Book Review: Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
Title: Kings of the Wyld (The Band #1)
Author: Nicholas Eames
Release date: February 21, 2017
It’s funny, as someone who tries their best to read and support as many Canadian authors as I can, I had no idea Nicholas Eames was Canadian before reading this book. Additionally, over the last few years, I’ve connected – as an extension through Andrew Pyper – with Guy Gavriel Kay. Recently, Kay has popped up everywhere for me, and now that I’m done this, and having read the acknowledgements, it was profound that Eames had been inspired to write this novel (and series) through Kay’s writing and that Kay is a Canadian, much in the same way I was inspired to pursue my passion of writing horror when I discovered Pyper’s ‘The Demonologist’ and found out Andrew was also Canadian.
The wheel always turns.
With this one, I was excited, as I love popping into the fantasy genre from time to time, and as I await the third novel of Gwynne’s The Bloodsworn Saga, I felt it was a perfect time to read book one in Eames The Band series.
What I liked: The beauty of this novel is its heart.
From page one, we meet Clay ‘Slowhand’ Cooper, retired mercenary and former member of The Kings of the Wyld, a band of warriors who became legends with their exploits. Long retired, he is now enjoying a life of ease, married with a young daughter. All is well, until his friend, Gabriel – also a former member of his band – shows up and begs him to come along, to get the band together, and to travel across the world to save Gabriel’s daughter.
This launches us into a phenomenal quest where Clay and Gabe make their way from Clay’s home, across the lands, recruiting their old bandmates and eventually crossing the Heartwyld, the most notorious forest in all the lands. Along the way, Eames sprinkles in some fantastic banter, humour, heart and lots of really well done action sequences. We get amazing creatures, bloody battles and a daeva that has been hired to find the group and return one of them to collect the bounty on his head.
Eames has created some wonderful characters with this group, no matter how gruff and angry some of them are and when we hear some of the details sprinkled here and there of their former exploits, it really elevated their various traits and reasons for doing things the way they did.
The ending was fantastic. A massive battle worthy of a Peter Jackson adaptation, we had the heroes race into battle against an endless horde of creatures and crooks and at the end, we get a one-two punch of emotions that made the journey all the more powerful.
What I didn’t like: Honestly, I wish this book was expanded and broken into three releases. Book one would be the band getting back together and would end when they battle at the Maxion (or however it was spelled!) before they continue on. Book two would be an expanded version of their journey across the Heartwyld. So much happened and a lot of it was summarized to move the story along that I found I was a bit annoyed that what could’ve been 100 pages of action was whittled down to two paragraphs. And last, the third book, would be the battle at Castia and Gabe and Clay’s journey’s resolving.
Saying all of that – and minor spoiler here – Even though this book was phenomenal and worked in the 450 pages or so that it was, there wasn’t a big heartbreaking moment anywhere in here. You kind of expect one of the group to have their head lopped off or for them to be devoured by a troll or dragon, but sadly, no big loss takes place.
Why you should buy this: One obvious bonus of this not being three books, is that it is the rare epic-fantasy novel that is wholly contained as a single release and readers who get put off by the potential of a series never being concluded don’t need to worry with this. Saying that, there is a second book out, following Gabe’s daughter, and I’m looking forward to diving into that some time in the future.
Overall, this one was a book I absolutely adored. The characters, the setting, the journey and the danger all worked to create a novel that’ll stay with me for many moons. Well done, Eames. Onto the next.
5/5
