Reforged, by Seth Haddon

[Ulysses]

Ulysses Dietz's reviewJul 19, 2022 · edit
it was amazing

Reforged
By Seth Haddon
Published 2022 BlindEye Books
Five stars

This could be a great start to a series; but it stands alone as a richly imagined, intensely physical and psychological fantasy romance.

One thing I really admired about it is that I couldn’t place the fantasy kingdom of Usleth anywhere in the real world. Seth Haddon has taken great pains to create an imagined, proto-medieval kingdom that feels truly alien without cutting off all familiar echoes with “our” world’s mythology.

We have a young man, named Balen, who has just achieved his life’s desire—to be the Prime Palladin to the king of Usleth. This is like being the head of a Secret Service team to guard the President’s life. Except, you know, with magic. There are two problems with this: young king Zavrius of the Dued Vuuthrik dynasty is the wrong king. And, once upon a time, he was Balen’s boyfriend.

This slightly “young angst” set up is quickly shoved roughly aside with violence and magic. It’s a kind of marvelously twisted riff on Arthur and Lancelot fantasies, except that everyone seems to hate Zavirus for reasons that are unclear beyond Balen’s own musings. It is a dark tale, but one from which real heroes emerge, in the persons of the central characters, whom I grew to love quite a lot.

Balen is not a complicated character—but he is neither simple nor dull. He’s an ordinary young man who has, through hard work, skill, and loyalty, attained his life’s dream. Zavirus, on the other hand, is a beautiful, smart, sensitive hot mess. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not at all bad, just ill-suited to his current job description.

Or is he? That’s a question that teases and taunts the reader all through the story.

Therein lies the great joy of reading Haddon’s carefully crafted prose and nicely twisted plot arc. His people are more than archetypes. Without slipping into modern types, the people in this story feel authentic and human. There is a lot of moral ambiguity at play here, wielded with great skill by a young writer.

There is a weirdly contemporary resonance to this story, which makes sense, given Hadden’s own comparative youth and cultural context (an Australian video game designer with a degree in ancient history). Some of this might be due to my own reaction, as an older man who is more than a little freaked out at the dark and surreal state of the world right now.

I need heroes right now, and “Reforged” gives them to me—on a gedrockbone platter.