Book Review: The Kettle Will be Made of Silver by Mark Tijsmans (The Band of Teiresias #1)

 

  Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads De bende van Teiresias #1: Van zilver zal de ketel zijn.

A fantasy I thought looked interesting, so let's have a gander. Spoilers ahead.

In the land to Teiresia live three races: Men, elves and gnomes. The land has for ages been ruled by High King Teiresias, the one who brought peace to the war-torn land ages ago and has ever since been king. But with Teiresias growing old, he starts to fear that war may break out once again when he dies. So he vows to make a potion which could make him live forever, and he recruits his best knight Andreas and his page, Floris, to go on a mission and find the first ingredient: a kettle made of gnome's silver. 

While this book looks cool in concept and there are definitely some good elements about it, I ultimately finished this one feeling very mixed about it. I'll first go into the good stuff. For one, the world-building is pretty neat (nothing really that unique, but still interesting enough to keep the reader engaged and for it not to feel like every generic fantasy realm ever), and some of the characters were also quite enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed Teiresias himself, who is just kind of this jolly old man who is nice to everyone but also nobody really dares to oppose (save a few). Catho also isn't half-bad and I quite enjoyed the two trouble-making gnome-twins. The book also seems to be heading into an interesting direction to the point I might check out the second book.

But then there's also the parts that frustrated me. First of all: The huge tonal issues. This book is aimed at a tween audience, however it seems to have a real identity struggle with what it's trying to be. Some moments it's an epic and darker fantasy, other times it tries to legitimately be funny almost like it's trying to be a comedy. And this could work in concept. I instantly thought about the movie Shrek, a medieval fantasy comedy that does both pretty well. 

This book...does not. There's a way this could work if things were balanced neatly, but instead it feels very jarring as the book will go from dramatic and serious scenes to funny and repetitive scenes and it oftentimes just does not work. There's no real balance or sense of when it's appropriate to try and be funny here, it just feels jarring because the reader will be invested in one scene only to be met with Tijsmans' attempts to be funny (personal note: I did not find most of the scenes that are supposed to be humorous in this funny at all. I found them repetitive and unfunny, adding to my annoyance).

I think that Tijsmans should've really decided what he wanted. If he wants to write a comedy fantasy book for tweens, go ahead! Make it legitimately funny then. Tijsmans' idea of a joke is often just repeating dialogue to an obnoxious degree (just how many times do we need to hear about rotten tomatoes and leek, or hear Floris scream "assistant"?), which just isn't actual comedy. So if you want to write that funny fantasy, go all out and make it legit a knee-slapper.

If he wanted to write a more serious fantasy, that's also possible. Do that then instead. And don't give me the "this is for tweens, it can't be that serious"-excuse. I have read many books aimed at this age range, heck, even younger, which have been serious and dealt with darker topics. Children can handle this so long as its written well.

I'm also not saying that there's no way to combine both, being funny and serious at times. But let's just say that Tijsmans (at least in this first installment) hasn't found a proper balance of the two yet. And like said before, his scenes which are supposed to be humorous usually read more as obnoxious repetition instead, not like actual comedy. 

Another thing that kind of turned me off: Some of these characters feel legit like over-the-top cartoons rather than actual characters. I'm not even saying archetypes, I'm saying archetypes exaggerated to the extreme. The Biskopus Sylvester is legit a one-note villain who has EVIL written all over him from the moment he first enters the story. There is no subtly whatsoever with this character. 

And then there's Andreas and Floris who (sadly) are our protagonists for most of the story. I personally found them to be really obnoxious. They're both very full of themselves (albeit for various reasons) and especially Andreas is just kind of annoying because he's just constantly horny for every single girl his age he comes across on his journey. Legit, if he sees a young women he wants to be with her and if he sees someone who is not a young women he wonders if they have any relatives who are who he could get with. 

Heck, even Floris, who is bloody eleven, is nearly constantly trying to get with Catho and make her his queen, and he legitimately seems to think he has some claim to her as if women are just property (thankfully at least he later finds out that she's literally a princess and he's a nobody). And, again, these tropes and archetypes could be done well, but this was not the case here. I didn't find these characters likable and didn't want to follow them: I thought they were obnoxious assholes. And not in the fun way, you can make fun asshole protagonists. But if I have to hear Andreas go on one more time about pretty young ladies or hear Floris say one more time how he's some kind of prince or an assistant instead of a page I think I may just cringe.

So yeah, some elements good, some elements bad. I am genuinely curious where the story is going which would prompt me to pick up the second book in normal cases, but I am really dreading more tonal dissonance, unfunny attempts at repetitive humor and characters I legitimately can't take seriously because they're unlikable or over-the-top cartoon-y. 

Rating: 3/5