[Book Review] The Sword Unbound (Lands of the Firstborn 2) — Gareth Hanrahan
Evil Begets Good Begets Evil… A Cycle Neverending?
The Sword Unbound is a dark tale of the cyclic nature of good and evil. A unique take on classic fantasy trope, the book is sadly held back by uneven pacing and meandering plotlines concluding in a confusing conclusion leaving readers scratching their heads, wondering about the future of the final book in the Lands of the Firstborn series.
The Lands of the Firstborn series is a Dark Fantasy retelling of the classic Tolkenian epic fantasy tale, with a unique twist. The first book in the series, The Sword Defiant creates a fantasy world all too familiar to most of us steeped in classic epic fantasy, a tale of Good Vs. Evil. However, the Dark Lord was defeated by our gang of stereotypical, DnD-esque protagonists before the series' events. The series revolves around the aftermath of the fortress of the Dark Lord Bone, Necrad, which has now fallen into the hands of the victorious Nine who must try to pick up the pieces.
But our protagonists are not protagonists in the classic sense.
This is after all, dark fantasy. This is after all, grimdark.
The Sword Unbound continues the trials of our two major POV characters, the warrior, Aelfric “Alf”, renowned as the Laggermeir (Vulture), one of the fabled Nine along with his “trusty” cursed sentient blade Spellbreaker, and his sister, the widowed Olva Forester, as they continue to navigate the murky labyrinth of deceit and evil, both from forces without, and within. In an inversion of epic fantasy tropes, this book further paints the elves as further away from the luminous bastions of virtue and casts them with more sinister motives. In classic epic fantasy fashion, the hearts of men are ever-corruptible as they fight for control over the city of Necrad, the epicenter of dark magicks in the land. Add some healthy amounts of treachery, violent bloodthirsty action, under the ominous cloud of prophesy and resurrection, and you’ve got yourself a solid slab of Dark Fantasy novel!
The premise of Lands of the Firstborn intrigued me enough to pick up the first book, and I enjoyed the trope subversion, even though I found the plot and setting itself to be quite middling. Unfortunately, my issues with the Defiant are only exacerbated in Unbound. The pacing and chapter structure in both books rely on a few chapters following either Alf or Olva, and then a switch to the other. The constraints of having only two main narrators hindered the more expansive and detailed storytelling that this genre begs for.
The characterization of Alf also wears down the reader mighty quickly as he straddles the line between the gruff nobility of Aragorn and the violent and brooding hyper-competence of Logen Ninefingers (The First Law series) yet does justice to neither of the two archetypes. Mostly his character comes off as overly whiny and grinds the already shaky pacing to a halt with his incessant wool-gathering about glories and miseries past. His word SpellBreaker continues to be a plucky, sardonic sidekick and feels more like an audience-insert/fourth wall breaker in this book. In fact, Spellbreaker feels more like an “active” protagonist driving the plot forward as Alf, his wielder holds the plot back.
In contrast, Olva had a far more interesting storyline in the first book and continued to expand as a character as she enters the violent political intrigue of The Sword Unbound as she finally enters Necrad and wrestles with her place in a supernatural battle with her son, Derwyn who is suddenly pivotal to the plot (spoilers from The Sword Defiant). It will be interesting to see where her plot finally concludes in the third novel.
There is a smattering of other characters, including other members of the Nine who survived the first book, who delve deeper into their self-serving schemes, further subverting the classic fantasy protagonist trope. The Sword Unbound introduces a slew of other characters, wood elf (think Legolas, but kind of evil?!), witch elf (vampires), and a few others, none of whom are particularly memorable. The notable exceptions are Bor (the pinnacle of TheHeartsOfMenAreEasilyDeceived archetype), and the elf ranger Agyla, who is serving the major antagonist. I did enjoy the character of the Bard who is the creator of The Tale of the Nine, the central in-universe tale of the defeat of Lord Bone, but is a self-serving fame-chasing, cowardly, narcissist, who weaves new tales of middling truth and blatant lies to serve his own ends. An example of a trope subversion done right!
My major issue with both books, and more grievously with Unbound is that very little “actually happens” in the book. If you take away all the brooding, and the whining, and the whinging, and the woolgathering, there are very few plot checkpoints that the book goes through. Hanrahan’s prose is passable, even competent, but lacks that flair that would be needed to breathe life into his unique premise, and his narratives are severely damaged by jerky pacing.
The climax of The Sword Unbound was also so abruptly jarring, with very little buildup, and very little converging of plotlines, that I was nearly confused, and had to confirm that this series was a trilogy and not a duology. Perhaps yet another case of expectation subversion, one cannot help but wonder where the plot would go next, as most of the major plotlines “seem” to be tied up.
If this is another case of Somehow the Dark Lord Bone returned, I am going to throw a chair across the room!
The Sword Unbound (and the Lands of the Firstborn series) is so hellbent on inverting fantasy tropes, that the process of telling a compelling narrative, with interesting characters (beyond inversions) with solid pacing, is sadly left wanting.
