3 out of 4 stars
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From the time I first heard it, the story of David and Goliath has been my favorite Bible story. Yet, as with most of the Bible, I find the writing to be somewhat dry at times and very sparse on the details. So it was with excitement that I opted to read William S. Bradshaw's book, King's Dagger; The Loyalist, Book 1. In the blurb that the author writes for reviewers, it was touted as the story of David and Goliath written as a fantasy, but the actual tale was more aligned with the Amazon description. The latter synopsis notes that the tome focuses on an iron embargo that the Philistines have put on the Israelites and King Saul's use of his Dagger (author's capitalization) to overcome it, with the Dagger in question being a deadly assassin.
Even though I do consider myself to be pretty well-read in terms of the Bible, I didn't know if the iron embargo is an actual historical fact or not. I therefore did a Google search and found that the first book of Samuel does note that, "Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, 'Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!'" Armed with this new information, I was delighted at the tact that Mr. Bradshaw took with his yarn; I thought it quite clever of him to take one verse and blow it up into a whole story. In fact, the David and Goliath scene comprises a mere 4% of the book and doesn't get started until 87% of the way in. During the other 96% of the tale, we follow the Dagger as he travels through Israel and Philistine in his quest to find the foe who is upholding the embargo and making all five rulers of the Five Kingdoms uphold it as well; the embargo had already been going on for two generations when the book starts, so we don't know who actually started it.
With a book of this sort, which elaborates on Biblical accounts, one should expect a lot of supposition and quite a few made-up people and occurrences. This book is no different, and I loved the additions that the author added to the yarn. The Dagger's right-hand man, for instance, is a simpleton named Simon (making me wonder if the author put that Easter egg in the tale on purpose). He's a large man with a baby face and is referred to as an "unfit" due to his physical imperfections. Aside from the Dagger, he was my favorite character, and I really enjoyed the dichotomy between his fierce killing skills and his "appearance of a toddler", shown by his "slightly wide-set eyes and soft full cheeks". Another character, Hanûn, is named after a different Biblical person, but his role is vastly different than that shown in the Bible; this is also the case with the young man named Boaz. Additionally, the Biblical Goliath does have at least three brothers, yet Goresh, one of Goliath's siblings in this tale, is not named among them.
Another thing that I find in my Bible-reading is that because the stories are told so succinctly, I often fail to humanize the people therein. Jonathan, for instance, is King Saul's son, and though he is mentioned in the Bible, it wasn't until I read this story that I found him to be a really likable character. I therefore think that Mr. Bradshaw did a superb job fleshing out the principal characters, giving them just enough backstory and motivation to make them real and sympathetic. When they cried, I cried along with them, when they rejoiced, I too rejoiced, and when they angered, I clenched my fists and yelled alongside them. The author did just as good a job with the foes of the story; I knew exactly why each of them did what they did, even if I didn't like it or agree. The secondary characters received great treatments as well, and I came to enjoy them very much, especially Reuben, an Israelite who is featured somewhat throughout the story.
As noted earlier, part of my motivation for reading King's Dagger was to read a Bible story fantasy-style, and the author certainly aced that facet, knocking it out of the park. There was quite a bit of action and drama, not to mention suspense, causing me to be more fully immersed in this story than I have been while reading in a while. At one point, in fact, I was so tensed-up that when my dogged jumped on my couch, I almost leapt off of it in shock. I also read a couple of scenes to my other half, a big fan of films like Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven, and we agreed that it has the makings of a nail-biting movie. I will note that things did slow down quite a bit in the middle of the book, causing me to take longer to pick the file back up after setting it down, but that section didn't last for too long, and it was still good reading.
Not being a fan of geography, I didn't know much about the locations named in this tale, such as Jabesh Gilead and Beth Shan (I skip lengthy desciptions in the Word), so I appreciated the time the author took to illustrate the scenery, further enrichening my experience. Also, while many things in this yarn were made-up, the locations of major scenes were accurate.
When reading books of this nature, the "voice" is very important, I think moreso than in any other genre. Once again, the author made a home run in this area, writing with just enough flourish to make it fanciful without overdoing it and making it farcical. One of my favorite parts of the story was the scene-setting done at the beginning of each chapter. Chapter One, for instance, begins in the "Twenty-sixth Year of the Reign of Saul, King of Israel, Third Week of Tammūz...(1026 BC, Late April)". Unfortunately, the grammar itself isn't quite as winning. Though the book is so good that the errors did not take away from my enjoyment, I did note too many for a tome of this length. The typographical mishaps include extra or missing words, incorrect verb tense, and compound words being written as two separate words or vice-versa. There are also a few instances of incorrect word usage, such as "His" instead of "He" and "as" versus "to".
As much as I'd love to give King's Dagger a glowing four stars, I'm forced to rate it 3 out of 4 stars due to the aforementioned errors, and I do so with a very heavy heart because it is definitely a Grade A story. Please note that along with foul language, this book is chock-full of graphic violence and death - one scene even caused me to have to set my reader down and engage in a weeping session - so children and those who have weak constitutions or delicate sensibilities will want to stay far from this one.
Even though this book is based on Biblical events, it's not preachy, and it doesn't try to persuade the reader to convert or anything, so it can be read like any other fantasy novel. I therefore highly recommend it to readers who enjoy books of this particular genre. With that being said, I do think that Christians would enjoy it, as would persons of other faiths who are open to stories loosely based on the Holy Bible. Finally, if you're looking for one giant of a story, this is surely the book you want to read.
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King's Dagger
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