Fiction Reviews
The Silverblood Promise
(2024) James Logan, Arcadia, £20, hrdbk, 595pp, ISBN 978-1-529-43282-4
The Silverblood Promise is a story from a debut writer, although one who has worked in publishing for many years. It is told from the perspective of Lukan Gardova, a cardsharp, academy dropout, and the disgraced heir to an ancient noble house. However, when Lukan discovers that his estranged father has been murdered, he finds fresh purpose, vowing to unravel the mystery behind his father’s death.
He goes to the ancient city of Sophrona, fabled city of merchant princes, in search of contacts who can help him further. Lukan is helped by Flea, an 11-year-old street pickpocket, and the two form an alliance. Cue lots of surreptitious meetings, street fights and bribery as Lukan and Flea soon find themselves embroiled with local mafia, the societal elite, and more besides.
Of course, Lukan discovers that the situation is more complicated and convoluted than he expects. We there are other forces at play in the city – ancient occult forces and even science-fictional objects of power left behind by a Lovecraftian god-like race, not to mention horrible creatures living alongside the city dwellers of Sophrona.
As you might suspect then, this is a book that exists by mixing up its tropes. It is a story of vengeance, retribution and redemption, all good Fantasy tropes. Logan uses his writing skills to create a world that is recognisable enough to feel familiar and yet also different enough to be memorable, without falling into the trap of becoming too information or plot-heavy, although it has its moments!
By using fairly standard character tropes this also means that the characters are easily identifiable without the need for too much effort in description. Lukan is your typical downfallen rogue, a sort of Fantasy equivalent of Han Solo travelling from one card game and bar to another. I was intrigued by the fact that Lukan himself is a little passive, in that he seems pretty less clued-in than Flea on the way things work. Initially he tends to be a character that has things happen to him or reacts to things that have happened to him, rather than him take the lead. I think this does change as the book progresses, though, and I suspect it will happen more in the next book.
Of the other tropes, the big bad villain, or villains (no spoilers!) of the plot are your typical adversary, with designs upon domination and gaining power. Flea in particular is a great character and I suspect may become a reader favourite. Her straight-talking to Lukan’s occasional dithering means that although the relationship is initially a little convenient for the plot, their key relationship feels both recognisable and genuine, I also liked the world that Lukan and Flea live in with its varied architecture and societal patterns. What was pleasing was the way that Logan takes these elements and gives them his own spin. Saphrona itself feels like a city straight out of Renaissance Southern Italy with its sense of Italianate Baroque, whilst the society is your typical hierarchy of haves and have-nots, the environment of the elite contrasting sharply with the underworld that Lukan seems to spend a lot of time in.
My immediate thought on finishing the novel was that The Silverblood Promise is a fantasy novel that knows its genre background. There are gritty elements, fruity language and undeniably violent scenes, but is all done with reasonable taste, it feels, which are the life-blood of many Fantasy writers, who I suspect will lap this up.
Most of all, I thought that it is a novel that is not afraid to harken back to the work of those fantasy writers of the past. There are no fancy multiple perspective narratives here, which made it pleasantly and pleasingly straightforward, with the focus mainly on our main characters, seeing things through Lukan. In this way, whilst not as dark or as sweary as say the grimdark novels of Joe Abercrombie, The Silverblood Promise made me think that it was an updating of the old fantasy quest stories of writers such as Raymond Feist or David Gemmell. What works supremely well here is that Logan knows what readers like and want, and takes the best elements of those older novels, those trope elements that work, gives them a polish and a brush-up and makes them compatible for contemporary readers.
Summing up then, The Silverblood Promise is clearly plotted, imaginative, and exciting, without becoming bogged down with side-plots, world-building ephemera or multitudes of moral messages. (Don’t get me wrong, there are moral messages here, obviously, but unlike many new writers today, the author has not forgotten the need to tell a story as well as to make points, nor has he kept repetitively labouring the points throughout the novel.) Part heist, part caper, this entertaining fantasy novel plays to its recognisable strengths and doesn't outstay its welcome, which after nearly 600 pages is impressive, especially from a debut author. A solidly immersive and above all entertaining read.
Mark Yon
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