Genre: Dark Fantasy
Reviewer: Tony
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About The Book
Inhuman. Lethal. Wounded. The odds are against her, but Dalak doesn’t care. Her only focus: kill the demon.
It came out of the jungle. It decimated the village. Somehow, Jahal escaped. Now he’s risking everything to rescue other survivors with the help of the enigmatic warder, Dalak.
Survivors don’t matter to Dalak. One instinct drives her: kill the demon, regardless of who dies along the way.
Anaye has never seen a demon; the warder has kept her tribe safe for generations. But as the warder’s tenuous link to society, Anaye goes where Dalak goes – and Dalak is going with Jahal.
Saving anyone, not least themselves, will take all three of them working together, pushing human endurance and ingenuity to the limit. But what chance do they have when one of them isn’t even human?
The Review
Warded is a fantasy set on what feels like an alternative Earth, plagued by demon predators. These demons come in a range of sizes, but all are vicious, almost unkillable and unstoppable. The almost bit will prove to be important, and not without consequences when this dark fantasy reaches its denouement.
There are three main characters: Dalak, the more-than-human warden for the tribe; Anaye, her companion; and Jahal, an apprentice healer from a neighbouring tribe that has been decimated by the attack of a demon. The world created here is dramatic and dangerous; dangerous enough for normally apex predators like panthers to be considered prey.
There’s magic – not in terms of casting spells, but more in terms of healing, shamanism and as an explanation of the unexplainable. Dalak is one of the unexplainable creatures / people for the majority of the story. You will have to read for yourself to find out her origin and, as a result, that of all the demons. Up to a point.
As a read, this story is intriguing and mind boggling at the same time. The world feels both familiar and other worldly. Magical and mysterious, like some nightmarish documentary about some recently discovered society.
The characters are multifaceted, being given to making extreme sacrifices and heroic acts rather than being bitter and angry, before becoming accepting and supportive as appropriate.
Warded was quite amazingly weird. Just brilliant!
The Reviewer
Tony is an Englishman living amongst the Welsh and the Other Folk in the mountains of Wales. He lives with his partner of thirty-six years, four dogs, two ponies, various birds, and his bees. He is a retired lecturer and a writer of no renown but that doesn’t stop him enjoying what he used to think of as ‘sensible’ fantasy and sf. He’s surprised to find that if the story is well written and has likeable characters undergoing the trails of life, i.e. falling in love, falling out of love, having a bit of nooky (but not all the time), fending off foes, aliens and monsters, etc., he’ll be happy as a sandperson who has just offloaded a wagon of sand at the going market price. As long as there’s a story, he’s in. He aims to write fair and honest reviews. If he finds he is not the target reader he’ll move on.
