Pawn's Gambit

I do love a bit of wuxia fantasy, and Pawn's Gambit is certainly a fun take on this. This is my first glimpse into the Mortal Techniques universe and I thoroughly enjoyed.

Firstly on the world side, I think Rob Hayes has been very clever to create a world where it is easy to generate standalone novels that work in isolation on their own. Pawn's Gambit is not the first Mortal Techniques book, but I never felt lacking jumping straight in here. The world building and exposition was all on point for a person entering the world with no prior reference points. The world itself is a really fun one, taking some of the sillier elements of Asian martial arts films and giving them a nice well reasoned magical basis, through the techniques. These techniques are powerful, but they are not leaned on too heavily and most of the story is driven by the character's wits.

The characters themselves are well drawn, likeable and understandable. Their motives are clearly defined - Yuu is hiding from her past and expectations, trying to learn to live with herself. Natsuko, the God of missed opportunities (I love the nod to Pratchett there btw) has a certain ineffableness to her as befits her godliness, but then her choice of champion and cause definitely fits the bill. Even the horse (Lump) is a memorable character!

The action is fun, almost anime like in places. The baddies like The Ticking Clock have a wonderful over-the-topness. The silliness was was well contained though and only added to the entertainment. I loved this!

Pawn's Gambit by Rob J. Hayes is one of my most anticipated releases for 2021, and it lived up to the hype. Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing the Wuxia epic Never Die, it was my first introduction to Rob as a writer, and I got to say that his books are fast becoming some of my favorites.

“Beauty is emotion, good or ill. Pain or happiness or fear or love. Beauty is in the experience.”

From my review, “Never Die is centered around Ein...and has been sent on a quest from God. ..For Ein's mission to succeed, the mysterious and powerful Emperor of Ten Kings must fall. To succeed in his quest, Ein must walk barefoot across the cities, mountains, and rivers of the countryside and never don footwear. Ein must select champions to fight the Emporer for him, and these champions must die first so that their souls are tethered to Ein.” Never Die was the first installment in the Mortal Techniques world. Pawn's Gambit takes place many years after Never Die and is not a sequel, although there is some fun scattered Easter eggs for the readers of Never Die to enjoy.

Instead, Pawn's Gambit is a stylized Wuxia epic with some steampunk and game theory thrown in that takes place in the same world of Never Die. It has the same rules and techniques, which we learn more about, but it is about redemption and finding peace.

“Yuu shrugged. “Throw her a tea party or something, sure. Whatever works.”

Pawn's Gambit's plot centers around the protagonist Yuu, also known as The Art of War. Yuu is a former famous military strategist, who wears a white mask at all times, and is known for pulling out military wins in the direst of situations. Her ability to see all the angles of a fight are legendary. Though these wins often come at the high costs of human lives lost. Her grandmother, the previous incarnation of Art of War, trained Yuu in all the aspects of war and strategy. However, unlike Yuu's grandmother, Yuu cannot separate herself from the battles. She feels the pain of the deaths that she helped cause, even if she won the war. They weigh heavy on her heart.

“Failure was always due to a lack of focus. With enough attention and preparation, no outcome could not be predicted, and no situation could not be overcome.”

Five years ago, Yuu made a choice that cost her the thing she held most dear but won the battle. The repercussions of that choice caused her to drop the mask and leave batteling forever. She no longer wanted to be The Art of War. Now five years later, we find Yuu sitting in a bar, getting drunk as she does every night, fleecing men for coin in battles of chess. It is below someone who was once The Art Of War, but at this point, all she wants to do is forget and drink till she feels the pain of the loss no more.

Meanwhile, in another realm, the Gods are having a battle of their own. Every 100 years, the gods have a contest to see who will sit upon the throne for the next 100 years. The God who is currently sitting on the throne, Batu, is the God of War. He has brought nothing but devastation and horror to the land of men for the last 100 years. He cannot help it; it is his nature. But it is time for a change.

“The first step toward winning is knowing which game you are playing.”

The contest is this: Each God participating must give up a thing they hold most dear. The objects are placed throughout the land, and champions, chosen by the benefactor God, must go out and find those objects. Whoever has the most items wins. It is a grand scavenger hunt. Natsuko, the Goddess of missed opportunities, has chosen her champion, Yuu. Yuu is not thrilled with this.

Yuu is an interesting character. She is one of those types of characters that isn't likable, but she could care less about being liked. She has a core of inner strength that you can see even when readers start the story, and we see Yuu at her very lowest point. But this story is her redemption arc, and what that redemption actually is, is up to the reader. Hayes doesn't concretely define what redemption looks like for Yuu. I think that makes her a stronger and more interesting character. She has layers and different parts to her. Is she the strategist, the friend, the woman, the human? I am not sure, but I know that the various facets of Yuu are tested thoroughly throughout this story.

The dialog for the story is funny and very human. Hayes can bring out a situation's nuance and doesn't need to pound the reader with heavy-handed dialogue. This made me relate all the more to Yuu and the supporting characters she finds along the way to help her. These characters, seen on the superb Felix Ortiz and Shawn T. King cover, help her in different ways. The journey is not the same as Never Die, but there are similar teamwork elements that carry through.

Pawn's Gambit is a worthy addition to the Mortal Techniques series and a follow-up to Never Die. It is really good, and I am so excited that I got to immerse myself in this Wuxia inspired world with great characters, exciting fight scenes, and heartfelt dialog once again. This story asks some big questions and challenges what redemption is.

You should come and take this journey with Yuu; you will not regret it.

This is a separate story from book 1. Some of the characters return from there, like the actual protagonist, Yuu, the emperor who rules the country and some others, but other than that, it's a completely separate story. The things that have happened there are buildings blocks for the events here, but technically, you can just read this. I wouldn't recommend, though.

Yuu, after the death of the Iron Prince, gets recruited by a god. For the role of the ruler of heaven, they have a competition, where the gods all choose a hero and they have to find and collect hidden treasures offered up by the participating deities. She got picked by Natsuko, the goddess of lost things.

I think one of the weaknesses of this book is the fact it is not a proper sequel; both are short and I would have liked a longer time to connect with the characters and start caring about them. This is similar to the first one in the sense that we go from point A to point B, knowing that there will be some artefact with its special way of getting to it. What is different, though, is the fact that we are not building a team; characters come and go and other than Yuu, we only have Natsuko who sticks around the whole way, which gives us even less time to get fond of them.
What's more frustrating is that we don't even get to know what happened to them. They do their thing, they leave and that's about it.

I wouldn't say it was a bad book, it's fun and colourful enough, but the fact it's so short and almost a free-standing story makes it real hard to feel like you are that invested. I would have much preferred to see what's going on with Einrich. Or the others somehow coming back for vengeance. Or something!
That one also had a plot twist at the end that made me want to throw my Kindle at a wall. It was so shocking and just infuriating. Here it's... fine? First of all, I expected things, second, it wasn't all that bad. Nobody really got too emotional over it. Shit happens. You could see it coming.

All in all, this is a worthy read. Not my absolute favourite, but it's fine and it's worth a try if you want something short and easy that's not part of a million book series.

I decided to continue on with the audio, as I received Never Die to judge for best narration from the Indie Ink Awards. Kim Bretton does a fantastic job bringing these novels to life. 
This one follows the Art of War, now referred to as Yuu, as she hides from the repercussions of her miscalculation at the end of Never Die. It takes place five years later, but is written to be read as an entirely independent story. Which is good because it has been nine months in between them for me. 
This is pretty unique as the author is giving us the same world, with a previously seen character, but it's a completely different story. The tone, the plot, the pacing. Everything is different. 
Yuu is wrapped up in a competition filled with merciless and vengeful gods, taking out their spite and boredom on those chosen to participate. 
Personally a 4/5* for me. For me the story hit a little less than ND, and for the audio, calling the character Yuu got very confusing as your brain tells you they're saying “YOU”. 

The first half of this book was much slower and less engaging than Never Die, but it more than made up for it with an electrifying second half. The last third, in particular, paid off so much characterization and set up. I didn't want to pick up a sequel for Never Die immediately; that felt like a contained story. But even though I know the third Mortal Technique book will be another pseudo-sequel, I'm very excited to read it.

The one thing I would change about this series is that everyone is CONSTANTLY referred to by their hero name, and it's silly as hell. This is entirely subjective, but I just imagine actual human beings only referring to other human beings as The Art of War, The Ticking Clock, The Laws of Hope (the worst offender, by far), The Roaring Tiger, The Falling Moon...I understand it's a style thing, but for my personal tastes, I think it would be much better if they were only occasionally called those names. Like how Sun Jian was sometimes called The Tiger of Jiang Dong and Sun Ce was sometimes called The Little Conquerer. (I know Three Kingdoms was a big influence on Rob Hayes for this series).

I gave this book five stars because I enjoyed it a lot, but I do have one major criticism of the story itself. Without getting into spoilers, the main character of this book is dealing with the fallout from the previous book (it is still a stand-alone though, all relevant info is relayed quickly) and I absolutely DO NOT buy the consequences from the MC's actions in Never Die leading to where they are and what issues they're dealing with in Pawn's Gambit. I kept trying to just ignore this, but it was brought up so many times, and was critical to the middle sections of this book. No matter how hard I tried, this bothered me. I do not believe the characters in the world would treat this character the way they do. It's nonsensical to me and because of that, the middle section of this book suffered a tad.

All in all, another quick and engaging read for this series. I'll probably hop over to one of Hayes' other series in the meantime and see how they hold up to Mortal Techniques.