I’ve got a certain soft spot for old-fashioned, epic adventure novels, although not all of them are created equal–as you’ll soon see…
The Explorer’s Guild: Vol. 1 by John Baird and Kevin Costner…[Although who knows how much of it Costner actually wrote as this might be too long even for the director of notoriously overlong films.] “Explorer’s Guild” is a curious graphic novel/novel hybrid since it’s supposedly for young boys that might not be reading Rudyard Kipling or Robert Louis Stevenson, yet I don’t think young boys would actually read a book that’s 775 pages long and the writing style (very effective at copying the affectations of the period) will be nearly impossible for them to read. Plus, the action is too sparse for a book its size, centering more around historical details or location-porn than sword fights. In reality, this book is for very much grown “boys” that just want to hang out with some crusty old mercenaries as they read maps, shoot the bull, and have fun. It hardly matters that the destination—the ancient city of Shambhala—is never properly delved into, as both the book and the explorer’s themselves are more concerned with name-dropping the journey than actually getting there. Still, if you’re a fan of authentic period voice, wry humor, comfortable epics you can relax with, and a great sequence set in an underground city (it’s just the way of books like these that the last 150 pages are where it actually gets going) then you just might go for it. Grade: B
The Life and Death of Zebulon Finch: Vol. 1 by Daniel Krauss…That “Volume 1” subtitle is either a threat or a promise depending on your take on this first novel. “Finch”—about a 1899 gangster who gets murdered, but can’t actually die—has received raves from critics for its authentic voice, but it didn’t move me in the same way. There’s something hollow at the core of this book as we see Zebulon become a circus freak, fight in WWI, make money in prohibition, and refashion himself as a Hollywood star before becoming the ghoulish houseboy in a “Sunset Boulevard” type situation. Also, it’s very long for a book that is—if we’re being honest—essentially just going through generic historical set pieces for the time period. That the book ends on the biggest cliche of them all (World War II) feels like the ultimate anti-climax. Unlike “Explorer’s Guild,” there actually seems to be plans to make Volume 2, and I can’t say I’ll be back for the follow-up. Grade: B-
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin…A big hit in the author’s native Russia, but I just wasn’t able to get into it. By the end, I felt like I’d read one book about suffering and dying customs that was worse on every level than “The Man Who Spoke Snakish.” Grade: C- [And I understand tastes are regional so Russians are justified in loving it a lot more than I do.]
The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirahk…An instant classic that actually came out years ago in the author’s native Estonia, but the translation just came stateside in 2015. It’s about the dying language of Snakish (which is used to command animals) in a forest community that’s gradually losing its members to the lure of the township and its ridiculous religion by being pushed by the invading knights (Christianity). Violent, bleak, imaginative, fully-realized, and always with a touch of the other-worldly. We are essentially reading a story about a dying way of life, but the hero—a world removed from the bland moralists of American Young Adult novels—has no intention of going quietly, raging against society in a way that makes European bleakness (for once) feel transcendent. Grade: A
Sword of Honor by David Kirk…The sequel to the excellent “Child of Vengeance” samurai epic isn’t quite as good as the first one. [For those that say “what is?” check out “Vanishing Games,” or the second or third parts of the “Red Rising” books.] The battle scenes are still gripping, and it’s fascinating to explore the corruption (as our hero sees it) of the samurai code, but it just didn’t leave the same mark on me that the first book did. Still, a good read, but slightly compromised due mostly to expectations. Grade: B