We have Arkamondos, a young scribe hired on to chronicle the exploits of a rough band of Syldoon warriors led by the formidable Captain Braylar Killcoin. Not unexpectedly, the characters had a lot to do with drawing me in after all, dark tales such as these tend to feature gritty, nasty personalities that nonetheless exude a certain charm. What should have been a frustrating experience instead had me completely riveted. There was a good balance, plain and simple. What struck me was the fact that even though Jeff Salyards ever only gave just enough information for the reader to follow along, the world-building never suffered. I usually assume this means the author won’t be going into too much detail about the world or its characters. More on this in a sec.Įxample the second: Precious little words were wasted in the telling of this story, which didn’t come as a surprise to me after taking in account the relatively modest page count. But guess what? I found myself totally okay with this. Well, that was before this book came along and turned everything upside down, making me rethink my own preferences.Įxample the first: I’d always thought I preferred answers to any mysteries, but Scourge of the Betrayer was a book that provided scant detail about its story right from the start, leaving many questions open even once we were well past the midway point. For one thing, I thought I had a pretty good bead on what I like in my fantasy - you know, the things I enjoy and don’t enjoy about the genre, etc. Jeff Salyards’ approach to storytelling gave me a very unique experience. It didn’t take more than a few pages for me to realize I was looking at a very special book. It’d been sitting on my shelf for a while, and earlier this month I finally picked it up. If you want to see a cool way to tackle dark fantasy, look no further than this novel. Publisher: Night Shade Books (May 1, 2012)

Scourge of the betrayer