Mithrid Fenn wants nothing to do with magick. Magick is a curse word, banned by the vast Arka Empire and punishable by death. Its purging has finally brought peace to war-torn Emaneska. Only a stubborn rebellion, led by the warlord Outlaw King, raids and pillages the empire’s northern fringes.
To cliff-brat Mithrid, this is an age of tranquility and childhood games. That is until an illegal spellbook washes up on her shores, and she finds herself thrust into a war she never knew existed.
Now hunted by daemons and mages, she is dragged inexorably north to Scalussen and its rebels fighting doggedly to preserve a memory of freedom. Mithrid holds no such ideals. She fights for revenge and nothing nobler. If spilling blood means helping the Outlaw King, then so be it. Even if it means all-out war.
Devin
This was my first Ben Galley book and unfortunately I’m not sure it was the best start to get a good feel for them generally. Although it’s the beginning of a new series, it’s also the continuation of an earlier story with what seems like a large amount of carryover characters. For someone who has read the earlier books this would be great, but for someone who hasn’t I was often left wondering why I should care about them, as though all their character development and discovery had already happened. This meant that motivations could sometimes be really hard to follow. Without the history, the only reason the good peeps want to oust the bad peeps is because we see the bad guy partaking in increasingly Evil Just Cos acts. We’re also given no understanding of what the good guys intend once they win beyond this dreamy idea of peace like no one has ever known. Apart from Evil Acts the bad guy’s main beef seems to be not liking magic and choosing to outlaw it, which, all things considered, isn’t all that wild. It does turn Written insane and cause a lot of damage and trouble, to the point even our good guy wonders if the world would be better off without magic. This ought to bring up meaty, grey complexities, but evil guy is just unremittingly evil at every opportunity.
In short, the main issue I had with this book is that it’s both too detailed and too shallow at the same time. As a book set in an already fleshed out world with a lot of history, there was a lot of page time devoted to references I didn’t get or history that wasn’t important to this story leaving our newbie Mithrid to carry all the interest in the first half of the book. However, while she has an interesting take on a unique power, her journey is a fairly standard farmboy tale, except that she’s a cliff dwelling girl. Find special thing, whole village gets slaughtered, vows revenge, discovers unique power no one has seen before etc etc. It’s a book with a lot going for it and it’s well written, but I kept wanting more of it—more depth of character, more twists and tangles in the plot, more variance from what I think of as ye olde farmboy fantasy with big evil that must be defeated at any cost. Also less—mostly less Farden et al. telling stories and bemoaning past decisions while not furthering the plot, less unseeded plot devices coming out of nowhere, and less plot-by-god with Loki being pretty well the only reason anything actually happens, like he’s an irritating chess master playing every side for seemingly also unremittingly evil reasons and leaving the characters with zero agency.
So, pretty much the answer to every question about this book is both yes and no. Did I enjoy it, yes. And no. Do I want to continue with the series? Yes. And no. Do I think it’s good (subjectively of course)? Well, you know the answer. Yes. And no. There were moments of depth and interest and really nice description, but they were balanced out by excessive living in the past and nonsensical choices made to serve the plot. Which leaves this book really hard to score. Ultimately I’m giving Forever King a 6.5
Kop
I’ve read a couple of Ben Galley’s other books and highly enjoyed them. However, my thoughts on Forever King essentially match Devin’s. I thought that its length hindered the pacing and made it to where there was just too much dead space. I also felt as though it was just too generic a story overall. On a technical level, the book is really well written and has some great dialogue. I also enjoyed the mix of mythological elements with more traditional fantastical ones. But I never truly felt this novel had its own voice. It just seemed too aggressively average. My score is a 5.
Adam
The Forever King is an epic fantasy filled to the brim with magic, monsters and violence. Two old enemies muster their forces at war becomes inevitable, while a trickster god goads them both along.
The Forever King is the follow on from Ben Galley’s Emaneska series, and the start of a new saga in the world. Initially, this story feels split between two modes. One introduces Mithrid, a girl whose village is destroyed by the forces of the evil ruler and goes on to reluctantly join the rebellion, swearing revenge. It provides a new character whose knowledge of the goings on of the world isn’t too far ahead of a new reader’s, and gives a fairly compelling if well worn POV for us to follow. The other revolves around Farden and his rebel army, preparing for a war they know must come eventually and trying to counter the evil ruler’s plans. I found these chapters less compelling, as the motivations of the characters felt muddied by four books worth of context. The frequent references to previous events were not elegantly included, and as a reader that hasn’t read the previous series they often felt indulgent, giving information that felt irrelevant to the here and now.
The second half worked a lot better for me, as the focus shifted to the present and the characters and setting started to feel like it could all be let loose. Lots of solid action sequences and bombastic magical elements abound here, and while the story did a couple of things I felt were a little cheap storytelling-wise, I was enjoying the ride enough to not mind so much.
There’s a lot going on in the setting too, with dragons, demons, magic back tattoos, minotaurs, special magic powers, a vampire and more. In this particular setting it feels pulpy, a kitchen sink approach that makes you feel like anything could appear next. This can be fun, but does make the setting feel a little less coherent then it could.
I think fans of the Emaneska series will enjoy seeing how the world and characters have developed (unless they are overly attached to certain characters, there is a body count to contend with). As a jumping on point, I’m not so sure. It’s tricky with a series like this, where there’s already so much history to the world – and to the characters as that – but I think a lot of new readers will find it difficult to get past that first half.
If you’re looking for an epic fantasy with a big ol’ battle at the end, unambiguously evil villains, a wide array of magic shenanigans and a whole lot of messy recent history, then you might want to check this one out.
7
