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7/18/2022 3:38 pm  #1


The Godblade

From DMR Books, written by the frontman of Eternal Champion, The Godblade is a short Conan-esque novel about a loincloth-clad warrior, Rænon, and his band of hired mercenaries, on a quest to forge a sword capable of killing an insane god.
Ok, if there's a scale between trash and pulp, The Godblade is probably leaning way too close to the trashy side for some.  Don't take a drink at every mention of 'massive bosom' unless you're prepared for a rough morning.
But if that doesn't dissuade you, it's a pretty fun book with a very fast pace, exciting action, some really weird monsters, and surprisingly rich world-building.  J. Tarpey is himself an amateur blacksmith and the whole idea of using blood and ashes in the forging of their blades is an appropriately heavy metal take on the trade skill.  The book has a hand-drawn map (really wish more books provided that) and in its short 160 pages the party manages to trek across half the map and get tangled into a war involving about a half dozen kingdoms.
Fans of Eternal Champion's music will find lyrics from their songs peppered liberally throughout the prose.  Surprisingly, that didn't come off as contrived to me.  I know Tarpey's been working on this for a long time - there's a prologue to the story in the first Sword of Steel anthology, which was actually published before their first Armor of Ire album by a few months, so it definitely feels like the songs and story came together in tandem rather than being derivative of one or the other.

This is definitely not going to be a classic included in some future Appendix N, but I still appreciate seeing new swords & sorcery fiction being written.

 

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