Book Review: "The Cardinal's Blades"
After reading the disappointing "The Scar-Crow Men," by Mark Chadbourn, I thought I'd change authors and review a book I really liked! (So if you have a short attention span, you can stop reading there, ha ha.)
"The Cardinal's Blades" is the first novel in a series by a French author, Pierre Pevel, that was translated into English a few years back. It caught my attention while I was looking through my NOOK store--it was described as "Three Musketeers with magic and fantasy elements." Intrigued, I bought it and read it. I was not disappointed!
The story is set in Paris in the 1600s. The Blades of the title are a team of secret agents serving Cardinal Richelieu--that's right, the villain from "The Three Musketeers" and real-life famous French politician, but in this series he's not the bad guy. Richelieu formed the Blades to thwart the designs of a cult called the Black Claw--a secret society based in Madrid that supports the Spanish government in efforts to destabilize and conspire against other nations. Oh yeah...and they can wield magic. Because the Black Claw are actually ancient dragons disguised as humans.
Fortunately the Blades are a pretty tough bunch. They include a Spanish fencing master, a beautiful French noblewoman who's skilled at infiltration and swordfighting, a dissolute gambler and womanizer who also happens to be a pretty good doctor, and a ruthless spy who is himself half-human and half-dragon. But at the start of the novel, the team has been disbanded for five years following a disastrous mission during the battle of La Rochelle. (This battle is an important part of the novel "The Three Musketeers" and if you pay close attention you will note some interesting historical oddities mentioned.)
Most of the book follows the different Blades as they are ordered re-formed by Richelieu in order to find a Spanish noble who's gone missing in Paris during the middle of critical diplomatic negotiations. As they return to duty, the team encounters hired killers, double (and triple) agents, beautiful women and along the way discover that the missing noble has links both to a sinister Black Claw plot and a mysterious incident in the Blades' past.
Pevel is not a writer with the flair of Roger Zelazny or the eloquence of Tolkien. But he has a simple, straightforward style in writing a swashbuckling adventure that I really like. The Blades are fairly stereotypical heroes without much complexity (La Fargue is the fatherly commander, Agnes is a brooding tomboy orphan raised by an old soldier, Marciac is a womanizing smartass), but Pevel's knack for snappy dialogue, energetic action and fast pacing keep things very entertaining. Given that the novel is translated from the original French, I think that's quite impressive. He's good at writing fight scenes, and there are a couple of twists and cliffhangers that added some clever surprise value without leaving me feeling the story was incomplete. Plus there are some brief cameos from another famous swashbuckling novel that Dumas fans will probably find amusing.
Another thing I like is the subtlety of the fantasy elements in the novel. They are definitely there, but Pevel treats them as part of the background, just accepted by all the characters and only emerging as key to the plot in a few chapters. The book could have removed all the magic and still had a very solid, enjoyable plot as a swashbuckling historical novel, but the fantasy elements are used to give it some additional flash and twists. Pevel also makes some subtle changes and twists to history when introducing real-life characters and events...I was only able to catch one anomaly but there may be more waiting for folks who know more about French history than I do.
I always try to include some RPG gaming thoughts in my reviews, and "The Cardinal's Blades" has wonderful material for fantasy games. If you like 7th Sea there's a lot here you can use for a campaign in Montaigne, and I just acquired another swashbuckler RPG "All For One: Regime Diabolique" which has a nearly identical setting to the book and looks great. I would love to run or play in a "Cardinal's Blades" campaign.
So I give "The Cardinal's Blades" an unqualified Four out of Four Tanuki Ears of Love. It's like a good steak and potatoes dinner--solid, tasty and very satisfying. With rapiers, banter and dragons. :D
(P.S. Pevel has written two more books in the series that are available in English. I've just finished the second and will try and post a review in the near future.)
"The Cardinal's Blades" is the first novel in a series by a French author, Pierre Pevel, that was translated into English a few years back. It caught my attention while I was looking through my NOOK store--it was described as "Three Musketeers with magic and fantasy elements." Intrigued, I bought it and read it. I was not disappointed!
The story is set in Paris in the 1600s. The Blades of the title are a team of secret agents serving Cardinal Richelieu--that's right, the villain from "The Three Musketeers" and real-life famous French politician, but in this series he's not the bad guy. Richelieu formed the Blades to thwart the designs of a cult called the Black Claw--a secret society based in Madrid that supports the Spanish government in efforts to destabilize and conspire against other nations. Oh yeah...and they can wield magic. Because the Black Claw are actually ancient dragons disguised as humans.
Fortunately the Blades are a pretty tough bunch. They include a Spanish fencing master, a beautiful French noblewoman who's skilled at infiltration and swordfighting, a dissolute gambler and womanizer who also happens to be a pretty good doctor, and a ruthless spy who is himself half-human and half-dragon. But at the start of the novel, the team has been disbanded for five years following a disastrous mission during the battle of La Rochelle. (This battle is an important part of the novel "The Three Musketeers" and if you pay close attention you will note some interesting historical oddities mentioned.)
Most of the book follows the different Blades as they are ordered re-formed by Richelieu in order to find a Spanish noble who's gone missing in Paris during the middle of critical diplomatic negotiations. As they return to duty, the team encounters hired killers, double (and triple) agents, beautiful women and along the way discover that the missing noble has links both to a sinister Black Claw plot and a mysterious incident in the Blades' past.
Pevel is not a writer with the flair of Roger Zelazny or the eloquence of Tolkien. But he has a simple, straightforward style in writing a swashbuckling adventure that I really like. The Blades are fairly stereotypical heroes without much complexity (La Fargue is the fatherly commander, Agnes is a brooding tomboy orphan raised by an old soldier, Marciac is a womanizing smartass), but Pevel's knack for snappy dialogue, energetic action and fast pacing keep things very entertaining. Given that the novel is translated from the original French, I think that's quite impressive. He's good at writing fight scenes, and there are a couple of twists and cliffhangers that added some clever surprise value without leaving me feeling the story was incomplete. Plus there are some brief cameos from another famous swashbuckling novel that Dumas fans will probably find amusing.
Another thing I like is the subtlety of the fantasy elements in the novel. They are definitely there, but Pevel treats them as part of the background, just accepted by all the characters and only emerging as key to the plot in a few chapters. The book could have removed all the magic and still had a very solid, enjoyable plot as a swashbuckling historical novel, but the fantasy elements are used to give it some additional flash and twists. Pevel also makes some subtle changes and twists to history when introducing real-life characters and events...I was only able to catch one anomaly but there may be more waiting for folks who know more about French history than I do.
I always try to include some RPG gaming thoughts in my reviews, and "The Cardinal's Blades" has wonderful material for fantasy games. If you like 7th Sea there's a lot here you can use for a campaign in Montaigne, and I just acquired another swashbuckler RPG "All For One: Regime Diabolique" which has a nearly identical setting to the book and looks great. I would love to run or play in a "Cardinal's Blades" campaign.
So I give "The Cardinal's Blades" an unqualified Four out of Four Tanuki Ears of Love. It's like a good steak and potatoes dinner--solid, tasty and very satisfying. With rapiers, banter and dragons. :D
(P.S. Pevel has written two more books in the series that are available in English. I've just finished the second and will try and post a review in the near future.)