Review: The Best Weapon: A new take on High Fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 14, 2012
Just when I thought all fantasy books were required to be in a prefabbed form for publication, along comes The Best Weapon by David Pilling and Martin Bolton. This book is a pleasant surprise. It has the flavor of Circle at Center in its grittiness and grounding in human interaction, in spite of the presence of Gods and mythical feel. I found myself enjoying the development of the two brothers, created by the Lords of Hell in two separate wombs on opposite side of the world; Naiyar to the warlike and superstitious Djanki tribe, and Fulk far away to the North, where The Old Kingdom has rebuilt its infrastructure, but now risks upheaval; for the sole remaining queen is a sickly child. As the boys gain their majority they face trials and tribulations with mixed emotions rather than the elation that might have been, and the depiction of the humans around them as a frequently un-lofty, nasty bunch of folk at odds with each other, and often downright scary lends a nice realism to the whole read. Plots within plots are revealed in some nice twists, and the fate of a Kingdom can change in the hands of an average man touched by the Lords of Hell. All in all, The Best Weapon is a fine fantasy tale. I can easily recommend it as fine summer reading.