shreds of his honor - and his last shreds of hope that, someday, the Greatcoats might rise again.
Review
Many reviews consider this a fantastical tip of the hat to Dumas's classic The Three Musketeers. Even knowing the tale mostly through cultural osmosis, that's
about the closest description I can think of, a swashbuckling adventure of swordplay and camaraderie and seeking justice in an unjust world, riddled with larger-than-life
characters (villains and heroes) who nonetheless feel real and rounded - at least real and rounded for their inherently larger-than-life world of both gods and magic.
Falcio struggles to keep his much-battered notion of idealism alive in the face of twisted terrors and power-mad royalty and a world gone to rot at its very core. For all
the glib lightness of Falcio's narrative voice, the story ventures into some dark territory at times, and many sacrifices are necessary. Some plot points border on tired
tropes, but play out well enough I mostly forgave the odd low-hanging fruit. The tale moves at a fair gallop, with many twists and turns along the way to a satisfactory
conclusion that sets up the rest of the series - a series I'll have to add to my bookstore shopping list now. (Like I needed another one to follow... but this is one of
those problems a reader loves to have.)
A Jan'Tep is strong. A Jan'Tep is loyal to clan and family. A Jan'Tep wields magic both to strike and defend. All his life, fifteen-year-old Kellen has striven
to live up to the expectations of his people and especially his father. All his life, he has failed, mostly because his magic has failed. Not one of the six bands
on his forearms, indicating the six powers over which a Jan'Tep sorcerer may exert control, has burst to glowing life, while his younger sister Shallan is well on
her way to being the youngest confirmed mage in clan history. Worse, what little power he can hold grows less by the day. If he cannot pass the four mage trials by
his birthday, he will be declared Sha'Tep, a powerless servant, relegated to menial tasks in the household - or, worse, sent to the mines, the ultimate shame upon
the family. Hard as he struggles, he cannot seem to do what he needs to in order to be a proper Jan'Tep, but knows no other way to live... until he meets the
woman with the flame-red hair.
Ferius has a strange accent, peculiar customs, and the most bizarre ideas - like the notion that the Jah'Tep aren't really the greatest people in the known world,
with the strongest magics. Her pockets hold foul smoking-reeds and myriad cards, each of which holds mysteries that Kellen, for all that he should be above such
outsider nonsense, cannot help wanting to unravel. Everyone else in the clan is convinced that the woman is a spy at best, or an active traitor at worst. When the
clan prince dies and a strange illness weakens the magic of Kellen's fellow initiates, even more suspicion falls on the stranger. But Kellen can't believe she's to
blame. His efforts to uncover the truth lead to secrets too dangerous to expose - secrets that will rewrite how he thinks of his family, his clan, and the powers
upon which the Jan'Tep have built their reputation.
Review
At first, this reads like a fun, witty tale with an underdog hero struggling to come of age under difficult circumstances. Somewhere along the way, though, things
stop being quite as fun... or, rather, the tone remains somewhat fun, but the story and characters become less so, and not in a good way. Sarcastic characters have
to still be likable, but I came to resent being stuck in Kellen's head. He's just too obtuse, requiring multiple mule kicks to the cranium to drive anything into his
brain; I lost track of how many times he was surprised by the level of sheer sadism his people, particularly his peers, could inflict. (And they are, indeed,
sadistic, torturing animal and human alike in terrible ways, again and again and again. I got the point early on; later instances started feeling repetitious,
driving the nail of "They're Not Good People!" in with fierce hammer blows long after the head of the nail vanished into the wood.) The supporting cast isn't much
deeper than Kellen, unfortunately, and the girls - despite his sister Shallan's prodigal abilities - have a way of degenerating into helplessness at key moments. Even
the stranger Ferius needs rescuing by the fifteen-year-old not-quite-mage more than seems strictly necessary, for all that she teaches him a few of the tricks he uses
to rescue others. Speaking of rescues, de Castell seems unusually verbose and slow in relating these pivotal moments, even when Kellen's in the middle of a firefight
where every millisecond of hesitation could be the difference between life or death. I kept wanting to reach into the book and give him a shove to get moving,
already.
Aside from all that, it's a not-bad story of growing up, learning to see past the lies on which reputations and histories are too often built, even whether or not it
is ever justified to let rage and vengeance run loose, but by the end I was mostly turning pages to finish, not because I was deeply absorbed in a somewhat-telegraphed
conclusion (that, despite several gratuitously gruesome deaths, goes out of its way to spare key players, presumably for future installments.) Even the title term,
"spellslinger," hardly ever comes up in the text; it doesn't even get mentioned until maybe the three-fourths point in the book and hardly figures into the plot at all,
so it seems a bit odd (and, yes, a bit of a spoiler) to name the story for it. Spellslinger can be fun and moves fairly well (if sometimes in circles), but I
couldn't help feeling it should've been better.
