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The Knights of the Dawn King

Scott E. Stabler

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Apr 08, 2011 Werner rated it really liked it

Shelves: trad-fantasy

(Note: Scott Stabler and I are Goodreads friends, but he did not give me my review copy of the book. He did, however, generously donate a signed copy to Bluefield College's Easley Library, which is grateful to him and the many other authors, over the decades of the library's history, who have honored us with similar kindness.) This is, IMO, a strong start to a promising series! If I could give half stars, I'd have given 4 1/2; I rounded down rather than up only because this doesn't equal some of (Note: Scott Stabler and I are Goodreads friends, but he did not give me my review copy of the book. He did, however, generously donate a signed copy to Bluefield College's Easley Library, which is grateful to him and the many other authors, over the decades of the library's history, who have honored us with similar kindness.) This is, IMO, a strong start to a promising series! If I could give half stars, I'd have given 4 1/2; I rounded down rather than up only because this doesn't equal some of the previous five-star fantasy series I've read, such as LOTR, and because of a few stylistic flaws noted below. But it's a very good first novel with a lot of strong points, and I'm definitely on board for the whole series. (The ending requires at least a sequel, and there are internal hints that the completed work will be a trilogy.)

Stabler recognizes Tolkien as an inspiration and influence, and it shows (as it does in almost all post-Tolkien works of English-speaking fantasy). Emah, the Lord of Sorrows, reminds one of Sauron the Dark Lord (both are off-stage malignant presences with malevolent designs for world domination, making their evil influence felt through their vile agents). Our setting is a pre-modern, low-tech fantasy world; elves and dwarves here are, like most in modern fantasy, recognizable variations on the Tolkien model. But the raw materials for that model go deep into European folklore before Tolkien, and the same is true for other fantasy tropes here that are common in the genre: supernatural power attached to physical objects; the figure of the seer, the unlikely hero entrusted with a great quest. And the plot does not, unlike that of some other fantasy novels, simply rip off the LOTR saga; Stabler is his own man, with his own plot and vision. (Unlike Tolkien, he's no philologist, and didn't devise whole new languages for his work; but while humans in his world have a "common tongue" that also serves as lingua franca in dealings with other races, many place/personal names and other translated phrases come from an older language that's apparently Elvish. And, as Scott was nice enough to explain to me in a personal message, about 90% of the terminology there derives from Hebrew and Greek, a touch that adds interest for readers who can pick up on that.)

Comparisons to C.S. Lewis' Narnia series are also apt, though again Stabler's treatment is distinct. Like Lewis, though, he employs symbolic features that present the Christian Gospel; although he does this on a larger scale, where the whole story has parallels to the Judeo-Christian salvation history (this is not an allegory, but it can be said to have allegorical features), and the parallels are much more obvious than they are in the Narnia series. On the plus side, this emphasizes the eschatological message of the New Testament in a sound way that actually stresses the central truth of the concept, not the morass of bizarre interpretations of supposed end-time events and chronologies so popular in some modern Christian circles. (Along the same lines, the treatment of the elves' intention of forcibly taking back their long-abandoned homeland, settled for centuries by humans --with its obvious real-world parallel-- is a refreshing departure from the all-too-usual attitude in contemporary evangelical fiction; it's more like the stance of most Christians before the rise of dispensationalism, and of Orthodox Jews before 1948.) And although the call for individual personal decision is very clear here, Stabler puts it in the context of a cosmic struggle between Adon and Emah in which everybody needs to play his/her part, and which concerns us all; there isn't the tone of solipsistic sole concern with "MY eternal future, MY well-being, MY individual fire-insurance policy" that so often seems to dominate modern evangelism to the exclusion of any general concern for others and the big picture. The call for personal decision to place loyalty in the destined-to-return King is forceful, uncompromising, and crystal clear (though, because of the fantasy context, it lacks an appeal to Christian evidences). For more than a few non-Christian readers, it might come across as something of a hard sell, possibly as "preachy" (others might not connect the world of the book with our own and draw the parallels, but I think they're fairly obvious). But the author is clearly going for clarity of message, and achieves it. Message, though, doesn't swallow up story; there are several plot strands here involving very disparate and realistic characters that you come to like and care for (only one or two of these strands have anything like a resolution at the end), eventful and often intensely suspenseful story-telling, and many of the plot elements that attract readers to epic fantasy. (The good-bad lines between characters don't necessarily strictly follow religious affiliation, either; not all non-followers of Adon are bad people, and not all of his enrolled knights are good people. And "good" characters aren't necessarily perfect.)

This is a self-published novel, apparently not edited by anybody but the author. (He also apparently did the proofreading, which I can testify is hard to do with your own work; there are some typos that he didn't catch, though not enough to be majorly problematical.) On the whole, he handles language well --much better than many first novelists I've read. He does sometimes, though, fall into the trap of trying to use big words to dress up the prose where they aren't needed, and they're sometimes used inappropriately or incorrectly (as in the twice-repeated use of "emancipated" when he means "emaciated," for instance). There are also a few places where I would say he overwrites: where character's mental angst in certain situations, or the degree of physical challenge in something, is elaborated with more verbiage than necessary, with the idea more repeated than developed. But these are relatively minor quibbles; this is a good addition to the tradition of Christian epic fantasy. If Stabler continues to develop as a writer, the succeeding volumes should be even better! ...more

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Feb 20, 2014 Rebecca Marie marked it as to-read

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