Amidst the gas lamp shadows former soldier-turned-mercenary John Vanguard hunts criminals at the behest of his corrupt employer, Captain Felix Sanquain. Shamed by his deserter past and seeking to make amends for his many misdeeds, a chance encounter with Tarryn Leersac – a skilled young would-be-assassin fallen from the graces of high society – leads Vanguard to become an unlikely mentor.
Charged with hunting down the killer of two guards left washed up on the banks of the canal, the further Vanguard delves into the underbelly of the city the more he finds himself entangled in a web of secrets and lies. A prominent aristocrat is missing. Crime lords, con men and harlots run amok and the city teeters on the brink of another revolution.
With his already precarious reputation hanging by a thread, Vanguard must piece together how and why the last war came to pass, find a way to earn redemption for his mistakes and come to terms with the past in a city where few survive, and even fewer can be trusted.
Adam
We Men of Ash and Shadow is a grimdark fantasy with a duelling redemption/villain origin story. Two men with strange abilities question their place in the world as the city they live in festers under the authoritarian rule of its leader.
Vanguard is a man with a past, from hero to prisoner, to lapdog and killer for the city’s ruler. Tarryn is a young noble from a failing family, taking care of his mother whose dementia keeps her thinking they still live the high life. Both have an ability to blend into nothing, becoming nigh invisible to onlookers. I was pretty neutral about Vanguard as a protganist – I couldn’t find much about him to latch onto past general cliches. Tarryn I hated, and while that might have been the point, his descent into violence and murder was deeply unpleasant to read about from his POV. As an example, a fixation of his is his hate of the way a woman smells (because she is a prostitute). It’s a lot, and it only gets worse throughout the book.
Apart from some head hopping that created some baffling scenes in which it wasn’t clear whose POV it was until most of the way through a paragraph, I felt the prose was pretty good and evocative. The world felt quite exaggerated, but it was never clear if this was meant in a satirical way or not. The darkness of the plot made me think not, but that did create a disconnect for me that along with the characters made it hard for me to care much about what happened.
I’d say the plot was exciting, and the action has the right amount of punch to keep me engaged. There’s a lot of elements of secret conspiracies and betrayals that I thought were fine too.
This book would probably resonate better with someone who likes to read proper villain origins, and I think fans of self pub grimdark in general will probably find a lot to like, even if the book wasn’t quite my cup of tea.
5.5
Hiu
Many of my thoughts here mirror Adam’s, so I’m going to skip over repeating those and dive right into it.
We Men of Ash and Shadows felt to me like quite a melodramatic book. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It has this self-aware cheesiness to it, and unabashedly enjoys revelling in all of the tropes and high-strung emotions that come with some of its characters. And I dig that. It’s a book that’s having fun with itself, and that shines through the prose. What’s not to love?
The city setting did a lot to make this world feel “lived in”. I got enough of a feel for the world that I was able to wonder how something that happened in one POV would indirectly impact the others, which is always a plus. That feeling of cohesion? Always welcome.
But I did feel like the story was a little… Manic. The pacing is break-neck, which at times really upped the excitement level, but at others meant that there was little time to let any of the consequences sink in. It’s always moving on to the next thing. And in my opinion, this also limited how much I felt I could get to know the characters.
So with this in mind, a lot of We Men of Ash and Shadow felt weightless for me. Which is a bit of a shame, because it does do some of the hard work in setting up context and motivation for its characters (and deserves credit for this). It just sometimes felt like it tried to speedrun their development.
So I imagine how you feel about this book will come down to what kind of reader you are. Those readers who want fast-paced Plot, Plot, Plot might really like this. There’s certainly enough visible character development there to scratch an itch, even if the book doesn’t take the time for a more deliberate exploration. And I know there are a lot of folks out there who enjoy a descent-into-villainy plotline, which is precisely with Tarryn is all about. The creepy little fuck.
All said and done, this one is middle of the road for me. I can appreciate the things that We Men of Ash and Shadow does well, but it didn’t ever quite manage to get me fully invested.
I’ll score it a 6 out of 10.
Kopratic
My review will be pretty short. This book felt to me like it had a noir-esque style to it. I thought everything was fine. The characters were fine. The plot was fine. It was a quick and easy read, but for me it’s ultimately forgettable. It didn’t do anything horrible; it just didn’t do anything outstanding for my own personal tastes.
(5/10)
