"Knight Errant" by Anthony Reynolds
Synopsis:
Bretonnian setting, and about two half-brothers who are knight errants, and sons of a Lord. He's ill and they have to answer a call to arms to help with a greenskin problem across country.
400+ pages.As an Empire devotee, it was quite strange getting used to the Bretonnian theme, and I almost got annoyed in the initial chapters at the 'division' between the 'haves' - the nobility - and the 'have-nots' - the peasants.
Indeed you got the impression that every peasant was retarded, and disabled or mal-formed.
However it toned down, or I got immune to it as the book went on. In the early stages the young knights are also portrayed as somewhat arrogant and irresponsible, and their experiences do see them mature thoughout the story.
The plot is reasonable, with a lot of fighting, firstly against Orcs and Gobbos, and then against Beastmen. The attempts at keeping the Beasts as a surprise element, are somewhat diluted by the front cover showing some Gors .............
There is a fair dose of treachery, which may be a heavy dose of irony given the supposed Bretonnian traits of honour and nobility.
The author however does play to the subject introducing a godlike Grail Knight who seems to be 15 foot tall and invincible, and a Questing Knight who isn't ................
We also have an Empire 'guest' with disgusting black powder pistols.
I also have to observe something about the 'Evil Leader', which I have also now realised happens in "Runefang". In both cases they are not really developed, and not really explored.
In Runefang it was almost just a simple primitive ethereal creature - with basic primitive motivation.
In Knight Errant, it is not too hard to work out who/what the 'creature' is, but again it has very simple 'motivations'.
The authors in both cases seem to have a token 'evil creature' who is just 'bad' and does revenge and annihilation.
I am not saying that is necessarily a bad thing, as in both books there are plenty of other characters to go around. I criticised Runefang as several of them had little part to play in the story, but in this book all the characters were of more relevance.
If we are grading now I would have given Runefang a '3' and this is slightly better at around '3.5'