Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies is an epic fantasy deer
tale that draws some obvious inspiration from Watership Down. But is it any
good? Well, let’s see, shall we? Spoilers ahead.
This book follows the titular protagonist known as Rannoch,
a red deer born with a mark in the shape of an oaken leaf on his brow, which
marks him as a legend according to an ancient prophecy. He’s supposedly the one
to bring down the evil deer lord Sgorr who is set on taking over all of Scotia
and subject the other deer to his will. Rannoch and his friends flee the evil
of the deer lord early on, embarking on a dangerous journey of self-discovery,
before eventually returning to make the one-eyed deer pay for his actions.
As far as xenofictions go, I’d say this is a pretty solid
one. Not the greatest one out there, but it definitely has all the good stuff.
Lore, a chosen one, a classic good vs evil plot, a deliciously depraved
villain, and more. Is it the most original execution out there? I’d say no,
it’s clear that this book was inspired by Watership Down. We’ve got the same
things going on, with realistic animal behavior being explained in a different
way, the deer having unique words for things and there being a god and a
legendary trickster and the ending where the main character dies.
But I don’t feel like that limits Fire Bringer in the
slightest. Its inspiration is obvious, but the execution is overall good and
unique enough to set it apart. Heck, I even prefer this one over Watership
Down.
Why is that? First things first: the characters. Rannoch is…
not the most interesting protagonist you’ll ever come across. He’s very morally
good, but he’s also quite proud at times, and at one point becomes dangerously
pacifistic. So he’s pretty decent if you ask me. His friends are all pretty
engaging characters with their own smaller arcs, most of them, anyways. The
villains are definitely a bit on the flat side, though. Sgorr is very obviously
evil and while it’s fun at some points to see how dark he can get, I also feel
like he lacks a bit. We’re giving some backstory on him, but it’s only through
exposition. It would’ve been cool if we’d gotten a prologue or chapter from his
point of view or something where we fully explored his motives. Right now he kinda
seems like “evil for the sake of being evil” with some throwaway lines of
dialogue explaining briefly why he is like that. Funny, because I actually made
this exact same commentary on the villain of Watership Down.
With this being a dark xenofiction, know what you’re getting
into. Deer and other animals do die, sometimes in horrible ways. Things get
pretty bloody and there’s more characters that die than I can count.
Something this book actually has over Watership Down is that
there are more strong female characters and they do have unique personalities
and character arcs. That’s a point to Fire Bringer if you ask me.
Some things I did notice that slightly irked me while
reading, though: first of all, there are too many named characters. Even the
ones that just appear for like two sentences of dialogue for a brief appearance
get named. Since the core named cast is already a lot to keep up with, I really
wouldn’t have gone down this route, because now you’re just throwing even more
names into the mix.
Secondly, there is too much name-repeating in sentences.
Characters will be like “How are you, Rannoch.” And then the other will be like
“I am fine, Willow. How are you?” and then this’ll continue and they’ll keep
name-dropping each other every few sentences or other. That’s just very
repetitive to read.
If you want a very original execution of the prophecy good
vs evil story and/or are not okay with Clement-Davies drawing some obvious
inspiration of Watership Down, I wouldn’t recommend it. But if you want a story
that hits familiar beats in a good way, has some interesting lore and
characters, and takes you on an epic journey across ancient Great Britain, I’d
definitely say check it out!
No comments:
Post a Comment