Book Review: Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes

Seven Blades in Black is Sam Sykes latest book and apparently the first of a new series. Sykes is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors with his witty twitter and his gripping books that twist together epic fantasy with gritty horror. Here's the Goodreads blurb for Seven Blades in Black:

Among humans, none have power like mages. And among mages, none have will like Sal the Cacophony. Once revered, now vagrant, she walks a wasteland scarred by generations of magical warfare. The Scar, a land torn between powerful empires, is where rogue mages go to disappear, disgraced soldiers go to die and Sal went with a blade, a gun and a list of names she intended to use both on. But vengeance is a flame swift extinguished. Betrayed by those she trusted most, her magic torn from her and awaiting execution, Sal the Cacophony has one last tale to tell before they take her head. All she has left is her name, her story and the weapon she used to carve both.


Vengeance is its own reward.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.



Overall Impression
This was an excellent read with some intense action, cool world building, and surprising humor. I would have like a larger set of characters, but Sal alone can drive the story almost entirely on her own. She is a bad-ass woman seeking revenge. At first you don't know exactly why, but once you do you are all in for her. Add to that an intricate world that feels like a Final Fantasy game and some epic monsters and battles and you got yourself a great Sykes novel.

Plot
One of the first things that caught my attention is that this is told via a frame story. Similar in spirit to Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind, as you read through it you learn more and more about the character and how they got to where they are now. In this case, Sal is in prison and being interrogated, so it's certainly a more dire situation than the one Kvothe is in. The plot itself is fairly fast-paced and has plenty of twists and turns. I couldn't quite tell what was going to happen next since things always seemed to inexplicably get worse and worse for the characters.

Characters
The main character in the story is Sal the Cacophony and while we get introduced to other important characters, like Liette, Cavric, Tretta, and Sal's many enemies, we still are mainly just focused on Sal's story. She is a very complex character, seeing herself as the hero but acknowledging that she is pretty much an asshole and the farthest from heroic you could get. You get to learn a lot of her backstory as the story progresses, which certainly changed how I perceived her, but I didn't see her change much- she is still as brusque and obsessed with her goals at the end of the book as at the start, but this could be due to the nature of it being a frame story.

Setting / World Building
This book has been described as an homage or love letter to the classic JPRGs of the past, particularly Final Fantasy, and I can agree with that. There is magic in the world, but also technology based on it, an epic struggle between an Imperium ruled by mages and a Revolution countering it with a mix of big guns and a dash of magitech, and there are chocobos. They're not called chocobos, but they are big, flightless birds that people ride on, so it's practically the same.

The use of magic in this book is particularly interesting and inspired. The whole premise is that to get something you must give something in return and this is embodied in references to the Lady Merchant and the Barter. Different kinds of mages give up different things for their power. For example, Doormages, which can open portals to other places, gradually give up their ability to move; Nightmages, which can create powerful illusions, gradually give up their ability to dream. There are tons of different kinds of mages and the costs, while at first seem light, build up to a price that feels too heavy to pay.

There's also a bit of unresolved mysteries, such as the Relics and the nature of the Cacophony itself, the gun that Sal uses. Some tantalizing things are revealed, but clearly the stage is set for followup stories.

Final Thoughts
This was a great book and I can highly recommend it to fans of Sam Sykes. It has some cool characters, witty humor, and an interesting world full of conflict and magic. If you've never read Sykes before, it's also a good place to start since it stands pretty much alone. My understanding is that it will be part of a trilogy, but for the moment there is a enough of a closure on this one to make it satisfying.