Khirro’s journey: An outstanding novel by a novelist with chops

An independent novel review

Bruce A. Blake is a professional fantasy writer after my own heart. I have already reviewed his first novel, On Unfaithful Wings, giving it a full five stars.

Khirro’s Journey, Book One: Blood of the King is the first book in the traditional fantasy trilogy, and this one is not only an outstanding novel in its own right, it does a great job of creating an audience for the following books.

By doing things right , Blake proves he’s earned his chops as a writer.

First, there’s the hero, Khirro. He’s not a prince, not a warrior, has no magical powers or special training, other than in agriculture. A lifelong, hands-on training program in agriculture. He’s a farmer, and at the book’s action-packed opening, he’s far worse than uncomfortable in armour and a sword is heavy and useless in his hands.

That’s one point for Blake: the flawed, weak and identifiable hero.

Next, he wastes no time in back-story or world-building. He gets right into the action — following Elmore Leonard’s rule, presumably, about “leaving out the parts readers tend to skip.” The book opens with Khirro, in uncomfortable armour, being knocked from a castle wall by undead warriors. Another body crashes onto a stone stairway landing on top of him. It turns out to be King Braymon. In his dying breaths, he begs Khirro to take him to the Shaman. To do this, Khirro has to carry the mortally wounded king on his back and run from a zombie warrior.

A skilled writer, Blake exposes the characters gradually, through their actions. He keeps the pace moving quickly forward, compelling the reader to keep turning pages (or swiping the e-reader screen, more likely).  

Blake does not glamourize the medieval fantasy world, either. It’s hard, it’s awful. Kings are cruel, lives are short and brutal.

And everything is believable, even the magic spells, the zombie warriors and the monsters.

Characters

Khirro is a true everyman, and someone we can all relate to. He is the most common kind of man in medieval times (while the setting is an imaginary world where magic works and the undead walk and fight, like most epic fantasy, it’s parallel to our own world’s European middle ages in economics and technology): a farmer. Blake gradually exposes details about Khirro’s back-story only as the plot demands it. While at the outset, it’s clear that Khirro is an unwilling soldier and would much prefer being a farmer than a soldier, as the story progresses we learn that Khirro’s life on the farm was not idyllic, either. Khirro remains fully believable through all his back-story and his own redefinition as he is forced to face challenge after challenge.

Other characters are well-drawn, if a little stock: the royal guard, the terrifying, unstoppable one-eyed assassin, the Shaman. But others really leap off the page as three-dimensional: Maes and Athryn, the magician brothers; and Elyea, the harlot, especially. (How Blake is able to create such believable, sympathetic whores is something his wife may wonder about.)

Even the dead king gets a thorough character development, and turns out to be a mostly likable, if flawed man. There are very good reasons he should be restored to the throne.

Plot

The story is a good, old-fashioned quest. One of the oldest stories, yes, but it has lasted for good reason. Khirro is the only man left with the knowledge of the way to the Necromancer, a fearsome wizard who lives in a haunted land, so he can bring a vial of the dead king’s blood in order to resurrect the monarch. Again, Blake brings out the importance of this gradually, as the story demands the details. Along the way, the good guys face greater and greater challenges, and the bad guys show their resourcefulness and intelligence, too.

Blake doesn’t shy away from the queasy plot point on the morality and sheer advisability of restoring a dead man to life. What would it mean for everyone if the king were brought back from the dead? And what would the king and the kingdom owe the Necromancer for doing that?

But it’s not all dark. Humour is an important part of Blake’s writing, and there are passages that made me smile in this book.

Overall, Blake delivers a polished novel here. It stands on its own and tells a great adventure story filled with horror, suspense, mystery, romance and humour. It also leads well into the second and third books of the series. You’ll be hard put not to buy them as soon as you finish Blood of the King.

5 *****

What is writing style? Guest post by Bruce Blake

What is writing style? How important is it to readers? To writers? To a writer’s success?

I am asking authors for their thoughts on these questions.

Bruce Blake is author of the best-selling fantasy/horror novels On Unfaithful Wings and All Who Wander are Lost and founder of the Guild of Dreams fantasy writers’ collective. His latest novel is the epic fantasy Blood of the King, all available on Amazon.

Bruce, how would you describe your own writing style?

I am a big believer in Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Good Writing. If anyone's not familiar, included amongst these are: avoid detailed descriptions of characters, don't go into great detail describing places and things, and try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Those are the big three for me. I try not to waste any words. I'm a fan of many authors who are well known for their detailed descriptions (George R.R. Martin, China Mieville, etc.), but that's just not my style. I try to make every word count and use as few of them as possible. Short sentences, sharp dialogue, and I'm not afraid to throw out the odd fragment here and there.

Are there any authors whose style you admire? Do you try to emulate them?

I admire a lot of authors whose styles differ from mine and I would never attempt to emulate, like those I mentioned above, and J.R.R. Tolkien (I've often wondered how my style would be if I changed my name to Bruce R.R. Blake). I don't really try to emulate anyone, but I've been compared to Jim Butcher (I've only read one of his books) and Mike Carey. If I had to pick one novel in which the style particularly impressed me, it would have to be The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Never have sentence fragments been so powerful.

Are there authors whose writing style you dislike?

I think dislike is a strong word; there is something to take away from any writer's style. Having said that, I'm not a fan of writing that is more about the writing than it is about the characters and their story, though most writers who choose that style are far more talented than I can ever hope to be.

How important is your writing style to you? Are you happy with your style, or are there aspects of it you try to change during rewriting or editing?

I'm pretty happy with my style but, like everyone, I'm always striving to improve. Things definitely change during the rewriting and editing; that's when my style really emerges. I'm not a writer who will ever publish something as it came out during the first draft, nor will I usually even consider showing it to someone who has the ability to read. Too often, my first drafts end up being information dumps that need to be molded into shape. Sometimes they read like I was taking point-form notes during a lecture instead of writing a novel. My latest book, Blood of the King, went through about 12 drafts.

How can readers identify your writing style? Are there particular words or kinds of words that you tend to favour? Sentence structures? Or is it more in the story, the pacing or the characters?

Again, my style tends to be succinct. I pay attention to the lengths of my sentences and try to use them for maximum impact; it's not unusual for me to have sentences of only a couple of words or a paragraph that is only one word. I'm also conscious of word choices. I have a list I call “Bruce's Bad Words” that I try to weed out of my novels. It naturally includes words that signify passive constructs—like was, were and had—but it also includes words I use habitually (glance, something, moment) and what I call wishy-washy words (almost, barely, nearly). Ideally, I hope its the story, pacing and characters that help readers identify my writing. I think a truly good style should be close to invisible to any reader who is not looking for it.

Do you think your genre imposes certain restrictions on writing style?

I began writing that certain sub-genres of fantasy have requirements of style, but I did a rewrite, because that is not true. I think style is always open, but genre can impose certain tones or voices on a writer. Epic fantasy demands a different tone than urban fantasy, for instance, though the things that make up style—sentence lengths, dialogue, pacing, etc.—can remain essentially the same.

Do you think your audience responds to your writing style, consciously or unconsciously?

Yes, I do. I think that style is the thing that most readers respond to in genre writing, whether they can put their finger on what that style is or not. As I said, my goal is that my readers aren't even conscious of my style. I want it to be out of the way so my readers can concentrate on the characters and the story, not be distracted by how I tell it.

How important do you think writing style is to an author's commercial success?

Style is essential. It's what makes a novel walk and talk. A great story with interesting characters is still a laborious read when poorly written. Pacing, tone, voice, structure; all these things contribute to a reader's enjoyment of a book, and these are the elements of style (my apologies to Mr. Strunk and Mr. White). If you take a look through the one and two star reviews of any book on Amazon, you will find many “it would have been a great story if it was written by someone else” comments. If I use my magic decoder ring on that phrase, it says: “I didn't like the writer's style.”

Thank you, Bruce.

Bruce's blog is The Thoughts and Opinions of a Writer on the Rise. He is also the founder of the Guild of Dreams fantasy writers' collective. On The Guild of Dreams blog, Guild members take turns posting very interesting ideas, opinions, interviews, excerpts and lots of other stuff.

You can find Bruce’s books, The Blood of the King, All Who Wander are Lost and On Unfaithful Wings on Amazon.