Fierce
James Alderdice
print $16.99
ebook $4.99

Last summer I highly enjoyed Brutal, the first volume in the Brutal Trilogy.  At the end of July, the second volume went on sale.

Fierce is the type of book too often missing in the fantasy offerings from the mainstream publishers.  It reads at times like it was written by the love child of Robert E. Howard and Karl Edward Wagner.  Although the influences of both can be seen at places, Alderdice very much has his own voice and tells his story on his own terms.

Not everyone is pleased now that Gathelaus has assumed the throne and taken over the kingdom.  Disgruntled nobles, generals, mercenaries, and even minstrels scheme against him.  When one of the plots manages to be successful, Gathelaus finds himself sold to traders and eventually working as a gladiator on a distant continent.

There’s more to the story than just Gathelaus’s struggle to survive. There are forces and influences at work Gathelaus is unaware of.  Gathelaus isn’t a philosopher-king like Kull, but he’s not a dumb barbarian, either. He’s quite intelligent and uses that intelligence to good effect. .

The action moves swiftly, and rarely lags, and never stalls. That’s not to say that Fierce is just one long fight scene.  It’s not.  Alderdice peoples his novel with memorable characters. Gathelaus is a man of depth, and his friends and enemies both come across as individuals.

There’s a lot of talk these days that we need fantasy that isn’t based on Europe and that has characters who aren’t white.  Well, if that’s the sort of fantasy you’re looking for, then look no further.  The continent Gathelaus is taken to bears a strong resemblance to Central America.  The people aren’t white, while Gathelaus is.  This is something that affects how Gathtelaus is treated at times.  The setting was a nice change, and Alderdice used it to good effect.  The differences in culture were a constant source of narrative tension, as Gathelaus struggled at times to understand his captors.

James Alderdice is the pen name of David J. West.  I’m not revealing any great secret by saying that.  David is quite open about his nom de plum, as he adopted it to distinguish his heroic fantasy from his weird westerns.  I like what he’s doing under the Alderdice byline.  I like it a lot.  We aren’t likely to get new Howard or Wagner.  Pretty much everything by those writers has been published.  I’m not a fan of pastiche, so I have little interest in other writers playing in Howard or Wagner’s worlds.  Fortunately, there are authors who are writing in the veins of Howard  and Wagner who are extending their work rather than imitating it.  David J. West/James Alderdice is one of those authors.

Do yourself a favor if you haven’t already, and check out his work.