Book Review: The Thousand Names | Django Wexler (The Shadow Campaigns #1)
This not sword and sorcery, ladies and gentlemen. This is flintlock fantasy - or, rather, and I like this description better, magic and muskets.
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This is the first book of Django Wexler's The Shadow Campaigns and published in 2013. It was followed by The Shadow Throne (2014), The Price of Valour (2015), The Guns of Empire (2016), and finally The Infernal Battalion earlier this year.
It is also Django Wexler's debut novel.
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I enjoyed this far, far more than I initially expected to. I picked this up wholly on a whim a few weeks ago alongside Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, having heard reasonably good things about it. It's about as close as I come to an "impulse purchase" - a used book that I would not otherwise have purchased.
But that's not why I enjoyed it more than I thought. No, the reason for that is because this is "military fantasy" - both main characters are soldiers in the Vordanai army, one a Captain, the other a - well, firstly a ranker, soon after a sergeant, and quickly after a lieutenant, remaining so for the rest of the book. We also get a handful of chapters with other viewpoints, but they are by no means our lead protagonists.
I went into this not quite knowing what to expect but certainly not expecting it to be as good as it was.
So, The Thousand Names is set not in the typical medieval European setting but instead in the 1800s - cannons, flintlocks. Muskets. Thus, magic and muskets. More specifically, the setting appears to be akin to Europe in the 1800s, based largely around a blend of France and the East, specifically, the Middle East.
In fact, I actually checked out a review of the next book, which described it as "FANTASY FRENCH REVOLUTION WITH LESBIANS" which, y'know, is enough to convince me on that alone.
The large part of our action takes place with the Colonials, a band of soldiers which receives a new commander in Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich. They march on the Khandar capital of Ashe-Katarion with the intent of subjugating the rebellious colony, nominally under the command of Prince Exopter, a thorough coward of a man who would be quite happy not to do that. Vhalnich, however, serves the King of Vordan, not the cousin.
Vhalnich, though he commands the Colonials, is not a viewpoint character.
No, our viewpoint characters are two in number: there is Captain Marcus d'Ivoire, who had been commanding the garrison where the Colonials were stationed, content to stay out his days at that remote outpost when the rebellion left him, and the Colonials, clinging to their small fortress.
And then there is Winter Ihernglass, who has masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Colonials, fleeing from her past at Mrs. Wilmore's, the "Royal Benevolent Home for Wayward Youth", aka the Prison. Throughout the book she is haunted by her co-conspirator in her escape, Jane, of whom Winter is in love with.
Can you be haunted by someone who isn't dead?
Both of them are well-sketched out, Winter in particular a vivid favorite, especially in the later half of the book when she becomes a more proactive character. Marcus, meanwhile, shows us the eccentric, charismatic Janus, who aims to win the war despite impossible odds.
As the book progresses and Winter is forced to take charge of the men under her command, it becomes clear that she is intelligent and, when necessary, able to improvise on the spot - a skill that saves many a life during some of her battles.
And the battles are fantastic, genuinely among the best (if not the best) written battle sequences ever written, taking the reader right down there into the action and taking a sharp eye to the strategy and tactics of it. If, perhaps, for some readers it might lose tension for diving too deep - though it did not for me - it certainly is easier to understand than the typical battles.
Notable is the machinations of Janus bet Vhalnich, who strikes one as somewhere between any number of quirky geniuses that star in many a television series - Sherlock will cross many people's minds. But as becomes clearer throughout the book, particularly at the end, his aims extend beyond the battlefield.
Dotted along the book, thankfully, are many moments of humor. I can't help but quote my favorite...
"You got rid of him?" "For the moment," Winter said. "Nothing confuses an officer like violently agreeing with him."
The early going of the book is a little rough. The prologue, a glimpse behind the walls of Ashe-Katarion, at the other side, throws out a great many names with little explanation to frustrate and bamboozle intrigue the reader. However, once past, the book spends little time grabbing you by the neck and stubbornly refusing to let you go.
Marcus leaves us interested with his relationship in Jennifer Alhundt and in his learning to communicate with Janus within the confines of the military structure. Winter, though initially not much proactive - and, for that matter, not much reactive either, only faintly protesting against her promotions - becomes more spirited.
Janus, especially intrigues. By way of him and of Alhundt we learn more of the world. Outside the Colonials it seems that there is an interesting world waiting: the shadowy name of Duke Orlanko and of the Pontifex of the Black, the magical Thousand Names, the mysterious figure of devotion that is Mother and her worshippers' magic the naathem. For all his charm, his charisma, his intelligence, and his amiability, he does get a moment of shocking unlikability and it's left unclear what he's trying to do, but that he stands in the way of Orlank.
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A novel that I ultimately enjoyed more than I thought I would, despite a rough prologue, and one that leaves me with every intention of reading the followups. Intriguing mythologies and magic lay behind the music of the muskets. The novel ends on a suitably epic conclusion and sets up a sequel that looks to take place far from the deserts of Khandar. I, for one, am greatly interested in seeing what happens next to Winter and to Marcus, and seeing more of the world of the Vordanai.
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Next, I expect, will be firstly a review of Elantris and secondly reviews of the remainder of the First Law and Eternal Sky trilogies as well as The Dagger and the Coin. Afterwards I intend to take a bit of a break from epic fantasy, so that I ensure I avoid burnout. I expect I'll reread some 'literary' favorites and certain works of fantasy which don't fit the 'epic' or 'high' mold.
Also, at some point, expect a review of David McCullough's Truman. I'm quite enjoying it and have every plan to check out his biography of John Adams when I'm finished.