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A review by hostral
What Remains of Heroes by David Benem
4.0
One of the great pleasures of reviewing self-published fantasy is that every so often, a book comes from absolutely nowhere and surpasses your expectations.
I had never heard of David Benem before, and as of writing this review there are only two things I can tell you about him: he entered Mark Lawrence's self-published fantasy blog-off and he sure can write.
What Remains of Heroes treads what is beginning to become familiar ground, dark fantasy with morally conflicted or ambiguous characters that defy the standard trappings of their genre.
It immediately caught my eye with its fetching cover and (for the most part) both well edited and well formatted text. You can tell that the author went to some lengths to provide a professional-looking product and the result is appreciated.
Lannick is the former hero who has fallen on hard times. His family murdered, his liver also being murdered by whiskey and inhabiting the shell of a broken man. He plays the part well, with a mixture of piteous and heart-wrenching behaviour as his background is slowly pieced together through the opening chapters of the book.
Then we have Karnag, who is essentially the typical barbarian mercenary. What's intriguing about this character is that while he plays a brutal counterpoint to the other main characters, his is slowly dropped in favour of his friend and fellow mercenary. A woman who is a much more intriguing choice of focus.
Lastly we have the coward with the heart of gold, one Bale. A musty library-bound sorcerer of sorts who couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag. Unfortunately for him, he's thrust into the spotlight of one of our antagonists, and forcibly placed in grave danger.
This cast would have usually been enough to form a solid dark fantasy around. Four viewpoints from four very different individuals works well with a book of this size. Instead of settling for that, Benem turns up the heat on the reader by slowly building a reputable cast of ancillary characters before giving them their own individual chapters.
What could have been a straightforward work is now imbued with political discourse and an increasing amount of world-building as a backdrop for the multitudinous characters inhabiting it. It makes for a much deeper read, and the author is to be applauded for attempting this.
Plot-wise the work is solid. There's plain old vengeance to be had, god-like beings involved in swaying the course of the world and the aforementioned political subplot involving royalty. Thanks to careful pacing, each of the items are given a sensible amount of fleshing out.
While What Remains of Heroes threatens several times to ignite into something truly special, I can only say that it was very enjoyable rather than being exceptional. It's a well crafted piece of dark fantasy that would sit happily alongside almost everything released from traditional publishers in the genre lately, but it's nothing world-altering. That this is one of the only criticisms I can level at the work shows just how impressed I am with it.
The second critique of the work would be that it suffers from first book syndrome. It doesn't grind to an immediate halt, but you could tell in the final third that things were going to have to be rushed in order to craft the perfect standalone resolution. The result is exactly what the author intended, and I will be picking up the next in the series.
David Benem is a strong new voice in the world of dark fantasy, and I sincerely hope that he improves with each work. Based on the quality of this début, he's in the enviable position where it wouldn't matter if he stayed the course. More of the same, please!
I had never heard of David Benem before, and as of writing this review there are only two things I can tell you about him: he entered Mark Lawrence's self-published fantasy blog-off and he sure can write.
What Remains of Heroes treads what is beginning to become familiar ground, dark fantasy with morally conflicted or ambiguous characters that defy the standard trappings of their genre.
It immediately caught my eye with its fetching cover and (for the most part) both well edited and well formatted text. You can tell that the author went to some lengths to provide a professional-looking product and the result is appreciated.
Lannick is the former hero who has fallen on hard times. His family murdered, his liver also being murdered by whiskey and inhabiting the shell of a broken man. He plays the part well, with a mixture of piteous and heart-wrenching behaviour as his background is slowly pieced together through the opening chapters of the book.
Then we have Karnag, who is essentially the typical barbarian mercenary. What's intriguing about this character is that while he plays a brutal counterpoint to the other main characters, his is slowly dropped in favour of his friend and fellow mercenary. A woman who is a much more intriguing choice of focus.
Lastly we have the coward with the heart of gold, one Bale. A musty library-bound sorcerer of sorts who couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag. Unfortunately for him, he's thrust into the spotlight of one of our antagonists, and forcibly placed in grave danger.
This cast would have usually been enough to form a solid dark fantasy around. Four viewpoints from four very different individuals works well with a book of this size. Instead of settling for that, Benem turns up the heat on the reader by slowly building a reputable cast of ancillary characters before giving them their own individual chapters.
What could have been a straightforward work is now imbued with political discourse and an increasing amount of world-building as a backdrop for the multitudinous characters inhabiting it. It makes for a much deeper read, and the author is to be applauded for attempting this.
Plot-wise the work is solid. There's plain old vengeance to be had, god-like beings involved in swaying the course of the world and the aforementioned political subplot involving royalty. Thanks to careful pacing, each of the items are given a sensible amount of fleshing out.
While What Remains of Heroes threatens several times to ignite into something truly special, I can only say that it was very enjoyable rather than being exceptional. It's a well crafted piece of dark fantasy that would sit happily alongside almost everything released from traditional publishers in the genre lately, but it's nothing world-altering. That this is one of the only criticisms I can level at the work shows just how impressed I am with it.
The second critique of the work would be that it suffers from first book syndrome. It doesn't grind to an immediate halt, but you could tell in the final third that things were going to have to be rushed in order to craft the perfect standalone resolution. The result is exactly what the author intended, and I will be picking up the next in the series.
David Benem is a strong new voice in the world of dark fantasy, and I sincerely hope that he improves with each work. Based on the quality of this début, he's in the enviable position where it wouldn't matter if he stayed the course. More of the same, please!