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Adams, Douglas (S)
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Barclay, James (F)
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Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
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James Barclay

Author Information	Reviewed Books	Other Books
Notes: (C) - Chronicle Series	Dawnthief (C)	Elfsorrow (8/02) Moonshade (C) Nightchild (C)

Dawnthief

Added 6/9/02

Our Ranking

Dawnthief is the first novel in James Barclay's Chronicles of the Raven. After reading the description of this on Amazon, it sounded a bit like Glen Cook's Black Company series. I was in the mood for some new fantasy (while waiting anxiously for Martin's next book) so I figured I'd give this a try. Well, while this wound up being a pretty enjoyable book and a bit like the Black Company in some ways, it certainly wasn't as good as the Black Company. Dawnthief is mainly about a group of mercenaries that are known simply as The Raven. The Raven are in incredible demand for two reasons. First, they are very good, only having lost 2 members in over 10 years of fighting. Second, they are very honorable, living by the code, "Kill but never murder" and basically being extremely trustworthy to their employers. Unfortunately for The Raven (and the world the book is set in), things are about to change in a hurry. The Raven are pulled into a mission that pits them against powers much beyond them that are trying to destroy the world. They need to put everything aside, and join some unlikely allies in order to save the world. The plot for the most part is fairly simple. Barclay does put some nice twists and turns in it, but it is mostly a straight forward sword and sorcery novel. One of the things I like is that it is centered around the action and magic, and not one of the novels that spends amazing amounts of detail describing how life is in these times, like how a horse should be groomed or feed, etc. Barclay more or less puts you in the world and expects you to except it. I prefer that. Barclay does create some pretty interesting ideas for how the magic works and how the different Colleges go about treating magic. This plays a pretty strong role in the book and adds a lot to it, especially during the battle scenes where he does a great job describing how magicians would totally altar a war. The war scenes in general were actually pretty good, (and some were flat out very good). Some seemed a bit far fetched, but mostly that was just due to the magic impact so it is plausible. In addition, Barclay creates some pretty cool creatures and ideas, some of them very surprising, that really add to the story. The characters are interesting, but not the strongest part of the book. The Raven itself is pretty tightly written, and for the most part are enjoyable. I think in a few cases, they really swallow their pride/beliefs a little too quickly but otherwise they are pretty good. Some of the side characters are pretty bad, almost to the point of annoying. Erienne who is a female Magician was very poorly written I thought, and well, just really took away from the story. One thing that sort of bugged me was that these characters were mostly of the hero type, but yet would be made utterly distraught by things over and over throughout the book. I think Barclay went a little over the top trying to describe how "hideous" or "overwhelming" certain creatures were in the book. If you do that a couple of times, it works great, but he went to the well a few times too often. Overall, like I said this was an enjoyable book. Barclay writes some very good action sequences and the book moved along very quickly. The writing wasn't amazing, but it was enough to make an interesting tale. If you're a fantasy fan and just want a good tale this is a good one to read. I will probably pick up the next book, "Noonshade" if I can find it. Barclay's English I think, so these are a bit tough to find in the US.