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James Barclay roleplayed for years (and for all I know, still does) before he started publishing these books and it shows. The story follows a mercenary band called the Raven. They're semi-legendary in the continent of Balaia both for their ability to get the job done and their integrity. In practice they function as a combination of consultants and a top-notch fighting squad. However, we never actually see them doing any of their regular jobs, since each book consists of some apocalyptic event occurring or poised to occur which the Raven end up dealing with.
The core members of the Raven are Hirad Coldheart, a barbarian, the Unknown Warrior, a warrior and overall leader of the Raven, and Ilkar, an elven mage. Over the course of the books they gain and lose various companions (mostly lose, dealing with apocalyptic events is not good for your life expectancy) including a werewolf, a thief, and other mages and warrior types.
The main thing I like about these books is the plausibility of the interactions between the characters. While the Raven are consummate soldiers, able and willing to trust each other with their lives, they bicker and make bad jokes the same way as ordinary people. They obviously care for one another as members of the same group but that doesn't stop them from having serious disagreements and almost fracturing the group more than once over differences in priorities. It feels the way roleplaying should feel, as opposed to the way most people play, where they tend to gloss over most of the actual roleplaying of characters in favour of moving on to the combat and plot revelations.
The realism of the character relationships helps build plausibility and provide a backdrop for the legendary acts the Raven accomplishes. On his website Barclay wrote that he wanted the Raven to already be the best at what they do when he started writing. During the books, they go from being merely some of the best warriors/mages/whatevers in the land to having justifiably legendary status. They deal with creatures from other dimensions and mostly-single-handedly stop wars. And through it all it doesn't feel like sparkly heroic adventures, but just a group of highly skilled people working out what needs to be done and then doing it regardless of the cost. I think this is mostly accomplished through the Raven getting past each obstacle by using tactics and strategy rather than just plowing in. Also the fact that this universe doesn't have magic items or active gods, so the characters can't rely on anything other than their own wits and skills.
I have two main gripes with the series. The first and less serious of the two, is Hirad Coldheart. Not his character or personality as such, but rather than I feel like the author put him in there for the sake of having a barbarian, without any reasonable context. Ok sure, he's a barbarian. So then where does he come from exactly? In the books I've read (and I haven't read the most recent Raven books) we never see any of his people or any other barbarians, the characters never talk about barbarians, and there doesn't really appear to be anywhere on the continent of Balaia for barbarians to have come from.
The other and more serious gripe is the system of magic Barclay uses. It sounds extremely complex and has never been adequately explained. Now the way magic in general works in this universe is: You construct a mana shape and charge it with your own mana stamina. The shape determines what spell you're casting, and the casting sometimes needs to be accompanied by certain hand gestures. What is less clear is how the different mana shapes have such different consequences. I've read about spells that do all the typical fantasy spells effects, from long-distance communication to locking doors and invoking all kinds of forces and elements. To make things even more complicated, there are four different colleges of magic whose mana and lore are incompatible with each other, but who seem to all be able to form the same spells using the same mana shapes. I feel like none of it assembles into a coherent whole
Ideally, I'd like Barclay to address the nature of magic in one of his later books and explain it properly, but my instincts tell me that he won't because he doesn't have an explanation. By making magic both vague and extremely complex-sounding, he can introduce whatever new spells he wants without breaking plausibility. The four college system is probably just an excuse for having powerful political factions. Also, that level of explanation would probably involve a giant infodump that would bore everyone except me.
Anyway, despite the hand-wavy system of magic and Hirad's implausibility, this series gets my stamp of approval. It's heroic fantasy but without the heroic aspect being overdone. And I'm planning to get hold of the more recent books as soon as I'm done rereading this lot, at least partly because I'm curious as to how Barclay managed to continue given the steady attrition rate the Raven seems to suffer.
The core members of the Raven are Hirad Coldheart, a barbarian, the Unknown Warrior, a warrior and overall leader of the Raven, and Ilkar, an elven mage. Over the course of the books they gain and lose various companions (mostly lose, dealing with apocalyptic events is not good for your life expectancy) including a werewolf, a thief, and other mages and warrior types.
The main thing I like about these books is the plausibility of the interactions between the characters. While the Raven are consummate soldiers, able and willing to trust each other with their lives, they bicker and make bad jokes the same way as ordinary people. They obviously care for one another as members of the same group but that doesn't stop them from having serious disagreements and almost fracturing the group more than once over differences in priorities. It feels the way roleplaying should feel, as opposed to the way most people play, where they tend to gloss over most of the actual roleplaying of characters in favour of moving on to the combat and plot revelations.
The realism of the character relationships helps build plausibility and provide a backdrop for the legendary acts the Raven accomplishes. On his website Barclay wrote that he wanted the Raven to already be the best at what they do when he started writing. During the books, they go from being merely some of the best warriors/mages/whatevers in the land to having justifiably legendary status. They deal with creatures from other dimensions and mostly-single-handedly stop wars. And through it all it doesn't feel like sparkly heroic adventures, but just a group of highly skilled people working out what needs to be done and then doing it regardless of the cost. I think this is mostly accomplished through the Raven getting past each obstacle by using tactics and strategy rather than just plowing in. Also the fact that this universe doesn't have magic items or active gods, so the characters can't rely on anything other than their own wits and skills.
I have two main gripes with the series. The first and less serious of the two, is Hirad Coldheart. Not his character or personality as such, but rather than I feel like the author put him in there for the sake of having a barbarian, without any reasonable context. Ok sure, he's a barbarian. So then where does he come from exactly? In the books I've read (and I haven't read the most recent Raven books) we never see any of his people or any other barbarians, the characters never talk about barbarians, and there doesn't really appear to be anywhere on the continent of Balaia for barbarians to have come from.
The other and more serious gripe is the system of magic Barclay uses. It sounds extremely complex and has never been adequately explained. Now the way magic in general works in this universe is: You construct a mana shape and charge it with your own mana stamina. The shape determines what spell you're casting, and the casting sometimes needs to be accompanied by certain hand gestures. What is less clear is how the different mana shapes have such different consequences. I've read about spells that do all the typical fantasy spells effects, from long-distance communication to locking doors and invoking all kinds of forces and elements. To make things even more complicated, there are four different colleges of magic whose mana and lore are incompatible with each other, but who seem to all be able to form the same spells using the same mana shapes. I feel like none of it assembles into a coherent whole
Ideally, I'd like Barclay to address the nature of magic in one of his later books and explain it properly, but my instincts tell me that he won't because he doesn't have an explanation. By making magic both vague and extremely complex-sounding, he can introduce whatever new spells he wants without breaking plausibility. The four college system is probably just an excuse for having powerful political factions. Also, that level of explanation would probably involve a giant infodump that would bore everyone except me.
Anyway, despite the hand-wavy system of magic and Hirad's implausibility, this series gets my stamp of approval. It's heroic fantasy but without the heroic aspect being overdone. And I'm planning to get hold of the more recent books as soon as I'm done rereading this lot, at least partly because I'm curious as to how Barclay managed to continue given the steady attrition rate the Raven seems to suffer.
