4 out of 4 stars
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Fish wielder is a funny and wonderfully written book that turned out to be quite a memorable experience for me as a reader. This novel’s plot is a magical adventure which unfolds slowly and makes the best possible use of locations, characters, and in-world mechanics. There is an amazing level of detail put into its narrative that took me by surprise.
The story is about the heroic deeds and everyday life of Thoral Might Fist, a superb warrior with superhuman skills and abilities, strange and refined habits, drinking problems and quite possible a troubled past. He wanders about the land looking for adventure alongside his companions: Bradfast, a smart land-bound fish and Warlordhorse who is simply a horse with cool looking fur and the ability to smell fear. Together, they ride to endless adventures all around Grome, a strange land inhabited by magical creatures and monsters.
But one day, while traveling, they come across an abandoned castle in the middle of a ruined kingdom; the castle serves as a lair to an evil sorcerer who happens to be in the middle of some sort of evil scheme. Thoral and his companions engage him and manage to foil his plans while rescuing a captive princess in the process. What they don’t know is that this was just the beginning of an even bigger and more epic adventure. An adventure where they will meet many new allies and where they will find answers to some of the strangest mysteries in the land of Grome.
Now, vast magical lands, strange creatures, and magic are nothing but overused clichés to some readers. These tropes and archetypes have been used over and over for many decades now and in all kind of stories; they seem to appeal to our psychology in the most primal way and we know we will keep on seeing them in the years to come. However, some readers might not be aware of one literary genre that also makes use of these elements but in a unique way, a magical realm called “comic fantasy”.
Modern Comic Fantasy is an actually well-known fantasy subgenre that somehow seems to elude some people. A genre where the stories are defined by fun observations about the ways of life in a fantasy setting. And as it is with all literature, here, the best novels not only stand out due to their witty comedy but also to clever writing and actually unique stories with equally unique characters. This sub-genre is not only about poking fun at the usual tropes found in fantasy tales but also about adding new value to the things we have already seen before.
It is for these reasons that J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison’s work turned out to be amazing to me. In my opinion, his writing in this book is flawless and colorful; you go easily from sentence to sentence and the novel truly reads like both a serious fantasy tale and as a work of comedy as well. The humor was a key element to both the story and the characters and the book was filled with surprises and twists that pushed the plot in new and fresh directions while maintaining a lot of comedic value.
It is clear that the author took into consideration the way the characters and the events in the book are presented to us as readers and he clearly used this to his advantage while crafting the story. For example, some characters might appear two-dimensional at first, like Thoral himself, but that’s the point, he is not a man without flaws and discovering that will be another adventure altogether.
And really, the thing I liked the most about the book is the way he respects his own work. Some comedians and some comedy stories add cruel or gross bits at the most inappropriate moments with the hopes that this makes for good comedy, it rarely does. While Fish Wielder does have lots of PG-13 moments with graphic violence serving as jokes, there are also many serious bits where strong emotions overwhelm the characters and the author knows better than messing up the moment with a misplaced “funny” comment or something similar.
It is all thanks to this that I can say I loved reading every single page of this book. I rate it 4 out of 4 stars while adding that I normally like to include at least a small paragraph listing negative things I didn’t like about each book that I review, but for this one, it was not possible at all. All my initial complains (this character is two-dimensional, that bit of the story makes no sense, etc.) turned out to be simply a small part of something that would later prove to be a larger and wonderful thing. It was marvelous to read such a silly novel that made me care about the characters and their silly lives so much and I definitely recommend it to anyone.
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Fish Wielder
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