Genre: Sword & sorcery/dark fantasy
Published: July 11, 2017
Print length: 282 pages
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Kindle Unlimited? Yes
Series: The Brutal Sword Saga Book 1
Warnings: Extreme violence, graphically described. Sexual abuse of women. General depravity.

Synopsis:

A mysterious stranger rides into a corrupt, violence-ridden town and proceeds to clean things up in his own no-holds-barred fashion. Set that in the Wild Wild West and you’ve got the plot of every spaghetti Western movie. Put it in a medieval fantasy world and you have Brutal, a novel very much in the tradition of pulp-era S&S classics like Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories and Clark Ashton Smith’s Hyperborean cycle.

The (anti?)hero of Brutal is a lone stranger known only as the Sellsword. When he arrives in the town of Aldreth, it’s being torn apart by a war between two rival mages. The legitimate authorities are MIA: the marquis is near death from the plague, his son the duke has been murdered, and the city guard is corrupt. Oh, and there’s a voluptuous goddess leading a dark cult. The Sellsword is on a mission to take them all down, and he doesn’t care how much blood he has to spill to do it. Turns out it’s a lot!

What I thought:

I went into Brutal expecting a Conan-esque classic sword-and-sorcery tale, and it didn’t disappoint. This one checks all the boxes of the genre: a stoic, ruthless and super-skillful warrior; evil sorcerers; a collapsed, degenerate society; bloody battles; and oh yes, a religious cult following a seductive goddess. Brutal is an action-packed, well-executed exemplar of its type. It distinguishes itself through the intricacies of its plot and the mystery surrounding its main character (though that last is a bit of a double-edged sword).

The setting, a mining town ruined by civil war and corrupt leaders, forms a perfect backdrop for the story. The main bad guys are two evil magicians dueling over the town; they alternately fight with or try to ally themselves with the Sellsword, who tacks masterfully back and forth between them and plays them off against each other. This is one of the best aspects of the novel; it’s fascinating and at times downright hilarious to watch the Sellsword outmaneuver these vicious, pompous jerks.

The secondary characters start out as the usual stock caricatures for this type of tale, and do evolve a bit over the course of the book. I was happy, in particular, that Duchess Nicene turned out to be more than a standard love interest/damsel-in-distress and got in on some of the action toward the end.

The battle scenes are another high point of the novel. The swordfights are well choreographed with plenty of vivid detail and, of course, no shortage of gore. As a former martial artist, fight scenes that actually make sense are something I always look for, and Brutal is outstanding in this regard.

The Sellsword himself is of course the focus of the tale, and to be honest I have some mixed feelings about him. He’s appropriately ruthless, pragmatic, and arrogant but justifiably so. Initially I found it somewhat annoying that he was known only as “the Sellsword,” but I got used to it. Being enigmatic is his thing, but he’s a little too enigmatic—at times his motivations are hard to understand. There are clues dropped along the way as to his true identity (I’ll avoid spoilers), and some of his actions make more sense in hindsight, but I was scratching my head at times trying to figure out what his objective was (or if he even had an objective beyond creating as much carnage as possible). I understand what the author was trying to do here, and mostly it works, but I would have liked to have the main character be a bit more relatable, or at least understandable.

Overall, Brutal is classic bloody s&s with an appropriately bleak setting, savage action, and absorbin and occasionally laugh-out-loud-funny plot twists as the hero plays the bad guys against each other. The main character is a little over-mysterious for my tastes but is still fun to watch as he hacks, slashes and schemes his way to victory.

Who will love it:

• Fans of classic sword and sorcery who enjoy solid execution of the standard tropes of the category.
• Action lovers who aren’t in the least put off by a severed limbs, decapitations and general mayhem (bonus points if you actually revel in them).

Favorite quotes:

“What can one man do?” asked Niels as he mounted his charger. “The right thing.” “And with you, that means blood.” The Sellsword nodded. “That’s all some men have to give.”

The old man slapped the Sellsword across the shoulder. “I was wrong about you, Sellsword. There is good somewhere deep down in you.” “You didn’t think so?” The old man shook his head. “No, I just thought you were a seriously bloodthirsty prick.”

“His heart is troubled. So much obligation, so much strife. But there is nobility there. An indomitable fortitude along with curious motivations. There is deceit and truth hand in hand as bride and groom.”

“Mercy cannot rob justice.” “Do not then let justice be remiss in mercy.”

“Gods move the world, but who moves gods? Great men do by their righteous actions.”

About the author:

From Amazon: “James Alderdice writes dark fantasy and weird westerns because the voices in his head won’t quiet until someone else can hear them. He is a great fan of sword & sorcery, ghosts and lost ruins, so of course he lives in Utah with his wife and children.”

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