Villains by Necessity [Paperback]

Eve Forward (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1996

Living after the victory of Good and Light has transformed the world into a utopia, a bored band of villains--a thief, a black knight, a Druid, and a man-eating sorceress--conspires to restore evil to the universe. Reprint. AB. PW.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With the banishment of Evil from the realms, the final victory of Good is assured-unless a few stalwart antiheroes can save the world from a serious and potentially fatal imbalance. First novelist Forward explores the complications that arise from a surfeit of "goodness" in the world. The result is a skewed version of the epic fantasy that features an assassin, a thief, an evil sorceress, a dark knight, and an implacable druid as the villains-turned-heroes who must restore the delicate balance of opposing forces before their world disappears in a blinding flash of Goodness and Light. Fans of role-playing games will recognize many familiar conventions in this seriocomic fantasy adventure. A candidate for fantasy collections in large libraries.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Forward's first novel gives the concept of the balance between good and evil a most ingenious twist: What if good were so totally triumphant that it became a worse danger than evil, and a band of unemployed evil characters had to go on a desperate quest to find the means of putting the saving bit of evil back into the world? The result of this twist is an almost straightforward quest tale, with numerous well-drawn characters (including a centaur who starts off as a secret agent for good and eventually joins the side of evil), great ingenuity about magic, very creditable world-building, and considerable wit. Although bearing its share of first-novel flaws, it has many more virtues, which include an underlying, serious examination of the good-evil dichotomy that is the basis of so many role-playing games. Roland Green --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Tom Doherty Assoc Llc (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812522281
• ISBN-13: 978-0812522280
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Terrific Nonstandard Fantasy, May 15, 2000

By 

Sunhi (East Norriton, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Villains by Necessity (Paperback)

In a twist on the usual fantasy story, Forward's heroes are not classically good-hearted heroes, but instead villians. Including an assassin, an evil sorceress, a greedy thief, and a black knight, the main characters are likable and intriguing. They band together to save the world from destruction by the powers of good.

In the beginning, I found the characters one-dimensional. However, as the story quickly unfolded, I was fascinated to see that both character introspection and interaction developed their personalities to an amazing degree. After that, even minor, short-lived characters managed to grab my attention fully.

There are a number of sly digs at other fantasy works, which make Villians By Necessity an even funnier book if you're well-read in fantasy novels.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fresh take on a tired genre., May 30, 2003

By 

Bray D (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Villains by Necessity (Paperback)

A first glance and a quick skim through, Villains by Necessity, by Eve Forward, seems like your average, run-of-the-mill comic fantasy epic, involving a band of adventurers out to save the world against unlikely odds. However, take a look closer, and you'll find something familiar, yet strangely unique, and a great read along the way.

What Forward does here is not introduce new types of fantasy worlds, but lampoon already existing ideas that have been beaten harder than any dead horse could hope for. "Villains by Necessity" takes place in a world called the Six Lands, a place Forward most likely intended to resemble Middle-Earth. The prolouge tells the tale of a great war long ago, where a Dark Evil King battled the forces of good. It took a small band to overcome their differences and defeat the Dark Lord (hmm, where have I heard THAT before?). Now, 150 years later, the banishment of evil threatens to destroy all in a blinding flash of goodness. Now, THAT's a bit different.

Enter our anti-heroes. An assassin, a thief, a druid, a sorceress, a dark knight, and a centaur must band together to bring balance back to the world, ere it sublimates itself. Take what you're used to and flip it. The bad guys must save the world from itself.

Interesting, no? Having the left-overs from forces of evil, defeated in the decisive Final Battle described in countless fantasy novels, set out to undo that Victory. Despite preconceived roles of pure nastiness that one would prescribe to this group, Forward instead develops these supposed irredeemable souls into a group one might actually find after the Absolute Victory.

Some have complained that these characters are not "evil enough", but it makes sense, the way Forward weaves it; the most evil creatures in existence were snuffed out... people of merely "flexible morals" are what one would have left. If one was of an incredibly dark nature, the followers of light would have found and eliminated one without problem. So what would be left with is people who commit evil acts purely out of necessity (hence the title). Make sense now?

Also, by having these characters obstain from being two-dimensionally evil, Forward challenges what it actually means to be good or evil. The "good" characters attempting to prevent evil from returning perform acts normally reserved by evil people. When good exists only for its own sake, and all right and wrong lost, "good" can become just as bad as evil, Forward suggests. What's being said is that sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken (i.e. claiming goodness and piety and actually exercising them are two very different things).

The actual characters, both main and secondary, are likable and fleshed out nicely. We find ourselves sympathizing with Sam the assassin and his Cohorts and thinking "Wait, these guys are 'evil', and I feel for them?! You mean that villains just might be people too?! Whoa!!" Yes, these so-called villains are not paper-thin OR have laughs that consist of repeating "Mwah-hah-hah".

Everything in this novel is designed to be a parody of the Tolkein and D&D world. Sam is a rouge, as is Arcie, who also has dwarf/hobbit features, Valerie the Nathauan is a take on Dark Elves, Kaylana is a Druid (well, duh), Blackmail is an anti-paladin, and Robin is a bard. Their nemesisi consist of a ranger (even described as a "Strider"), a elven wizard whom reminds me so much of Gandalf the Grey it startled me (though the differences between a wizard and a sorceror are very D&D). There's deep dwarven tunnels (a la Moria), barbarians (a class in D&D), dragons possessing "alignment", etc. etc. If you've ever played a game of D&D, and if you know the literary fantasy genre, you've seen a lot of the content of Villains by Necessity, which would be a detractor in any other novel. Not here, though. The familiarity actually helps Eve drive her points home better than a +2 Bow of True Strike... or something like that...

All nerdy D&D references aside, and despite all the familiar ground covered, the most important part of the novel, the twisting of preconcieved notions of good and evil in the dogmatic epic fantasy genre, is the biggest and best reason to pick up VbN (gotta love run-on sentences). You'll also find good pacing, good plotting, a nice amount of humor, some unforeseen plot twists, and very likable characters.

In short, while Villains by Necessity seems familiar, you're likely to be pleasently surprised.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just fantastic, January 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Villains by Necessity (Paperback)

Golly, so much to say about this book, and so little time. Well, first off, it was a wonderful twist on the usual good-going-off-to-battle-evil storyline, and showing interesting reprecussions of that particular storyline as well. So, take the plot, an interesting twist on an old (good vs evil) concept, and you've got the makings for a great story. Now, onto characters. I have read hundreds of books in my day, and, with the exception of Kaylana (and I believe she was supposed to be like that, too), I have never read a more likable cast of characters. Forward did some real character development, again, giving the usual one-dimensional bad guys depth- the heartsick, black-clad blond assassin, who kinda of likes rhymes, for example, and the dark sorceress who saw her family brutally murdered at the hands of heroes, simply for being what they were. Interesting, interesting, I say. A great book. I just finished reading it for the sixth time.