Intro

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a thread asking for indie military fantasy novel recommendations. I'm a huge fan of medieval warfare, and I wanted to take a look at some of the lesser known books in the genre. The basic idea was that I would read any recommendations and then review them as a way of promoting good up and coming novelists, or lesser known established authors.

The first book recommended to me was The Eagle's Flight, by our very own /u/Tanniel, and so it's going to be my debut review. I haven't actually reviewed fiction before, so this might be a little rough around the edges and not quite as polished or focused as it ideally should be, but hopefully I'll improve as this little series of reviews continues.

The Book

The Eagle's Flight is the first volume in the Chronicles of Adalmearc, and consists of three distinct "Chronicles". The first is centered around Middenhal, the capital of Adalmearc, following the death of the high king and the politics that surround the question of who will act as the lord protector until his grandson, only eleven, reaches adulthood.

The second chronicles details the events down in Hæthiod, one of the realms bordering the southern wasteland and protected from raiders by the Longstan, a great wall that defends Adalmearc from the raiders of the south. While there are some politics in this chronicle, they are not the focus, and this is where things begin to become heavy on the military side of things. While there was some action in the first chronicle, the second has far more focus on warfare.

The third chronicle returns to Adalric and focuses on the fallout from the first chronicle. I won't say much here, so as to avoid spoiling anything, but it focuses even more on the military side of things than the second volume. There are still some politics, though, and these complement the military side of things very well.

While most authors would run the stories parallel, alternating between chapters in Adalric and Hæthiod, Daniel has chosen to separate them, using the framing device of a fictional chronicler who wrote the original stories that he is now translating for us, to explain the format. While alternating focus between chapters might have helped the reader work out when certain events took place in relation to each other, I've come to like the style.

The World

There are some books where you can tell that the author has largely been making things up as they go or else haven't done much more than sketching a skeleton of the world. There isn't anything wrong with this, per say, but it is frequently done incorrectly. By the same token, there are also books where the author has clearly put a lot of thought into the world but, for one reason or another, the world hasn't coalesced into a living, breathing entity.

The world of Adalmearc is not like either of those scenarios. A lot of careful, loving thought has been put into the world. The use of the Anglo-Saxon language in naming the places of the world was initially a bonus for me, since I'm a sucker for anything Anglo-Saxon, but on reading the book I realised that there was much more going on with language. While the southern realms might be named using Mearcspeech (Anglo-Saxon), their names are very Greek based, and they also use many Greek terms that aren't used in the North. Similarly, while their language obviously came from the same root as Adalric, Thusund and Vidrevi have a much more Scandinavian quality to them. It's very possible to identify a character as being from the North or the South by their name, and I suspect that if I was a better linguist I might be able to discern which realm.

The care taken with the language of Adalmearc is lavished everywhere. Trade is discussed and the navigability of a river affects it and influences the power of a certain family is shown. Mining and smelting are eventually discussed, as are the differences in legal systems between the North and the South. Almost every aspect of the world has been researched and worked into a cohesive whole. The society is even a very well done extrapolation of Anglo-Saxon society as it was in the 11th century into a society that has undergone a couple of centuries of change.

With that said, the world isn't perfect. While most of my complaints are nitpicks (armies carrying grain and water instead of flour and wine, etc), I do think that the economy is broken as it is. The silver mark is too heavy for the value it is given, and the gold to silver ratio is too high. With ordinary labourers earning over a hundred grams of silver per day and gold being worth 300 times the value of silver, I don't see the economy as sustainable, and the amount of silver that would need to be mined in order to sustain the economy is incredibly high.

The Story

The first chronicle is the slowest. There is considerable worldbuilding, and the political maneuverings of the characters naturally slowed the story down for me. While I enjoyed it, I was only reading the story between one and three chapters at a time. I wasn't making extra time to read the book, just taking a little time I might have been watching TV or videos to read it. With the later chronicles (~70% of the book), I think I read both of them in just three sittings. Once we got out of Middenhal, I made time to read the book.

Despite being a slow opening, the first chronicle was enjoyable. Daniel has a way of following one character through their political maneuverings, then switching to another character to show their own maneuvers that might intentionally or unintentionally ruin the maneuvers of their political opponents, that I enjoy. We also get treated to some wildcards, where people act as people and develop deals or relationships that will wreck future plans, even of their own party. They might not realise it at the time, but they're doing just that.

The politics also aren't all realm altering. While the jarls might be having it out to see who becomes the lord protector, we also see less powerful nobility trying to finesse things so that they get a better position and can afford to live as befits their station. And, in the non-political realm, we also see how the common people are reacting to events and going about their everyday life. Actually, the seeds for one of my favourite subplots are planted here, in the non-political realm.

The second chronicle also has some webs of politics, but they become increasingly irrelevant to all except a few as the city of Tothmor is threatened. In fact, the politics even had the potential to pose a non-malicious but negative effect on the defence of the city, had things gone the way the plotters wanted.

As noted above, the second chronicle is where the military aspects of the series come out in full force. We had one skirmish and one battle in the previous chronicle, but here we a treated to a large battle and then a desperate siege. The author has clearly done their research and, while I think their conception of how cavalry is used is a little rigid, it does fit well with the society presented. What I like most of Daniel's battles, and it first displays itself here, is that even when a clever, battle winning strategy succeeds, it doesn't do so instantly. Far too often in books, TV shows or movies the moment the "clever" strategy works, the losing side immediately throws down their weapons and runs. In The Eagle's Flight, it takes time for people to realise that they've lost, and even then there's the chance of a rearguard forming to help the others escape. The battle might go on for another half hour after it's been won, and I really appreciate the touch.

The siege itself is a very bog standard, conventional siege. While it gets the basics right, there is no counter-battery artillery on the walls or towers (traction powered trebuchets, springalds, great crossbows, ballistae, etc), no barbican is erected outside the gate and women take no active part in the defence, beyond serving as healers. In historical medieval and early modern sieges women played every roll imaginable. They erected extra defences, defended the parapets, operated the siege engines, ran supplies, collected enemy arrows from the ground beyond the walls, put out fires and took watches. Not all in the same siege necessarily, but even fulfilling one or two of these roles would have made an impact on the defence.

In fact, women don't seem to play any role in warfare in the book. There are no washerwomen, prostitutes, female sutlers or wives with any of the armies, and the only female presence is found in the healers who accompany the army to act as surgeons. Of course, non-combatant men aren't mentioned either in accompanying the armies, but at least they are allowed to serve a role in the defence of their homes when there is a siege.

Another missing aspect of warfare is the communal militia. Medieval towns and cities had an armed and armoured militia that not only served to protect the town, but could also be summoned by their lord or king to serve him. Some regions derived almost all their infantry from the towns, while in others they merely provided the missile arm and/or money that could be used to hire professional soldiers, but the communal militia was a standard of medieval warfare. You couldn't become a citizen of a town (and thus gain the rights and privileges necessary for a strong business) without also serving with the militia. For some reason almost all fantasy novels either ignore them or make them poorly equipped/incompetent, and it would have been nice to see The Eagle's Flight break this trend.

The third chronicle returns us to Adalric, where there are another couple of sieges and battles. One of the battles happens offscreen, so to speak, and I'd have loved to have read about it, but I understand it wasn't vital to the plot and might have been extraneous for most readers. Again, the sieges and battles in this chronicle are well handled. We get to see one character in particular stretch his wings and excel, even when others doubt his abilities.

This last chronicle is also where the women really shine. From Kate, a kitchen girl, to Theodwyn, the widowed sister of the jarl of Theodstan, they each have a role to play in the events of this chronicle. They're not really groundbreaking or world changing, but it shows the strength of each woman. Arndis asserting her rights and dignity as a noblewoman, even in trying circumstances, Theodwyn keeping the other ladies calm and then forcing her brother to confront his mistakes, Kate risking punishment or death to unveil a plot and Eleanor taking charge and organising a defence when threatened, each woman shows their strength and ability in different ways. Sometimes it is relevant to the plot, but other times it is merely relevant to themselves and their dignity. In short, they act as free agents, not as artifacts of the plot.

Also in the last chronicle is my favourite subplot, with the King's Quill (the royal scribe) teaching a large number of kitchen girls how to read. At first it was just one, the girlfriend of his apprentice (who he has sent on a mission), as he wanted some company after so long with an apprentice. Then it became widespread after he went and ushered them into his tower when he thought the Citadel was going to fall. It's really quite a nice gesture, and says a lot about the Quill, and the girls are all so eager to learn. It's just a subplot that I don't think will go anywhere special, but makes me smile.

Throughout all three chronicles, there's a single thread woven as we follow Godfrey, a mysterious traveler who not only has powerful connections, but who also seems very interested in the survival of Adalric for someone with no apparent political power. As he navigates between crises, we learn of something stirring down in the south, something that inspires fanatical devotion in its followers and which might or might not be responsible for the southern invasion. Where this will go, I don't know, but I'm eager to find out.

Closing Remarks

Despite being entirely free (it can be downloaded here, The Eagle's Flight is a professional quality book. There are a few typos and grammatical errors that have slipped through, but I've seen professionally published books with worse errors, and the editing is overall of a quite high quality. There isn't anything that doesn't add to the story or the world, and once the pace picks up it doesn't really slow down.

The worldbuilding in the novel and on the author's website is very well done and shows the history of Adalric as much as tells it. The scenes of warfare and politics are equally well done, despite some of my critiques of the sieges and use of cavalry. The characters are all well written, each with their own distinct personality, goals and motivations that don't necessarily all agree with the goals and motivations of their party. This creates believable drama, and also realistic conflict and roadbumps in the very clever plans of several people. They are, in essence, people rather than characters.

Rating

3.5/5

Although I eagerly anticipate the sequels, the beginning was slow, there were a few spelling and grammatical errors and some of the warfare was stock standard fantasy fare, rather than the more nuanced warfare of history. These factors brought the rating down, but not my enjoyment.