Review: A mixed bag of an introduction to the world
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 14, 2014
The Unknown Man is about the titular character, an amnesiac knight dubbed Tirene, who is discovered by two goblins and must track down Norlun, a wizard who will help him recover his memories. Aiding him is Liniana, the daughter of a lord and the healer of the party; Matt, a thief with a tragic backstory; and Jaeden, a fledgling youth ready to save the day. Although Jaeden does split the thief role with Matt by taking on the silver tongue and gambling aspects. So this leaves Tirene to pull double duty as a mage. With all the party gathered, they have to stop the evil Lutheras as well and protect the seven orbs—which are hourglasses called orbs for the same reasons some Elves in this world are bronze instead of pasty white.Now if the previous description didn’t tell you, this is about as high fantasy as you can get. Knights, wizards, magic, elves, dwarves, dragons, the whole lot. But one aspect that really struck me was the villains, especially the head leader, Lutheras. He is about as over-the-top evil as one could be to the point of dawning a cloak most times and having evil red eyes. And thankfully, at first, his henchmen tend to use minotaurs instead of the standard orcs for a refreshing change of pace. Yet he and his whole group of corrupt humans, elves, minotaurs, and orcs are absolutely terrified of Tirene. There are a few points where he does try to be dark and menacing with murder or ruthless blood magic, but never quite loses his kitsch atmosphere. Sure, the villains being scared of the hero kills much of the tension. On the other hand, it has this interesting, goofy edge that makes them seem like bumbling, incompetent fools. It’s a different approach and has me question if this book is supposed to be satirical.Because if this book is satirical, it would certainly explain why Tirene comes off as devious and manipulative as Lutheras. Tirene is basically the kind of honor-bound, stalwart knight that in a contemporary approach would be poked fun of. While it’s nice to see that everyone isn’t laughing at the knight with a code of honor for once, it doesn’t help that his code is pretty twisted. In Tirene’s view, drinking, thievery, and whisking women back to your bed despite the occasional concern that he might be married and not remember are all fine compared to gambling. For whatever reason, Tirene hates gambling, even when the gambler does it to support himself and his deadbeat, drunk aunt since it’s all he’s good at and can make money with his talent. So much does Tirene hate it and views this gambler, his actions, and his reasoning as dishonorable, that he makes the gambler sign a magical blood pact not to gamble and to protect the land. If broken, the pact will tear his soul apart and drive him insane. All this done in the name of honor. Even Lutheras isn’t as sinister in his views and he’s swimming up to his red eyeballs in blood magic.Other than that, Tirene came off to me as your basic knight, although one with a quick temper that starts to seem like a child throwing tantrums for not getting his way. Thankfully, the rest of the party comes out better. Liniana is quite supportive of everyone and is the voice of reason. Jaeden is foolhardy, though eager to help in the face of danger. Matt is a man looking to pay for past sins and is a humble, heart-of-gold kind of thief who tries to put others before himself. I quite enjoyed their characters throughout the story.As some other reviews have pointed out, the narrative does tend to repeat itself. Every time the pace picked up speed, the repetition slowed it down like bumps in the road. It also has the problem of often saying such and such a character “was apparent of” or “knew” or “noticed” something instead of outright telling what is happening. The dialogue tries to go for a more “ye olde” speech, being wordy and verbose, which for this particular tone is fine and I can get behind. But that, too, pushes itself, as characters explain every point of reasoning for their actions or will have entire conversations that could be shortened.Speaking of reasoning, the relationships are also iffy to me. Seeing as she’s the only major party member without a Y chromosome, Liniana is pursued by Tirene. Obviously. It’s the only thing that stops him from actively sleeping around so he can get together with her instead. I just never bought any budding romance between them, especially as he comes onto her rather strong. Rather uncomfortably strong. The friendships between the rest of the party are told to the reader instead of shown, such as Matt’s and Jaeden’s fast friendship.Unfortunately, I found the world building is pretty mixed. Sometimes, Tirene’s amnesia or Jaeden’s youthful ignorance are used as audience surrogates to explain the mechanics of the world, the races, locations, or the magic system of the Spark. Yet other times, the narrative outright tells you or tells that Tirene knows that a race does something or the history of a land. It really took me out of the reading.As for the world itself, there isn’t much told about it. I don’t want to say that there’s nothing unique in it. For example, the Spark system seems to have some interesting qualities when it’s used. Although the rules of it and what separates it from other mystical systems isn’t really covered much. The orbs themselves possess unique powers that I won’t spoil here. And the history of the realm is short, to the point, well planned, and straightforward enough to follow, as are the relationships between the various lands and races.But most of the fantasy aspects are shown in the last fifth of the book. Even then, I couldn’t find much in the world that differentiates it. Dwarves live in mountains, some elves in the woods, and the party makes a stop at one spot in the city of Rivenfell, the sister city to Rivendell I imagine. Let me be clear: I’m not claiming this is derivative, as Gatewood seems to have some ideas for the world up his sleeve that he hints at near the end.Now I wouldn’t expect to know everything about a fantasy world by the end of the first book in a series. I just feel that Gatewood plays his cards too close to his chest, such as Tirene’s supposed importance seen by everyone else. He’s a Keeper, like Liniana, but is the better fighter of the two. Somehow, this makes everyone believe he is destined for greatness, with no clear reason why he’s such a special Keeper compared to Liniana for much of the book. It’s the type of secrecy like this throughout and until the very end that almost led me to believe this book would be par for the course for the fantasy genre. It’s a rocky start and there were other parts of it I didn’t care for. However, it does look like Gatewood has some plans for the long haul to expand his world. He has some good supporting characters, an interesting take on villains, and shows some hints at an exciting world near the end. It’s just that the introduction to that world is a mixed bag and I wanted to know more about it than what I got.