Author: Eldon Thompson
Cover Artist: Mike Krahulik
Publisher: Eos
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date: May 2005

It seems every time a fantasy author’s debut novel is released and is done so written in a manner that it would be categorized in the sub-genre of “High Fantasy” everyone who reads it or more aptly and much more regrettable everyone who critiques it has the apparently incessant desire to compare it to, regardless if their comments are intended as praise or critical in nature, to Tolkien. This is nothing new, this is in fact done so much the genre has instead of going down the path of common sense has just simply accepted the practice and to make it even more bewildering made the term “Tolkienesque Fantasy’ to be used synonymously with “High Fantasy” as if to promote this regressive habit that has become status quo. Tolkien’s shadow looms large and thus this practice is understandable if not bearing any logic, however, my personal issue with the majority of these largely inutile examples of commentary is instead of making it a small part of their presentation they make it their primary basis for the reviews offered. Because of this we have for example, the subject of this review a debut novel by Eldon Thompson, The Crimson Sword, which directly due to being an example of a fantasy novel written in the “High Fantasy” vein has been out for a month now and has yet to have a review of his worthy effort that forges past mundane levels of commentary that in a word is best characterized by long time fans of the genre by the term Klausner.

The Crimson Sword is a novel written in the tradition of “High Fantasy”, a tradition represented currently by authors like Terry Brooks who no doubt was an influence on Mr. Thompson but before I go on, I think most here know my opinion on the majority of Brook’s work and although such work isn’t one that can be use to model my particular preferences (in fact the opposite could be true) I am not unmindful that a great many people do enjoy such work, and that noted I think Mr. Thompson provides with a first installment of a trilogy dubbed The Legend of Asahiel that should find no problem reaching a viable and accepting audience. The Crimson Sword is a story of a man who found his destiny while at the same time learning that the only thing not unique about the course of it is his inclusion.

From the ownset, Thompson shows in the text at least his awareness of the common tropes of the genre that belies at least he apparently has done either some marginal research or even better he is a fan of the genre (reading up on Mr. Thompson I learned the latter is true) which was an immense relief because this put him already ahead of say a Robert Newcomb regarding first releases, whose presence with just a blurb praising the novel was enough to give me some cause for hesitation. Here is the passage I am speaking of, which is Jarom, deep in thought struggling to come to grips with his newly learned genealogy:

“The ultimate dream of escape. Except that Jarom has no desire to escape his life. To him, these revelations were not a dream fulfilled, but an impossible nightmare, too incredible and undesirable to be true. A ridiculous fairy tale, rehashed for the thousandth time”

Eldon Thompson’s depiction of the story of a young man, Jarom, who learns of his unknown royal heritage at time that marks a dark change for the island continent of Petania (when else does one learn of such things) is not a unfamiliar plot t ofans of fantasy. Preceded by assassination of its King Sorl, the invasion and ease of the conquering of the western Kingdom of Alson, Jarom’s supposed birthright, by a Wizard of great power is only halted due to the existence of an even greater, graver power reintroduced to the land in the form of Spithaera, who is fancied in myth as the Demon Queen, and perhaps rightly so, but more correctly she is a Demon Avatar. Jarom, along with his life long best friend and master archer/hunter Allion set out on a journey to ask for Imperial aid of the mighty southern kingdom Kuuria, not only the seat of power of the Emperor but where the history of Man on Petania as a race of merit, was born. On this quest, Jaron and Allion will besidetracked and yet simultaneously guided by Destiny and its helping and also meddlesome hand that seems greatly motivated by self interest and not seemingly having a wholly vested interest in the duo’s survival as its top priority. This is a story of fending off a powerful Wizard, a Demon Queen and her army of Dragon spawn bent on invasion, while also seeking an ancient semi-mythical Talisman that has been the object of Jarom’s dreams from childhood. On the surface everything I just described is commonplace for fans of fantasy when regarding the “High Fantasy” subgenre. The above quoted passage interested me as I took it as the author awareness but it also almost by default allowed me to postulate that Mr. Thompson was going to throw some personal twists into the story paying homage to the still definitive ”High Fantasy” roots but his showing us his recognition, after reading it, I must admit it caused me to think to myself, “okay let me see what the kid has to offer”.

Thompson will take the reader on an adventure that will take them through lands of rival cannibalistic feral Elves, the mountain home of a Dragon, a lost and buried mythical city now ancient tomb of the once mighty Finlorian Elves, a story of multiple large scale battles of armies of men versus men, and men versus dragonspawn. He will also introduce us to an assortment of demons and will not only take us the very dwelling of the Dragon Queen but also introduce us to the Entients, human Avatars, and hoarders of vast knowledge, and forgotten power, and the subject of the reference I made earlier regarding the fickle nature destiny plays in “The Crimson Sword’, who reside in Whitlock. They represent, as Jarom notes, an embodiment of contradictions that in one hand one can take for at once both seeming the biggest of help and at the same time the most perplexing in their lack overt action, feigning a nonchalant worldview but also admitting to orchestrating personal destiny as well. I must admit upon completing the novel I felt the Entients and particularly their acting librarian Ranunculus, were one of the three aspects of the novel I enjoyed the most.

One of the other aspects that Thompson included that readers will surely enjoy are embodied by two characters who I would guess come out of this novel as the fan favorites. One is given to us in the beginning, and sparsely afterwards, the other a major role; both are aided by mysterious connected pasts, both are Assassins and by what can be deciphered two of the very best in memory. The first is Xarius Talyzar, who is in fact the first character we are introduced to in The Crimson Sword, albeit briefly as Thompson attempts to hook the reader immediately depicting the Assassin in the midst of a mission of regicide:

“Like the owl, it flew upon wings of death, slipping through the foliage without a whisper to mark its passing. Rodents scurried from its path; trees shuddered in a gust of wind. Made anxious by its ghostly presence, nature recoiled, finding safer quarter from which to watch and wait out the trespasser’s foul purpose.“

The other Assassin (or former assassin who still is quite apt at killing) is Kylac Kronus, who will be a constant aid to Jarom and Allion in their quest to retrieve the Sword of Asahiel and in fighting the invasion of the Demon Queen. These two Assassins would be my guess as the characters coming out of “The Crimson Sword’ as fan favorites. They are the subjects of the action sequences that hold the most interest, and they have the luxury of the mysterious/vague origins, and just being a part of the popular class that Assassins represent in the heart of fans of both epic and high fantasy. Kylac’s position will not be hindered by the fact that he carries blades of unknown origin through which nothing can withstand. It would surprise me greatly if a major portion of the next novels in the The Legend of Asahiel sequence did not focus on these two rivals and their intertwined past/history. This is definitely a plot line that was intended to be of interest and succeeded even though they tend to be of more interest than the story and plight of the main quest and Jarom.

The other elements that I welcomed were some the subtle successes Thompson added that worked for me that was his effort to put a personal stamp on his offering. Novels such as this often times feature the race of Elves in a way that one would think the same writer writes all chapters involving Elves in every novel written in this sub-genre. In Thompson’s world not only has the might of the Elves been reduced to nil, they themselves have all but disappeared, only represented thus far by the aforementioned feral, cannibalistic, nomadic tribal race the Mookla’ayans, which represetns a nice deviation from the prevalent normal use of the race. I admire the fact that Thompson showcases Man, and didn’t feel the need have the appearance of classical Elves to in some way substantiate his work in a sub-genre seemingly full of elf lovers and haters of humans. I was pleasantly surprised that a High Fantasy novel’s (god I hate this word but), “coolest” character was actually a human! Jarom and Allion both young men, from a relatively isolated village set out in an epic adventure there has to be some old wise man with a hat who guides them in their journey right? This is “High Fantasy” right? Well it is true the Entients play a roll, but there mentor most often comes in the form of the young assassin Kylac who not only keeps them out of mortal danger, but teaches them of the equally dangerous combination of being judgmental and ignorant. I like the fact that in the story the “evil” wizard was not really motivated for the sole purpose of just being a practitioner of evil. He has real motivations, and real reasons birthed them, and they actually change due to circumstance and not set on a single-track plan that many such characters in this sub-genre get polarized in. Mr. Thompson successfully applies a welcome personal niche to his debut entry into High fantasy.

There are some parts of the book that concern me. One of them and perhaps the most important was the main character himself, Jarom. Not even speaking of why (which I will get to in a minute), I cannot possibly fathom how when finishing this novel that one can come out of this novel enjoying reading about him specifically, much less he be among ones favorite characters unless by default due to his constant presence in the novel. Saying this, I am not one of those easily pleased readers who require the main character of a novel I’m reading to be outstanding at anything, in regards to the common nonesense like being a peerless swordsmen, or a inspirationl leader, or cerebral genius (which in either cases Jarom is never going to be confused with say Zelazyn’s Benedict of Amber or close to it). That’s not my issue with the character that seems to be a popular complaint I see among my peers in the reviewing community. My issue with him is his train of thought, not the frequent occurrences they are exhibited mind you (and they are frequent), as I am an absolute fan of deep character studies, but this isn’t Severian, and in this case they are just to derivative in nature. It’s the same thing over and over, it becomes not a character study, but incessant whineing in such a way that in a near death experience suffered by Jarom, I truly hoped he was just going to die. One line in particular is a good example of what is broadcasted over and over excessively, in between every scene of substance, like a constant unwanted segue:

“There was to be no sudden revelation, no euphoric moment of realization in which he would take command of the blade and fulfill his destiny. There was nothing in the stars to predict his eventual triumph over the forces of darkness”

One instance, I can deal with, dozens, and I have to ask the question, who possibly thinks like that? Fantasy or not? I think the problem some and I may have is that we are expected to care about this characters plight and his transition to the realization he is of royal blood. The problem is that this transition happens very quickly in the first portions of The Crimson Sword so we the reader do not know Jarom, and thus do not have any reason to read about him whining about a former life that we the reader were not exposed to and thus have nothing vested in.

Another element that really jumps out right from the opening chapter are what I felt was Thompson’s overuse of descriptive phrases and adjectives. As I said before Thompson’s choice of starting the book of with the Assassin was deft choice and I understand the desire to set a tone and impression on the reader in the opening part of the novel (and for the most part it is successful) but not even speaking of removing whole segments or chapters of the novel, but just by cutting down on unneeded adjectives sporadically and over descriptiveness this 537 page novel may very well have shown marked improvement at 480 pages. Now people who have read my reviews may ask the question why do I think it’s a detraction in Mr. Thompson’s The Crimson Sword yet I praise the abundant descriptive examples found in a China Mieville novel? The difference is in execution. Mieville spends a great amount of time with descriptive language in his work. His statements invoke imagery in a way that I don’t think anyone presently writing can stir the imagination more with just one choice sentence or word choice. Thompson’s descriptive language is more laymen in nature, the metaphoric value of such have been reduced to the reader from overuse in the majority of other works. I’m not saying I don’t like his use, I am saying it was noticeably overly done, sometimes seeming if their was a purposeful desire to add description to every sentence but the excessive use summed up to instead only causing for the lengthening the novel and not the the hopefully intended styling of the narrative to invoke imagery. Again I mention the first chapter (which in turn I will again served its purpose) which spans seven pages, but in time I think Thompson will be able to write the same scene later with just as much effectiveness in two or three pages.

This as I mentioned is the first book in a thus far planned trilogy ‘The Legend of Asahiel’ yet to Mr. Thompson’s credit he gives the first installment some amount of closure, telling what is a complete tale, going along with of course some loose ends some of which I look forward to, and others I don’t. The Crimson Sword does offer as I said, a conclusion to enough plotlines that fans should feel confident if they want to try out Mr. Thompson’s writing that they will get what in essence is a full story and not commit themselves to the other novels, which are titled The Obsidian Key and The Divine Talisman with out getting one.

What to look forward to? Some potentially interesting elements and some…well others. A continuing of a love story that really I correlate with Jarom’s incessant whining and what makes his character even more hard to find a desire to read about; it didn’t work for me at all, it didn’t seem reasonable to me but this is no slight to Mr. Thompson as fantasy authors as a whole, particularly new ones, seem to have some problems with depicting relationships at first. What are sure to be of interest are the aforementioned assassins, particularly due to some interesting occurrences regarding Kylac’s weapons and a Dragon’s reaction to them. Xarius Talyzar, in many ways was my favorite character. Also at the end, a foreshadowing of a new threat from the very chamber the Sword of Asahiel stood.

Grading The Crimson Sword proved to be a slight dilemma for me. Although I am a fan of some current epic series (George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson, R. Scott Bakker) most of them are not subject of category of ‘high fantasy’ (due to there scope, and themes) which I honestly don’t read much anymore due to a fear I may run into the next David Eddings (or Terry Brooks), however, I came away interested enough to have a desire to read the next novel ‘The Obsidian Key’. I always like to read an author’s second work after he/she gets the arduous process of presenting their world and all its basic facets in the first installment, and has a chance to digest all the praise and criticism, and either adjust according to them or not. As I said above I think Mr. Thompson already has a viable and large potential fan base to draw from and I think ultimately the positives I pointed is enough to get past an impossible to like main character, and if so there is no reason he can’t draw from that fan base. If you enjoy writers like Terry Brooks or David Eddings you should have no problems enjoying The Crimson Sword, however I don’t as of yet (first book) think it offers something for fans of any other preferences. If you don’t like High Fantasy this novel does not present an argument that will change your opinion - in fact it is your argument. I suspect fans in the vein will appreciate it, and I think the novel will gain an audience with fans taking there first dive into fantasy, and unlike many other examples of new authors I see enter the genre I think Thompson is na added voice that will generate mainstream interest. I think there is a lot that can be improved, but just noting the interest Mr. Thompson has displayed in this process during the brief instances of conversation between him and myself, when I asked him to join us on a future edition of our interview feature ‘One the Spot’ (which he has most generously agreed to) and his presence on the net to get the word out about his book, and his open desire for candid critique of his work, I think Mr. Thompson work will only progress.

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Topics: Eldon Thompson, Eos, The Crimson Sword, The Legend of Asahiel