Four More Short Stories

Today was a nice and lazy day which I spent reading more short stories on my Kindle. This time I read "Paladins of Shannara: the Weapon Master's Choice," "Fable: Theresa," and "The Keeper: a Short Story Prequel to Forbidden." The first two were stories I had been saving for some reason...(I think in the case of "Fable: Theresa," I was planning on playing through the original Fable game before reading it, but never did finish it). Like with After Life, I have no memory of "The Keeper" but that's ok, I read it anyway.

"The Weapon Master's Choice" was obviously a story about Garet Jax. A lady seeks him out, asking for his help saving her people from a warlock. The warlock is a dracul, draining the souls from her people. Jax agrees to help, and finds himself unexpectedly falling in love with the lady. It was an enjoyable story from one of my favourite authors.

I think "Fable: Theresa" was my favourite story of the three. The blind seer arrives in a town to find a young girl who is being overwhelmed by her dreams. Theresa knows the girl hasn't much time left. So she sets off on a quest to save the girl, seeking out the only person who may be able to help: the warlock named Raven. She needs the help of a Hero to get her there. Since time is short, the only one around is Elijah Stane, a washed up old Hero who is drinking his days away. He failed his last charge and so is reluctant to help anyone else, but reluctantly agrees to help the blind seer (because she is determined to go on her quest with or without his help). Theresa knows that they seek a miracle, and that even if such a thing exists, it will come with a price; will she be willing to pay it? I loved this story, but then again I'm a fan of Peter David's Fable stories so this wasn't at all surprising.

Of these three stories, "The Keeper" was my least favourite. But it is, as advertised, a prequel story. But more importantly, it's a prequel story to Forbidden, which I know nothing at all about. Two hermit brothers are approached by an unfamiliar man. He tells them that they and the world are dead, but that he can help them live again. I think he meant that they were emotionally dead, but it wasn't super clear until the end. This was by no means a favourite but it was interesting enough. Unfortunately it didn't make me want to keep reading the series right now.

Oh yeah, and yesterday I also read "The Boy With the Silver Eyes" by Bruce Coville. That takes place in his Unicorn universe. A Hunter makes his son eat the flesh of the Unicorn he had killed, which changes his son forever. The son's heart is restless and seeks some unknown thing. So he journeys out, finding the songs of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air in the hopes of finally putting his heart at ease.

Fable: Edge of the World

Disclaimer one: before I say anything else, the ending of this book made me mad. It was the same anger I felt when I read Firelight; I had no idea this book would end on a "To be continued" kind of note (but I had my suspicions when there were only twenty or so pages left and no ending in sight). To make things worse, I have no idea if book 2 will continue the story (or even who book 2 will be written by) or if I'm just supposed to play Fable: the Journey to see what happens (which I can't because I don't have a kinect). So the ending made me angry, which is a shame because I was really enjoying the book.

Disclaimer number two: reading Fable: Edge of the World was a bit difficult becgause when I play the Fable games I'm usually a woman. So it took a bit to get used to everyone referring to the king and his father, rather than the queen and her mother.

Ok, with that over with, I'm going to talk about the story with some big spoilers. You have been warned.

Fable: Edge of the World is a story within a story. There's a framing narrative about some dwellers, one of whom is fascinated by the Heroes. He gets into trouble for telling the children tales of Heroes because none of them will ever be Heroes. This is the whole 'prequel to Gable: the Journey" part of the book, which I didn't care about and found largely boring.

The main story involves the king of Albion, the Hero you played in Fable 3, keeping in mind that this is just a version of Fable 3 they chose to write about. When you or I play the game, our Hero could be very, very different from this one. I really wish they put in the disclaimer about that that was in Fable: the Balverine Order. Anyway, the king is marrying his true love Laylah, a girl from Aurora, when he receives some troubling news: the darkness from Fable 3 has returned, plaguing the land of Samarkand. Gathering an army, the king goes to stop this threat, leaving the kingdom in the hands of his new bride. He takes with him a few notable Fable 2 characters like Ben Finn and the priestess Kalin, leaving Page to help his queen. The king's journey is a hard one, being plagued by hollow men, balverines, sand furies and worse at every turn. But he fights his way to Samarkand's capital, gaining new allies along the way, chief among them are the sand dragon Percy, who is in reality some magic thing that serves Heroes, and Garth, the Hero of Will from Fable 2. The king uses his allies and army as a distraction, hoping to secretly enter the city and capture the Empress. But things do not go as planned; the king finds himself captured.

Meanwhile, back in Albion, Laylah finds herself clashing with her husband's head of security, Jack Timmins. She finds solace in the friendship of Page until Reaver appears and weasels his way into her inner circle. He tricks Laylah into believing both Page and Timmins have betrayed her. Once the two have fled Bowerstone to escape imprisonment (and in Timmins' case execution), Reaver in actuality betrays her. Forcing her to betray both her people and the location of her husband's Sanctuary, she desperately sends word to Page through her husband's dog of what has happened and how she is sorry for doubting the former rebel.

The last time I read a book that split the action with political intrigue was Jon Sprunk's Shadow's Lure; I didn't like the political stuff there and was worried I wouldn't like it here as a result. Luckily that wasn't the case; Christie Golden wrote both plots so well that I constantly wanted to know what was happening in both of them. There were even some points where I was more interested in Laylah's tale than the king's! I love reading books by Christie Golden and Fable: Edge of the World was no exception. I just hope this story will be continued by her and soon!

Short Story: Jack of Blades

I found "Jack of Blades" at the same time as "Reaver" (as well as "Theresa," which I have not yet read).  I honestly don't know anything about Jack of Blades; I'm guessing he's from the first game which I haven't played yet (but I'm going to first chance I get!)  Like "Reaver," "Jack of Blades" was a lot of fun.

I apologize, but I'm going to be giving some spoilers for this one. If you haven't read the story, go read it right now.  It's awesome!

"Jack of Blades" is about a guy named Xiro who wanders into a town taken over by Jack of Blades.  Xiro is told he cannot leave because Jack doesn't want his whereabouts being revealed to the outside world.  He then proceeds to accidentally kill two if Xiro's ten men (although the accident part is debatable.  There was a line to the effect of "his hand no longer shook" which led me to believe Xiro may have just been pretending to be unskilled).  In the wake of this, the villagers believe Xiro is a hero but he fervently denies it, claiming to be a no one.

Regardless of who Xiro is, his killings inevitably attract the attention of Jack.  Xiro kills two more of Jack's men in an "accidental" fire (I wasn't really buying the accident part) and is then brought to Jack's mansion where he is supposed to provide sport by fighting (or as they believe, dying to) a balverine.  After some incredibly bizarre stuff, Xiro manages to kill all of Jack's remaining men and reveals that "Jack" is an imposter   He listens to "Jack's" reasoning and then kills him as well.  The story never says exactly who Xiro is, but I thought it heavily implied that Xiro was the real Jack of Blades.

As I said, I don't know much about Jack of Blades, so I'm going to go play Fable 1 before looking into his character (having played 2 and 3, I'm pretty sure he must be from the first game).  But regardless, I really enjoyed reading this story!

As a side note, I'm not going to read "Theresa" until I've played through the first game.  I know she's originally from the first game so I want to play that before reading her tale.

Short Story: Reaver

I'm not going to lie.  I love Reaver.  So when I found a short story dedicated to him, I had to read it.

"Reaver" was a lot of fun (which I expected because it is about Reaver the character).  This is the story of how Reaver defeated Captain Dread, the self-styled pirate king.  In his witty and overconfident way, Reaver manages to undermine Dread's credibility before single-handedly taking on Dread and his crew!  The story can be a bit gruesome at times (there are some rather gory details) but it's a lot of fun!  Definitely worth the read, especially if you're a Fable fan.

Fable: Blood Ties

I recently went to Chapters with the express purpose of buying the Cowboys and Aliens graphic novel. I had a gift card left over from Christmas, and after really enjoying that book I decided I wanted to add it to my collection. Unfortunately, when I got to Chapters I discovered that they had their "buy 3 get the 4th book free" deal on. And as I started browsing, it became obvious there were four pocket books I'd like to get with that deal. So Cowboys and Aliens went back onto the shelf for another day, and instead I bought four books I've never read. Fable: Blood Ties was one of those four books.

After enjoying Fable: The Balverine Order, which was also by Peter David, finding Blood Ties was extremely exciting. I had no idea a new Fable book had been written. And unlike The Balverine Order, which was about some new characters, Blood Ties featured a couple of characters right out of Fable 3 (from the back of the book: Ben Finn and Page; while not mentioned on the back, Reaver is also in it). Finn is one of my favourite characters from Fable 3 (my most favourite is Reaver; he's so funny to listen to!) so naturally I was excited to read a book completely about his adventures after the game.

Blood Ties is a rather strange tale. Finn decides to leave Bowerstone and asks Page to accompany him; she refuses. So off Finn goes looking for adventure. He almost gets himself killed but is saved by a gnome (they appeared in the game and hurl insults at passerby's). After vowing he will not kill the gnome, the gnome decides to follow Finn around, insulting him and just generally making life miserable. Finn finds his way, gnome in tow, to a town that's under siege from a warlord. Unfortunately the warlord is the least of the town's troubles when

beast men show up. After this alarming discovery, Finn tracks the beasts down to their source and makes a virtual deal with Albion's entrepreneur devil Reaver. Blood Ties is told completely from Finn's perspective, which was quite a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, despite the great premise and my excitement over the characters, Blood Ties was a pretty slow read, particularly during the first half of the book. I don't know why, but I found myself not really caring about most of what was going on. It was honestly only when Reaver appeared to up the stakes that things picked up, but I still had a hard time wanting to sit down and read. In that regard I was rather disappointed; I loved reading The Balverine Order (well except for the premise - that needed a bit of tweaking in my opinion) and was expecting a similar reading experience from Blood Ties. Don't get me wrong, the story of Blood Ties was good and I'm quite glad to have read it. But it wasn't nearly as good at The Balverine Order was.

As a side note, the weapon code of The Balverine Order is a better draw than Blood Ties' dye pack. I don't know if I'll even bother redeeming the dye pack because I really don't care. My draw for buying Blood Ties was completely based off my expectations of Peter David's work.

Fable: The Balverine Order

Fable: The Balverine Order was my first non-school book since the summer. I found it at work, but decided to buy it because it comes with a code for a free weapon in Fable 3. As I told a friend, I was hoping the weapon would be awesome (because I've been so busy with school, I still haven't actually redeemed the code so I don't know). As far as I was concerned, the book itself might be an added bonus if it was good.

I was a bit doubtful on that score. The very premise made me laugh. Two guys go off on a search for the rare and illusive balverine. This sounds like a great premise - except that within the Fable games that I have played, when you hit a certain level you can't go about 10 feet within the game without tripping over balverines (I exaggerate - the actual number is probably closer to 50-100 feet). So everytime someone in the book talked about the "rare" balverine, I thought it was really funny.

But hilarity aside, The Balverine Order was really good. This is the story of Thomas and his servant/friend James. Thomas is haunted by the past - when he was younger, his brother was killed by a balverine (which is kind of like a werewolf, but specific to the Fable universe) and he was the only one who saw it; everyone thinks this story is the imagination of a young boy because balverines aren't real (they say it must have been a big wolf that killed Thomas' brother). After years of being called a fool, Thomas' mother's death serves as the catalyst that sends Thomas off on a quest to prove to himself that what he saw was real. He is accompanied by James, his only real friend in the world. Together, they travel through Albion and beyond on their hunt for the illusive creatures.

This was the first book that I'd ever read by Peter David. Before buying it, I did a bit of research and he seemed to come highly recommended. And after finishing The Balverine Order, I am inclined to agree with the recommendations. It's a quick read, but it's filled with excellent characters and grand adventure; I really enjoyed it.