Blood Song • Anthony Ryan

Fantasy novels are always a lovely change of pace and keep finding their way onto my ever-growing TBR pile. My bar is pretty high these days, and the Hobbit Press program from Klett-Cotta is my absolute favorite. From Tad Williams to Tolkien, they publish the big titles, and this time I read a book from their list again. Blood Song has been heavily promoted and has received consistently strong reviews. It’s the first volume of the Raven’s Shadow trilogy, and whether it’s worth reading—and whether volumes two and three are already on my shelf—you’ll find out in the lines below.

Blood Song had to wait quite a while on my TBR stack. I wanted to save it for when I was really in the mood for fantasy—which reliably happens from time to time. Naturally, I went for the hardcover, even though there’s now a cheaper trade paperback. Sadly, there’s no ribbon bookmark and it’s glued rather than thread-sewn, but I still love Klett-Cotta hardcovers. They have a satisfyingly chunky form factor, the colors are well chosen, and the covers always tempt with very stylish illustrations.

The story is recounted retrospectively by Vaelin Al Sorna, a famous warrior who, at the outset, is in captivity on his way to a final duel. To the imperial historian he narrates his life starting from his youth: how his father, the King’s Battle Lord, delivers him to the Sixth Order, where he has to prove himself—an almost monastic order in which elite warriors are trained for the Faith by fairly rough methods. But the first volume carries on beyond that period, and we learn how Vaelin achieves fame and glory and ends up in the situation with which the story begins.

After just a few pages it’s clear you’re getting a classic high fantasy tale. Ryan treads safe paths and offers a world and storyline built almost entirely from well-worn elements. On the one hand, that’s wonderful—that’s exactly what you want from a fantasy novel of this sort. On the other hand, a fresh idea here and there would have been nice. But the genre has been so thoroughly mined that it’s hard to pull something truly new out of the hat.

Ryan uses a few narrative devices that reliably work. At the beginning, for example, there’s that school/academy setup. It worked brilliantly for Harry Potter, for Trudi Canavan’s The Black Magician trilogy (the “Sonea” series in German), or for Rothfuss’s Kvothe in The Kingkiller Chronicle—which makes sense, because everyone can easily relate to a protagonist in a school-like environment. We meet Vaelin as a child, and Ryan naturally taps into the Bildungsroman vein; by now every last publisher and author knows how well that kind of self-discovery arc lands with readers. Of course, the fantasy-typical battles are here, as is a Norse-tinged world. What’s more, his protagonist Vaelin is a Jean Valjean type: practically an unbeatable fighter—brave, strong, steadfast, morally upright—who handles almost every situation with poise and confidence. Much like Rothfuss does with Kvothe, this caters to a certain narcissism, since readers usually identify with the main character. The foreknowledge that the opponent is about to get thoroughly trounced is a device that film and TV have already chewed to death.

If you take this package of rather old and often-used devices and mix in a hearty dose of fantasy, you get a book that’s genuinely exciting and entertaining. His descriptions have a cinematic quality, and the scenes play vividly before the mind’s eye. So yes, this is full-on head-cinema. The book also moves at a good clip; it’s never boring and the story keeps pushing forward. The reader is often kept in the dark about key information that Vaelin uncovers bit by bit, which adds to the suspense. I was a little disappointed by the sparse descriptions of the world—and of the characters, too, which are often rather thin. That can be an advantage—your imagination can roam—but the landscapes I still remember from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn had a strong atmospheric density that’s somewhat missing here. I’ve just read too many travelogues and beautifully rendered depictions of nature, fauna, and flora in literature for me not to expect them in truly outstanding books. As a result, his world is only moderately brought to life. Authors like Tad Williams and, of course, Tolkien are miles ahead on that front.

What really works in this book is the action. You get your money’s worth, and compared to moving pictures, Blood Song definitely lines up with action films. There are numerous skirmishes, battles, fights, duels—blood flies, and the protagonist’s path is littered with corpses. It’s great stuff, and combined with that cinematic feel, it’s highly entertaining.

Quite different, however, are the characters and dialogues, which are very often rather one-dimensional. You run into a fair number of stereotypes here, and none of the figures truly grew dear to me—not even Vaelin, who, in temperament and intellect, isn’t exactly a revelation. He keeps managing to pull things off decision-wise, but he’s a fairly rough fellow—which is consistent enough, since he’s a swordsman. The dialogue didn’t grip me. It’s quite flat, has little depth, often feels stereotypical, and could have been lifted from any low-budget movie. The sentences and language are about average for today’s genre fiction, which makes the book an easy, fluent read. It’s ideal for relaxed evening hours, and despite its nearly 800 pages, I finished it fairly quickly.

Conclusion: As the opener of the Raven’s Shadow trilogy, Blood Song offers little that’s new, but it shines with its action, brisk pace, and steady suspense. Ryan knows how to conjure clear images of his scenes in the reader’s mind and delivers a well-made fantasy world that doesn’t surprise but does entertain. The characters often feel one-dimensional, the dialogues are pretty simply hewn, and the world isn’t as finely realized as with other major fantasy authors. Even so, I had a lot of fun with it, and I’ll definitely be reading the other two volumes. It’s very much an action-driven book, designed with all its devices to keep readers thoroughly entertained—especially at the start, where it works consistently well. If you like high fantasy, enjoy being swept up by rapid-fire battles, and appreciate a classic story in this genre, I can highly recommend it.

Book information: Blood Song: Raven’s Shadow 1 • Anthony Ryan • Klett-Cotta • 274 pages • ISBN 9783608939255