P. C. Hodgell

I forget where I first came across mention of Hodgell’s Chronicles of the Kencyrath, but it resulted in me buying an omnibus of the first two books of the, to date, ten-book series. I read the first book, God Stalk, and it wasn’t bad. Very much a secondary world fantasy in the vein of assorted LotR rip-offs or popular fantasy role-playing games. But it had likeable characters and hinted at an interesting back-history.

A few years later, I read the second book. If the first had riffed off Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, the second threw in references to some of the more off-the-wall Conan stories and hinted at yet further world history weirdness than had so far been mentioned. True, this is heartland stuff, so much so it could be a RPG campaign supplement, but it’s all just a little bit sideways to the template. In fact, now I think about it, it's sort of like the Wheel of Time - it has all the neat clues to a deep, possibly science-fictional, back-history, it follows the form of the sub-genre in terms of lands and races and characters, but with several changes… But it is definitely not Wheel of Time: it’s competently write for a start, isn’t padded out to shit, doesn’t feature spanking or gratuitous mentions of women’s breasts, or have characters that behave like dim-witted teenagers from smalltown, USA. If you liked Jordan’s flatulent opus, the Chronicles of Kencyrath will blow you away. Um, perhaps a bad choice of words, but you know what I mean.

And so to Blood & Ivory, a collection of short stories which is undoubtedly for fans. I picked up the Meisha Merlin 2002 edition - from Norcon 30 in Oslo, for much cheapness - which includes useful maps and not so useful artwork by Hodgell herself. The stories are a mixed bag. Some were folded into the first two novels, others give useful background on minor characters. A very early story, if not the first, featuring the major characters is interesting, in as much as it reads a sf/fantasy hybrid and nothing like the actual chronicles. Although there’s a hint of it in the novels, the stories here are much more Goth than I expected. There’s also a supernatural Holmes story, which isn’t bad but doesn’t really need to be a Holmes story.

I recommend the series, and I say that as someone who isn’t a fan of epic secondary world fantasy. Unlike the execrable Wheel of Time, Hodgell’s Chronicles of the Kencyrath are not a chore to read and there are Easter eggs, intentional or not I’ve no idea, for a reader well-read in the genre. For a fan, Blood & Ivory is almost essential; for a casual reader, probably not.… (mehr)