The Griffin or the Agate

Tools are tools. Anyone can have access to them. However, it's the hands that guide the tools that make the difference. Carving tools in the hands of an apprentice woodworker can produce something adequate, perhaps even decent. Those same tools in the hands of a master craftsman can create something on a completely different level.

     The rules are pretty much the same for writers. In his latest book The Dark Glory War, author Michael Stackpole is working with concepts familiar and oft-used in fantasy (including his other fantasy works) - a groups of youth approaching adulthood band together and form lasting friendships; an ominous, all-encompassing evil threatens the land; a mystical weapon provides the only way to vanquish a mighty foe. These are only a few of the many themes that are touched on in the text, and no doubt they are well known to any reader of fantasy. But while Stackpole is treading on well-traveled ground, his style and skill allow him to transcend the mundane and provide the reader with an engrossing tale. In addition, he offers twists that, despite his usage of foreshadowing, will no doubt catch many readers by surprise.

     The narrator and protagonist of The Dark Glory War is Tarrant Hawkins, son of a military commander. Those who have read Stackpole's Talion:Revenant will see similarities between Hawkins and the Justice Nolan, center of that text. Both have strong senses of honor, both are brave to a fault and self-sacrificing. There are other parallels easily drawn that I won't list here, so as not to give too much of the story line away. As can be expected with the Big-Bad-Evil-is-Coming archetype, there are battles won and lost, rescues and misfortune, bonding and growth. Stackpole handles all of this with a deft hand, breathing depth into his characters and making them seem more real. Elves are not just elves, but are of varying types with their own agendas, racial biases, and personality quirks. The mightiest magical weapon is not always the final solution and not the end of the quest, instead only the beginning. Tarrant's thought patterns are complex and compelling, and interactions between characters are flowing and genuine and seem to be much more the object of the novel than arriving at some final battle.

     The Dark Glory War is a winner, a page-turner that's well worth whatever you have to plunk down to get it. Stackpole is probably best-known for his Star Wars^TM books, but his earlier fantasy work is impressive as well, with Talion:Revenant rising as the best of the bunch. It's billed as a prequel to the DragonCrown War Cycle (the Dark Glory Hobbit, perhaps?), so it looks as if we will probably have the pleasure of seeing these characters and this story again. I have no problem with that.  §

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