Looking For a Good Book

As you might suspect from the title, this is a ‘heist’ novel in a fantasy setting.  As I enjoy some of the better heist movies and I like a good fantasy, why not give it a shot?

A woman, Loch, is looking to retrieve a priceless Elven manuscript that was stolen. Adding insult to injury, the woman was also locked up by the too-powerful man. It certainly benefitted the criminal that he has friends in high places.

But the woman has friends, too. She pulls together a crack team of oddballs – Ululenia the unicorn, the priestess Desidora and her hammer, the illusionist Hessler – to name just a few. They must find a way into a floating fortress, past golems, then past sorcerers, just to get to the vault holding the manuscript. And as Loch and Kail (her partner in crime) have just escaped from prison as the book starts, they’ll be hunted, too.

Right from the start I was going to struggle a bit with this book. I’m not a huge fan of books with multiple points of view in the first place, but when you get TEN POVs in the early pages, I’m lost before we even begin. You need a scorecard – write down the character names and the last thing that happened to them as you go. But I read for enjoyment, for pleasure, not to take notes!

One of the things that this many POVs indicates is that there are a LOT of characters to keep track of. If they’re important enough to have their own POV chapter, then they must have a big role in the story – and that’s a lot of people to have a big role.

The story itself is rather unspectacular. If anything, it gets a little over-indulgent, trying to create something bigger than it really needs to be. It’s rather generic and serves mostly as a vehicle for the oddball characters and some humorous situations and dialog.

Humor seems to be the big draw to this book. There was a brief period in time when I would eagerly devour anything Spider Robinson wrote – particularly for his humor – but mostly I’ve found humorous fantasy to work really hard for very little payoff. A pun here, a clever quip there, it’s hardly worth reading an entire book for the little nutty nuggets.

If you like this kind of fantasy (I guess it might relate somewhat to Piers Anthony [someone I’ve barely read]) the general writing is fine.

Looking for a good book? The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes is a rollicking heist job fantasy with a little bit of everything thrown in and everyone gets a chance to tell their part of the story. If that sounds up your alley… enjoy!

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

* * * * * *

The Palace Job

author: Patrick Weekes

publisher: 47North

ISBN: 9781477848203

paperback, 438 pages