The Gilded Chain

4.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
The King's Blades are trained from youth for one purpose - to protect the King with their lives and to do his bidding, however foolish. When they're ready, magic binds them to protect their ward, whether that be the King or someone he designates. Durendal gets the short straw, assigned by his king to waste his life and training protecting the irrelevant brother of the King's mistress. And then things get worse.

Review
I'd forgotten just how much Duncan managed to pack into this first story of the King's Blades; things that I recalled as being in later volumes were in fact in this one. And it covers an impressive span of time – most of two men's (contemporaneous) lives.

Duncan has a relatively simple idea – Blades are men who are trained and enchanted to protect and be loyal to the sovereign, at any risk. Duncan recognizes his characters as being fully human, with all the desires and quirks that come along with it, but the genius of the story is that he complicates the matter by making the King himself severely flawed. The Blades (like Stephen Donaldson's Bloodguard) are pure, noble, and dedicated (by and large). The sovereign they're bound to is not. At best, he's admirable, but more often he's venal, selfish and petty (again like the Bloodguard).

The book's not perfect, though I think I liked it better on this read than the first time. The very few women in the story are strictly supporting actors. This is a men's story, not because of overt sexism (there's some ‘protect womenism'), but because the world of the Blades is designed as a world of men doing stereotypically manly things. That doesn't sound great, but the story is genuinely good. I think women get a bit more of a look-in later in the series.

Durendal, the protagonist, is also a little too dedicated (even when not bound by magic), but within the context of the story, it's easy enough to accept. His story jumps around a bit among the moments of his life, and a more straightforward presentation would likely have worked better, but it's not hard to follow.

Duncan is a bit of an uneven author, but his stories got generally better and deeper as he aged, and this is a story from his prime period. I recommend it.

Got bored a third of the way through. It's schlock, not terrible but overall pretty silly.

The writing is a bit too flamboyant at times but is fairly engrossing. The plot is not structured very well and seems to rush from plot point to plot point without giving the reader much time to get settled. The “good” characters are written pretty well and are diverse (personality wise) and interesting, but the “villains” are one dimensional and boring.

*SPOILER
The first “villain” has moments where he seems like he might have some depth to him but in the end he's just a slimy git and he dies and the story moves on immediately with very minor consequenses. It feels like a total waste of time and is compressed into what is essentially the intro of the book. It's so confusing narratively.

Anyways, if you like sword fighting badasses, loud but noble kings, one dimensional baddies, and cheesy romance, you will probably like this book. It's ok.

I liked this fantasy about loyalty, friendship, and the dark side of immortality. I look forward to reading the next book in the series, The Monster War.