Kings of the Wyld

Book Club For December.

Do you remember the first time you listened to Zeppelin III? Maybe 13 seconds into Immigrant Song, you were like “THIS SHIT ROCKS!” and then proceeded to reach musical nirvana? That's this book. Like holy crap, I didn't even know I wanted a story like this, but here it is! A Rock/Metal themed Fantasy adventure; some bards, bands, and battles. We've got a nicely put together fantasy world and some veteran characters to guide us along a fantastical journey. It's the First Law but written by Terry Pratchett with music by Led Zepplin. There's actually a Spotify playlist to accompany this book, and if you're reading this (as opposed to listening) I think it's kind of mandatory. (The audiobook is narrated by Jeff Harding and is excellent, so that's another valid choice)

This book was previously on my radar, but I skipped it. I must have been judging books by their covers at the time (the cover does bear a striking resemblance to Gwyne or Abercrombie at first glance) and I was under the mistaken impression that this was yet another grimdark story. Rest assured, dear reader, this is not grimdark. What this book is: a high energy high fantasy rollick; a weird but kick-ass mishmash of Andy Weir, Guns n' Roses, Conan, and Rimworld. This book is about “Saga” the world's greatest mercenary band that's been ten years retired. We follow Clay “Slowhand” Cooper and Saga's frontman “Golden” Gabe as they work to reunite the band to bring Saga out of retirement for one last mission: Saving Gabe's daughter Rose, who is trapped in the under siege city of Castia.

If I haven't given it away yet, this book is decidedly Metal, at least to me. The mercenary bands are this world's analog for our Rock/Metal bands. I guess Rock is more the more ubiquitous label, but I just kept getting a serious Metalocalpyse vibe from characters like Ganelon the axe wielding warrior who's spent the last ten years trapped in stone, Larkspur the black winged Daeva with DID and/or head trauma, really every character in the band rocks. I think that's why I liked this so much, it's kind of like a novelized Metalocalypse (which for my money was the best thing Adult Swim was making in the 00s) with less “heavy” in its flavor of metal and the “fantasy” knob is turned to 11. This book was really playing to its demo in my case, and if the reception to this debut is any indication, I am not alone in thinking this combo was Metal as fuck.

On the subject of music, I don't want to make this review nothing but me calling out the references, but I need to address this point somehow. This work is Referential, capital R; EVERY character is a reference, EVERY location is a reference. Honestly, pick a detail, and you will find it referencing a band, a song, a line in a song, or something else entirely (I'm 90% sure there's a Final Fantasy 7 spinning away transition reference). I'm not knocking this aspect of the book- I was grinning ear to ear when I realized that the villain, Duke Lastleaf, is a White Duke era Bowie reference- but I can see this wearing on some readers. I mentioned Andy Weir at the top and this is what I was talking about, there are just so many references that it seems like Eames read The Martian and then tried to do the same thing just in Azeroth but then realized he had to name everything from scratch. In all likelihood, the average reader isn't going to catch all but the most obvious of these references and given the decided “rock fantasy” theme here, all the people/places/things aren't at all out of place or jarring.

Beyond the referential nature of this book, there is a really stunning world paired with an entertaining and jaunty yet emotionally grounded story that takes its time showing you how its insane universe functions. I was so surprised to learn that this was a debut because I really felt like I was in the hands of a veteran author with how steady and confident the pace of the book was. I came to love the characters, and while some of the dialogue was a little corny, I think that there's a certain point where you get what this book is trying to do, and you are either on board and in the spirit of things, or you are a reluctant passenger missing the forest for the trees.

Let's talk about rollicks for a second because that's kind of where I am torn on this book, I don't usually care for stories like this. A rollicking adventure is a lively, typically light-hearted or low stakes, humorous journey. A lot of things fall under the umbrella of a “rollick”, it's not always swashbuckling pulp or fierce barbarian warriors a-la Conan but more often than not I find that a lot of books like this tend to fall victim to the “make-em-up” criticism. Things always wind up working out! The dragon turns out to have a toothache, the earth was made in a factory, and they happen to have back-ups, etc. For a while there, it seemed like a lot of popular Fantasy stories were forced into a happy ending framework; even stories that took themselves fairly seriously fell victim to fantastical deus ex machina endings and story beats that undercut character progression.

Maybe there's been a little bit of an over correction. We're the spoiled generation that gets to read 5/7th of A song of Ice and Fire and as much Abercrombie as we can consume before traumatizing ourselves. I don't want to come off like a self serious fuddy-duddy, there are rollicks I have enjoyed: Hitchhiker's Guide is the prime example. It's smart, it's funny, it's absurd and unpredictable, and somehow it's still so relatable that you can't help buy into the ridiculous story. On the whole I get the criticism, I wouldn't apply it to Fantasy writ large, but hey there sure are a lot of fantasy rollicks that just fall apart at the end (especially in YA). Thankfully, Kings of the Wyld doesn't confuse a light-hearted tone as a license to tell a weak or uncompelling story. Honestly, some of the themes and character moments are pretty heavy, and it made it a lot easier to push through some of the heavier chapters when you could think back to a sword fight double entendre or other moment of levity.

This book managed to sell me on a world where cool shit is constantly happening, it convinced me that it rocks without pause. There is a whole universe of books that don't take themselves too seriously and are fantastic, and I am 100% on board with books like that, books like Kings of the Wyld.