James Barclay

[Brian G Turner]

I know Nixie has mentioned enjoying James Barclay's novels, but has anyone else read anything by him? Anything specifically to recommend?

I remember being at a Derby event where he read aloud a piece that - if I recall correctly, sounded like some form of Zombie Apocalypse set in Roman times. Not sure which of his arcs it is, though?

 

[Warren_Paul]

YES!

The book you are thinking of with the zombie apocalypse is the second part in the Ascendants of Estoria, A Shout for the Dead. Unfortunately the second book was a real let down. The first book, Cry of the Newborn, was brilliant though. There was only two books written in that series.

I'd recommend his novels about the merc group, The Raven. The Legends/Chronicles of the Raven are great. They are increasingly on the edge of your seat suspenseful, the sort of book I found I just couldn't put down. I read many of them in one setting. They are around 400 pages or so each, 7 books in the series. Like GRRM, James Barclay is not afraid to test the mortality rate of characters and write unexpected plot twists, and the storylines are intense. His characters are also like Joe Abercrombie; shades of grey, many quite ruthless. And the books have dragons in them, enough said! The dragons were really well done too, some interesting concepts that set them apart from other novels. I don't want to say too much, spoilers, etc.

Start with Dawnthief.

 

[Vertigo]

I confess I'm not a great lover of his. I quite liked the first Estorea book but as with WP the second was not as good as the first.

I have read the first two of the Raven books but wasn't motivated to continue with them. Although the pace was good for S&S style fantasy, I found them filled with implausible situations, decisions, actions, motivations etc. They also had some dreadful inconsistencies. For example, there were maps provided, which is fine but he needs to use them more consistently. The whole bunch would travel from A to B on foot as fast as they. Then later they'd travel a shorter distance from C to D on horseback, again in a hurry, and yet take longer. These kind of things drag me out of the story in frustration.

So I'm afraid he's a thumbs down for me. Not a mega thumbs down but he was really part of my disillusionment with fantasy a couple of years ago, along with (and I'm sticking my neck out here) Eddings, Hobb, Feist and Brooks. I started finding so much of the mainstream fantasy too formulaic and the Raven books were no exception for me (despite the excellently created dragons). The Estorea books were a little better.

Probably just me not liking that style of fantasy, though I did find Abercrombie much better.