Here’s the second of three reviews of books in this boxed set (currently 99c on preorder for 12 novels and a selection of bonus short fiction).
This time it’s of C. J. Brightley’s _The King’s Sword_. It’s the first in the series that led me to coin the (tongue-in-cheek) term “cheerybright” as the opposite of “grimdark”, which has now become “noblebright” and led to the existence of this boxed set.
It’s enjoyable, and even fresh, these days, to read a book in which the cynical, selfish opportunist is the antagonist, and the protagonist is a straightforwardly decent man. This is such a book.
I very much enjoyed the first-person viewpoint character, an ex-soldier discharged after an injury who happens across a prince in distress. (That’s a convenient coincidence, but it’s the only one the plot relies on.) Kemen Sendoa is a big man from a dark-skinned ethnic minority, raised as a soldier as is the tradition with foundlings and orphans in his country. Women are scared of him. Men are wary of him. He’d really like to settle down and have a family, but that’s not going to happen, he’s pretty sure. He’s lost friends, he’s battered by injury (and becomes more battered as the story progresses), but he retains a powerful loyalty to his country and its people.
His mentoring of the young prince is firm, but not harsh. When he’s hailed as a hero for fighting off raiders, he’s genuinely modest about it. He’s not without his secret shame, though, and he does have a character arc as he confronts it.
The prince is less fully rounded, but definitely has a lot of development in the course of the book, under Sendoa’s guidance. Rather than giving us a training montage, the author spends considerable time on the process of his training, which I welcome as more realistic than the usual “Chosen One is whiny and won’t put in the work, succeeds anyway when put under pressure” trope.
An enjoyable start to what became a delightful series.
https://www.amazon.com/Light-Darkness-Noblebright-Fantasy-Boxed-ebook/dp/B01K3534QI
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