Tomes of Spellcasting

Welcome to the land of mystery, where the impossible is possible, and the improbable the reality. Join me as I investigate worlds filled with magic and meet the souls that wield this wondrous powers.

W A R N I N G !

This review does not represent the opinions of the general public. It reflects my personal thoughts and opinions on the book.

That said, on to the review!

Title: King's Man & Thief
Author: Christie Golden
Publisher: Ace Books
Format: Paperback
Copyright Date: 1997

What do you get when you cross a noble who's also a thief, a king without a throne, a Healer forced to curse, and a plague that makes doing good deeds and feeling remorse the most painful things of all? A smashing good book titled King's Man & Thief, of course. Lord Deveren Larath lives in Braedon, one of the oldest human cities in the world of Instrument of Fate. By day he is an upstanding citizen, but by night he becomes the thief known as Fox, who has an old vendetta to settle and a desire to turn his fellow thieves into a more honorable band of petty crooks. Amid his sudden rise to leadership of the thieves, however, is a plot in a neighboring land to destroy Deveren's home. The young king of that foreign realm would seek peace, but the deceptively mild regent has other plans. The plot rears its ugly head in a dog-sized rat whose fleas carry with them a terrible plague. Deveren and a few others are the only ones that know of the plot, but what can they do against a city of victims who will do anything evil to avoid the pain of doing good? Can even the unexpected avatars of the gods make a difference?

Author Christie Golden revisits the world she created in Instrument of Fate, this time narrowing the focus of her novel from an impending war between two races to a conflict between two neighboring kingdoms. This time around the reader doesn't need to deal with such touchy subjects as rape, slavery, and homosexuality. This time the issues to confront are more familiar to long-time fantasy readers: plots to usurp the rightful king and destroy a rival nation, torture with just a touch of sadism (okay, more than a touch), and an unavenged death that needs final resolution. These themes are "common" ones, but I have yet to read any two books--even by the same author--that handles them in exactly the same way. It all lies in the way the characters interact and comport themselves. The author deals with these themes with plot twists that I, to my surprise, hadn't seen before. I especially like the introduction of the avatars: it isn't quite a deus ex machina situation, because the gods can only do as much as their mortal hosts can do. Even I with my already preconceived notion of a happy ending was worried when our hero, the avatar of Health, began faltering in his efforts thanks to human exhaustion and despair.

A word of advice when you read a fantasy, sci-fi, or horror novel: expect all you want, but don't get too comfortable in your assumptions. Or, do get comfortable so that you'll have a pleasant surprise when events in the novel don't turn out the way you expected. There were several occasions when the book took me by surprise. Okay, some of them weren't pleasant, but the circumstances weren't pleasant to begin with--the breaking of the Healer turned Curser--and they ultimately benefitted the overall plot. Then there was the time--before I understood about the avatars--when Deveren had to undergo the cure for the plague. That really caught me off guard, but I enjoyed the recovery from that shattered illusion because everything turned out better than I imagined.

King's Man & Thief is Christie Golden's second non-series novel. You don't need to read Instrument of Fate to understand the world, but it may help. Overall, though, this novel stands alone, stands tall, and stands strong. It isn't every novel that can pull that off--I'm talking about those that share the same world, of course--but this one does it beautifully.

Rating: Thumbs up! Not your usual "plague-ridden" novel by any means!

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