In the spirit of full disclosure, I should start off this review by admitting that:
A.) I'm a big fan of Richard K. Morgan's work. I devoured the Takeshi Kovacs books. I really enjoyed Market Forces. Hell, I even liked Thirteen. As a friend of mine says, Mr. Morgan should be: "chained to his desk and forced to write novels for me." A sentiment I wholly agree with.
Which leads me to my second admission...
B.) I was so excited for this book, Mr. Morgan's fabled, long rumored departure from sci-fi and his first foray into noir-ish fantasy, that I ordered the book from England. It doesn't come out here in America until January or something like that and quite frankly, that was too long for me. I couldn't wait. So, I actually ordered a fantasy book "special" from overseas...
So bare those things in mind as you read on...
In a nutshell, my review of The Steel Remains goes like this: Fantastic. Great. Very, very good. I really enjoyed it and I excitedly await the second... which I will probably order from England.
So it goes like this:
Ringil Angeleyes is a once storied Hero-of-Legend living off his reputation at the edge of the World. Egar Dragonbane once rode a Dragon down to its fiery death and now wallows in a life of boredom amongst his goat herding, steppe wandering, superstitious hick kin. Archeth Indamaninarmal is the last of her kind, a half breed left behind by her Father's people and now serving an Empire she no longer believes in and an Emperor barely worth his crown. These three former friends and companions, heroes and veterans of the war with the Scaled folk that nearly destroyed humanity, now find themselves on a path towards a new war, a war against a darker evil, a more powerful and more dangerous foe than the Lizards, and all with a World that none of them is even sure is worth saving anymore hanging in the balance.
So the main complaint I've seen, is the one from people who happily land with both feet on the "seen it before" rant, as if there is such a creature as a wholly original tale, ESPECIALLY where such a tired and played out genre as fantasy is concerned. First off, this book isn't a traditional fantasy story, so from the start, any comparisons are ridiculous. This is a far flung future world, a world so far ahead, that the moon is gone (having apparently been shattered at some point lost to history), technology and society has regressed (possibly due to the same cataclysm that befell the moon) and so much time has passed since that no one even remembers the world as it used to be. The setting alone precludes the inclusion of those tired and oh-so familiar fantasy tropes in the usual ways and their re-appliance in this new setting automatically makes them seem new again. Which is really the point, isn't it? To fall back on the old cliché: There's nothing new under the sun. The trick, then, becomes to redress the old as new.
And that's what Mr. Morgan does.
The classic fantasy bits here have been taken and twisted and painted with shadows. They are recognizable in order to allow the reader to slip into this new world somewhat easily and that very same familiarity makes the other odd occurrences, the incongruities included, seem to stand out and all the more strangely and noteworthy as a result.
So are there things you will recognize? Familiar Archetypes? Recognizable themes? Common twists and turns? Yes, at times. Guess what else? Morgan also uses gravity to keep his characters from flying off into space, someone call the literary police!
To be honest, part of this reaction is Morgan's fault. He has stated that it was his intention to do something new and different in the tired world of fantasy and to my mind, he has, but when you make that kind of statement, certain... people... quickly and firmly set their stance as biased and ready judge, carefully cataloging and comparing every nuance and bit against their pathetically encyclopedic knowledge of the poor limping parade of garbage that has come before just so they can rush out and highlight every last bit for the rest of us and then... I don't know, they get a badge or a plaque or something...
What you will find, should you buy this book (and you should) is a strange and dark and fantastic trip through a World that has just recently won their great climatic battle against a dangerous, otherworldly evil. They have saved their World. The War of their Age has been fought and won and Evil has been beaten and cast back into the seas from whence it came. Huzzah! ...And then everyone turned on each other. Alliances crumbled and petty squabbles over the lines on the maps soaked the ground with the blood of warriors who were, until just recently, friends and stalwart companions. It's a world were ignorance and religious driven hatred and paranoia rule the day and the moment where good stood together and the world could have almost been something great is now long gone. And no one knows this better than the War's heroes. They drink and wallow and wander and wonder if it was all worth it. Their golden moment of glory has given way to the long dark of smoky bars and regret tinged ghosts. But despite all this, our trio of heroes are just that, heroes and when the clarion call of trumpets sound them back to battle, they come, no matter how small and tinny those trumpets may be. In the end they stand together in the dark to fight the first skirmishes in a coming battle against an ancient evil newly awoken...
What more could you want then that?
The second complaint I've heard is over the "gayness" of two of the characters. Yawn. Whatever. Its there. So what? Morgan's books have always leaned graphically toward sex. If this puts you off, then know that this book is no different than the others.
The third complaint I've read is that "nothing happens". That's just... completely untrue, completely, but I can see where certain... people... might complain of that, being that they like things that `splode and only things that `splode, well, sorry, what can I tell? At times, in this book, Mr. Morgan does spend some time developing his characters, their situations and the world around them. There is some set up required. This is the first book in a trilogy and as any real fan familiar with sci-fi/fantasy will tell you, that means there's two more books coming and as such, one could expect that there is more story on the way and that perhaps... PERHAPS... Morgan is keeping the big, big battles for later... Maybe...
Anyway, to make a long story short. I loved this world and its melancholy gray characters moving through their shadowed landscape. I loved the "real" characters, the three dimensional characters and their normal speech patterns and thoughts thrown into the mix with the classic tropes and trappings of monsters and magics and myths. I loved the hints of mysterious and long forgotten high technology and the broken down remnants that remain. I loved the murk and the muck and the mud. I loved the hollowness of the Empire's rhetoric and the sadness and disappointment the heroes felt in its wake. And I loved them returning to battle again, because in the end, they can do no less.
My recommendation: Buy it.
