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Talus #1
Talus and the Frozen King
Meet Talus-the world's first detective.
A dead warrior king frozen in winter ice. Six grieving sons, each with his own reason to kill. Two weary travellers caught up in a web of suspicion and deceit.
In a distant time long before our own, wandering bard Talus and his companion Bran journey to the island realm of Creyak, where the king has been murdered. From clues scattered among the island's mysterious barrows and stone circles, they begin their search for his killer. But do the answers lie in this world or the next?
Nobody is above suspicion, from the king's heir to the tribal shaman, from the servant woman steeped in herb-lore to the visiting warlord whose unexpected arrival throws the whole tribe into confusion. And when death strikes again, Talus and Bran realise nothing is what it seems. Creyak is place of secrets and spirits, mystery and myth. It will take a clever man indeed to unravel the truth. The kind of man this ancient world has not seen before.
A dead warrior king frozen in winter ice. Six grieving sons, each with his own reason to kill. Two weary travellers caught up in a web of suspicion and deceit.
In a distant time long before our own, wandering bard Talus and his companion Bran journey to the island realm of Creyak, where the king has been murdered. From clues scattered among the island's mysterious barrows and stone circles, they begin their search for his killer. But do the answers lie in this world or the next?
Nobody is above suspicion, from the king's heir to the tribal shaman, from the servant woman steeped in herb-lore to the visiting warlord whose unexpected arrival throws the whole tribe into confusion. And when death strikes again, Talus and Bran realise nothing is what it seems. Creyak is place of secrets and spirits, mystery and myth. It will take a clever man indeed to unravel the truth. The kind of man this ancient world has not seen before.
333 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 23, 2014
6 people are currently reading
329 people want to read
About the author
Graham Edwards
38 books53 followersGraham Edwards is the critically acclaimed author of multiple novels and short stories. His recent fantasy novel, "The Dragons of Bloodrock," revisits the mythical prehistory he created in his first novel, "Dragoncharm," evoking a bygone age before man walked the Earth, when dragons ruled the skies. Meanwhile "Stone & Sky" transports its Victorian hero Jonah Lightfoot to the precarious slopes of a world-sized wall where strange creatures roam and the memories of all humanity are stored.
If it’s crime you prefer, try the interdimensional thriller "String City," which follows the adventures of a down-at-heel gumshoe as he embarks on a cosmos-shaking quest in a strange city perched on the edge of the cosmos. Or travel back to ancient times to meet wandering bard Talus, the world’s first detective, in the neolithic murder mystery "Talus and the Frozen King."
Graham has ghostwritten other novels under various pseudonyms. Formerly senior staff writer at Cinefex magazine, is also a reasearch journalist specialising in behind-the-scenes articles on film and television productions.
"Dragoncharm" and its two sequels were each nominated for Best Novel in the British Fantasy Awards. Short fiction by Graham Edwards has appeared in magazines and anthologies. His novelette "Girl in Pieces" made the longlist for the Nebula Awards.
If it’s crime you prefer, try the interdimensional thriller "String City," which follows the adventures of a down-at-heel gumshoe as he embarks on a cosmos-shaking quest in a strange city perched on the edge of the cosmos. Or travel back to ancient times to meet wandering bard Talus, the world’s first detective, in the neolithic murder mystery "Talus and the Frozen King."
Graham has ghostwritten other novels under various pseudonyms. Formerly senior staff writer at Cinefex magazine, is also a reasearch journalist specialising in behind-the-scenes articles on film and television productions.
"Dragoncharm" and its two sequels were each nominated for Best Novel in the British Fantasy Awards. Short fiction by Graham Edwards has appeared in magazines and anthologies. His novelette "Girl in Pieces" made the longlist for the Nebula Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
June 15, 2015
This book was simply a pleasure to read. Think of it as a prehistoric mystery.
Other reviews of this I've read liken the main characters, Talus and Bran, to Holmes and Watson. I can totally see that. Talus is one of those knowledgeable, deduce-the-hidden-truth-at-a-glance types, and Bran is his capable-but-yet-always-a-step-behind companion.
The difference, to me, is that some chapters are told in Talus's POV. This doesn't really happen with Holmes, where the tale is normally told by Watson in a semi-awestruck, bromantic flavor. But in this book we get to step inside the mind behind the genius. We're given tastes of the experience behind the deductions, and shown that Talus is just a man. A wise and observant man, but still with his own doubts and flaws.
What really did it for me, though, was the setting. Men are about two shambling steps above cavemen in this. No wheels, no forges, just fire and rock and wood and bone.
Also, this gives a very clever twist to the classic 'closed room' mystery. It's set on an icy, windswept island that has been closed off by its overbearing king.
I'd recommend this for fans of mystery, prehistoric fiction, and pre-religious spiritualism.
Other reviews of this I've read liken the main characters, Talus and Bran, to Holmes and Watson. I can totally see that. Talus is one of those knowledgeable, deduce-the-hidden-truth-at-a-glance types, and Bran is his capable-but-yet-always-a-step-behind companion.
The difference, to me, is that some chapters are told in Talus's POV. This doesn't really happen with Holmes, where the tale is normally told by Watson in a semi-awestruck, bromantic flavor. But in this book we get to step inside the mind behind the genius. We're given tastes of the experience behind the deductions, and shown that Talus is just a man. A wise and observant man, but still with his own doubts and flaws.
What really did it for me, though, was the setting. Men are about two shambling steps above cavemen in this. No wheels, no forges, just fire and rock and wood and bone.
Also, this gives a very clever twist to the classic 'closed room' mystery. It's set on an icy, windswept island that has been closed off by its overbearing king.
I'd recommend this for fans of mystery, prehistoric fiction, and pre-religious spiritualism.
April 25, 2022
Think Sherlock Holmes in an icy prehistoric setting, how cool is that? Seriously, I love this concept and it warrants a sequel. It’s fast paced, well written, has great characters, a decent and straight forward plot and a fascinating setting that speaks to the imagination. Easy recommendation.
May 29, 2014
Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths Reviews
Talus and the Frozen King is a good old-fashioned murder mystery set in the Neolithic Age. It is a short novel, written in a simple, straight forward style where every word counts for something, and if it reminds you of a traditional mystery in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, you are not alone, since that seems to be a consensus of most reviews. However, where that similarity might be a negative for some novels, Graham Edwards does a good job of using the historical setting to make this more than just another mystery novel.
The story itself takes place on the small island of Creyak, where King Hashath is found dead and frozen in the village commons on the very same morning that two wanders appear in town. Naturally, these two strangers are our protagonists throughout the book: Sherlock Holmes and Watson – sorry, I mean, Talus the bard and Bran the fisherman. These two immediately are suspected in the bizarre fate of the island’s ruler, but Talus – ever quick-witted and silver-tongued – convinces the king’s eldest son and heir to allow him to undertake an investigation into the identity of the real murderer.
No mystery is ever simple, however, and neither is the king’s strange demise in this peaceful locale. Talus and Bran find themselves delving into the strange world of isolated Creyak and its island people. Old enemies of the king materialize. Family secrets rear their ugly heads into the light of day. And very quickly, all clues begin to point toward one of the king’s own sons being the killer. A situation that promises nothing but imminent danger and possible death for Talus and Bran!
All in all, Mr. Edwards delivered a very enjoyable murder mystery with Talus and the Frozen King. It is a fast paced, intense whodunit mystery that starts out slowly but gains steam as Talus and Bran grow closer to the big revelation of the true murderer of Creyak’s king. While it has little, if any, fantasy elements that I could personally see, it is still well worth a quick read by any book lover!
I received this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. I’d like to thank both of them for allowing me to receive this review copy and inform everyone that the review you have read is my opinion alone.
Talus and the Frozen King is a good old-fashioned murder mystery set in the Neolithic Age. It is a short novel, written in a simple, straight forward style where every word counts for something, and if it reminds you of a traditional mystery in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, you are not alone, since that seems to be a consensus of most reviews. However, where that similarity might be a negative for some novels, Graham Edwards does a good job of using the historical setting to make this more than just another mystery novel.
The story itself takes place on the small island of Creyak, where King Hashath is found dead and frozen in the village commons on the very same morning that two wanders appear in town. Naturally, these two strangers are our protagonists throughout the book: Sherlock Holmes and Watson – sorry, I mean, Talus the bard and Bran the fisherman. These two immediately are suspected in the bizarre fate of the island’s ruler, but Talus – ever quick-witted and silver-tongued – convinces the king’s eldest son and heir to allow him to undertake an investigation into the identity of the real murderer.
No mystery is ever simple, however, and neither is the king’s strange demise in this peaceful locale. Talus and Bran find themselves delving into the strange world of isolated Creyak and its island people. Old enemies of the king materialize. Family secrets rear their ugly heads into the light of day. And very quickly, all clues begin to point toward one of the king’s own sons being the killer. A situation that promises nothing but imminent danger and possible death for Talus and Bran!
All in all, Mr. Edwards delivered a very enjoyable murder mystery with Talus and the Frozen King. It is a fast paced, intense whodunit mystery that starts out slowly but gains steam as Talus and Bran grow closer to the big revelation of the true murderer of Creyak’s king. While it has little, if any, fantasy elements that I could personally see, it is still well worth a quick read by any book lover!
I received this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. I’d like to thank both of them for allowing me to receive this review copy and inform everyone that the review you have read is my opinion alone.
March 9, 2014
4 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.blogspot.com/201...
Well now, this book was a pleasant surprise. Meet Talus, touted by the book's description as the world's first detective, which is indeed as marvelous as it sounds. The book has the feel of a Sherlock Holmes type mystery set in an icy Iron Age inspired fantasy world, but what really clinches this one that our "detective" is a bard! If you don't know, I have a serious soft spot for those traveling poets and teller-of-tales types.
Written in the tradition of the classics by Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie, I found Talus and the Frozen King to be a very enjoyable whodunit complete with all the ingredients that makes a good mystery. Talus, a wanderer and collector of stories, is a clever man and not without his little quirks. Then, because every good detective needs a trusty friend and assistant, we have stalwart Bran, who is the Watson to his Sherlock. And just to tease this book even more, let's just say a true detective also needs an arch nemesis a la Moriarty, but that's all I'll say about that in this review!
I very much enjoy stories like this. Talus and the Frozen King is a quick read, tightly told with a clear direction and goal in mind, but the author still leaves plenty of room to develop the characters and define the world around them. The setup is admittedly simple but still very well done; after all, most of the activity is mainly confined to an island, where the king of the local settlement has been found murdered under bizarre circumstances. No one is above suspicion in this plot-driven mystery, not even the king's six grieving sons, the women who love them, or the tribe's shaman, who all have their reasons to see the old ruler dead.
As the reader, I was given the chance to engage in the very same process of deduction as Talus carries out his investigation, through interviewing suspects or gathering and interpreting the clues. In the interim, I also got to learn more about Talus and Bran individually, discovering the motivations that drive them as well as the details behind their unique relationship. It added an extra layer to this story, rendering the situation more than just another mystery to be solved, because along the way I grew to care about these characters and became invested in them.
Nothing is as it seems. Names are a continually added to the suspect list, then scratched off again as more clues come to light. As death strikes left and right, you can practically feel the urgency in the atmosphere as times begins to run out. Of course, you're not going to be getting a ton of information about the wider world out there due to the tight focus of the plot, but we still get plenty about the culture, traditions and myths of Creyak island and its people, and for such a relatively short novel, I think it packs a lot of emotion and tension.
There aren't a lot of books like this out there, that's for sure. While there's a strong element of fantasy in this one, at it's heart it really is a variety of your good old detective story. The prehistoric ice age setting garners huge points from me, and like I mentioned, so does our protagonist being an eccentric bard. I think both mystery and fantasy readers alike will feel right at home with this one. A very entertaining and fast read.
Well now, this book was a pleasant surprise. Meet Talus, touted by the book's description as the world's first detective, which is indeed as marvelous as it sounds. The book has the feel of a Sherlock Holmes type mystery set in an icy Iron Age inspired fantasy world, but what really clinches this one that our "detective" is a bard! If you don't know, I have a serious soft spot for those traveling poets and teller-of-tales types.
Written in the tradition of the classics by Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie, I found Talus and the Frozen King to be a very enjoyable whodunit complete with all the ingredients that makes a good mystery. Talus, a wanderer and collector of stories, is a clever man and not without his little quirks. Then, because every good detective needs a trusty friend and assistant, we have stalwart Bran, who is the Watson to his Sherlock. And just to tease this book even more, let's just say a true detective also needs an arch nemesis a la Moriarty, but that's all I'll say about that in this review!
I very much enjoy stories like this. Talus and the Frozen King is a quick read, tightly told with a clear direction and goal in mind, but the author still leaves plenty of room to develop the characters and define the world around them. The setup is admittedly simple but still very well done; after all, most of the activity is mainly confined to an island, where the king of the local settlement has been found murdered under bizarre circumstances. No one is above suspicion in this plot-driven mystery, not even the king's six grieving sons, the women who love them, or the tribe's shaman, who all have their reasons to see the old ruler dead.
As the reader, I was given the chance to engage in the very same process of deduction as Talus carries out his investigation, through interviewing suspects or gathering and interpreting the clues. In the interim, I also got to learn more about Talus and Bran individually, discovering the motivations that drive them as well as the details behind their unique relationship. It added an extra layer to this story, rendering the situation more than just another mystery to be solved, because along the way I grew to care about these characters and became invested in them.
Nothing is as it seems. Names are a continually added to the suspect list, then scratched off again as more clues come to light. As death strikes left and right, you can practically feel the urgency in the atmosphere as times begins to run out. Of course, you're not going to be getting a ton of information about the wider world out there due to the tight focus of the plot, but we still get plenty about the culture, traditions and myths of Creyak island and its people, and for such a relatively short novel, I think it packs a lot of emotion and tension.
There aren't a lot of books like this out there, that's for sure. While there's a strong element of fantasy in this one, at it's heart it really is a variety of your good old detective story. The prehistoric ice age setting garners huge points from me, and like I mentioned, so does our protagonist being an eccentric bard. I think both mystery and fantasy readers alike will feel right at home with this one. A very entertaining and fast read.
May 12, 2014
Fantasy Review Barn
A nice little diversion here, I forgot how readable murder mysteries can be. And that is what Talus and the Frozen King is, a cozy little mystery set in the frozen north of an ice age. Not a lot more, but nothing less.
Talus is a traveling teller of tales with an eye for detail and an obsession with not leaving the unknown alone. He is joined on his journeys by Bran, the sidekick who is always a step behind the reasoning Talus is putting forth to piece together all the little puzzles in life. Their travels have taken them north, into the frozen lands, each searching for something different within the same thing; spirits in the aurora borealis. But along the way they end up in an isolated little village right as they discovered their king is dead. And you better believe Talus is digging into this mystery.
Let me tell you what I can’t judge this book on; the mystery itself. I have no idea how to judge such a thing, have not read a mystery since a small Tony Hillerman run back in late high school. I saw where a few things were going, was a bit behind Talus a few other times, and was never real annoyed by info being hidden in ways that felt like cheating. For me it worked, for a die hard mystery reader? I couldn’t tell ya.
What I did enjoy about this book was a fairly unique setting. The Frozen King of the title ruled over a village. A census of his kingdom could probably be done from memory. A much smaller setting than I am used to reading about, but it worked well for its purpose. The ice age setting was very different from most anything I have read. When Talus is eying the ‘riches’ of the king’s home he is looking at shelves with bones instead of the usual riches. Fire is still precious enough that we get glimpse of many rituals behind it from different places seen through the eyes of Talus.
Likewise Talus was an engaging character, even if he was the most obvious Holmes homage in the world. Not the literary Sherlock, though admittedly it has been ten years since I last picked up Doyle. But rather he fits with what most of us think of the man; complete with Bran as Watson. Eventually we even meet his Moriarty. I wanted so bad to avoid the comparison, but the more I thought about it the less I was able to ignore it. It does feel more like an homage than a rip off though, so don’t let it scare you.
What I didn’t enjoy so much was the way the book went Clan of the Cave Bear on us. Never have felt it particularly clever to drop in small references that seem to pinpoint the invention of ideas. Talus inventing maps during a murder investigation, when he is a world traveler, didn’t do it for me. Nor did brothers coming up with checkers out of boredom. It is good enough that we have the world’s first detective, let’s not get overly clever.
A fun little mystery with a different setting, this made a great cleanser between longer books.
3 Stars
A nice little diversion here, I forgot how readable murder mysteries can be. And that is what Talus and the Frozen King is, a cozy little mystery set in the frozen north of an ice age. Not a lot more, but nothing less.
Talus is a traveling teller of tales with an eye for detail and an obsession with not leaving the unknown alone. He is joined on his journeys by Bran, the sidekick who is always a step behind the reasoning Talus is putting forth to piece together all the little puzzles in life. Their travels have taken them north, into the frozen lands, each searching for something different within the same thing; spirits in the aurora borealis. But along the way they end up in an isolated little village right as they discovered their king is dead. And you better believe Talus is digging into this mystery.
Let me tell you what I can’t judge this book on; the mystery itself. I have no idea how to judge such a thing, have not read a mystery since a small Tony Hillerman run back in late high school. I saw where a few things were going, was a bit behind Talus a few other times, and was never real annoyed by info being hidden in ways that felt like cheating. For me it worked, for a die hard mystery reader? I couldn’t tell ya.
What I did enjoy about this book was a fairly unique setting. The Frozen King of the title ruled over a village. A census of his kingdom could probably be done from memory. A much smaller setting than I am used to reading about, but it worked well for its purpose. The ice age setting was very different from most anything I have read. When Talus is eying the ‘riches’ of the king’s home he is looking at shelves with bones instead of the usual riches. Fire is still precious enough that we get glimpse of many rituals behind it from different places seen through the eyes of Talus.
Likewise Talus was an engaging character, even if he was the most obvious Holmes homage in the world. Not the literary Sherlock, though admittedly it has been ten years since I last picked up Doyle. But rather he fits with what most of us think of the man; complete with Bran as Watson. Eventually we even meet his Moriarty. I wanted so bad to avoid the comparison, but the more I thought about it the less I was able to ignore it. It does feel more like an homage than a rip off though, so don’t let it scare you.
What I didn’t enjoy so much was the way the book went Clan of the Cave Bear on us. Never have felt it particularly clever to drop in small references that seem to pinpoint the invention of ideas. Talus inventing maps during a murder investigation, when he is a world traveler, didn’t do it for me. Nor did brothers coming up with checkers out of boredom. It is good enough that we have the world’s first detective, let’s not get overly clever.
A fun little mystery with a different setting, this made a great cleanser between longer books.
3 Stars
March 19, 2014
IDK...
not impressed.
its a fantasy-mystery hybrid with predictable plot and
characters who are i didn't care about, much.
not impressed.
its a fantasy-mystery hybrid with predictable plot and
characters who are i didn't care about, much.
September 1, 2016
Word count: didn't care enough to estimate (not too long, though)
Rating: Only if I'm stranded on an island and there's nothing else to read (like a dictionary, 'cause I'll take a dictionary over this any day)
*ARC provided by NetGalley
I didn't feel like writing a review when I've finished this. Two weeks (or so) has passed and I still don't want to do it. I guess I have to accept that the desire to review this one won't come. Ever. And just force myself to type a few coherent sentences.
I didn't like this book. I didn't like it at all. It didn't have me enraged or anything. It's simply not enjoyable.
Writing:
Awkward as a duck. A blind duck. A blind crippled duck. A blind crippled duck on acid. A blind crippled duck on acid made of jello that feeds on lost hopes and dreams. I'm not impressed.
Main character/s:
a tall, bony storyteller in his 40's (or something)
+ his sidekick: a crippled fisherman that is very lonely and lost everything and now is just like 'fuck me' 'fuck you' 'fuck everybody' and is an impatient idiot with no self control
When you put a storyteller in your book and he tells some stories that you, the author, actually relate to the reader, you better be a fucking amazing writer to pull it off. It's really hard to write a charismatic bard. It is. So if you can't do it, don't try. Can you taste it? That's my disappointment. You made me weep embarrassment for you. Congratulations.
Story:
Just fuck you. Boring as shit. And as unoriginal as possible.
Additionally I didn't give a flying fuck about anything or anyone. There was no time (or reason) to like/connect/start caring about any of that stupid shit.
And that book has no point. As far as I know it's not a part of a series. Meaning the whole, boring fucking thing that came out of nowhere is going to the 'nope' land.
Oh, wait, it is a first part of a prospective series? Well, I can't fucking wait for the second instalment (did you feel my sarcasm slap you across the face? DID YOU? Good.)
Conclusion:
It didn't make me angry. Just fed up with everything and everyone. God, it reads like something I could've written. When I was 15. In fact, I'm pretty sure my stories were better than this.
My advice:
stay away from this one.
Rating: Only if I'm stranded on an island and there's nothing else to read (like a dictionary, 'cause I'll take a dictionary over this any day)
*ARC provided by NetGalley
I didn't feel like writing a review when I've finished this. Two weeks (or so) has passed and I still don't want to do it. I guess I have to accept that the desire to review this one won't come. Ever. And just force myself to type a few coherent sentences.
I didn't like this book. I didn't like it at all. It didn't have me enraged or anything. It's simply not enjoyable.
Writing:
Awkward as a duck. A blind duck. A blind crippled duck. A blind crippled duck on acid. A blind crippled duck on acid made of jello that feeds on lost hopes and dreams. I'm not impressed.
Main character/s:
a tall, bony storyteller in his 40's (or something)
+ his sidekick: a crippled fisherman that is very lonely and lost everything and now is just like 'fuck me' 'fuck you' 'fuck everybody' and is an impatient idiot with no self control
When you put a storyteller in your book and he tells some stories that you, the author, actually relate to the reader, you better be a fucking amazing writer to pull it off. It's really hard to write a charismatic bard. It is. So if you can't do it, don't try. Can you taste it? That's my disappointment. You made me weep embarrassment for you. Congratulations.
Story:
Just fuck you. Boring as shit. And as unoriginal as possible.
Additionally I didn't give a flying fuck about anything or anyone. There was no time (or reason) to like/connect/start caring about any of that stupid shit.
And that book has no point. As far as I know it's not a part of a series. Meaning the whole, boring fucking thing that came out of nowhere is going to the 'nope' land.
Oh, wait, it is a first part of a prospective series? Well, I can't fucking wait for the second instalment (did you feel my sarcasm slap you across the face? DID YOU? Good.)
Conclusion:
It didn't make me angry. Just fed up with everything and everyone. God, it reads like something I could've written. When I was 15. In fact, I'm pretty sure my stories were better than this.
My advice:
stay away from this one.
April 5, 2014
Mystery, history and detective story all in one.
Graham Edwards did a good job.
A bard and a former fisherman who try to solve a crime a log, long, long time before Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
I liked the story a lot and I really hope there will be at least one more book to explain the past of Talus the bard.
One thing I could not really understand. I know detectives are strong but as long as they are human they need some sleep. But it seems Talus and Bran "forgot" to rest ....
Nevertheless if you like a detective story set in a time long ago mixed with northern myths then you should not hesitate to give it a try.
In a couple of days I will add my full review.
Graham Edwards did a good job.
A bard and a former fisherman who try to solve a crime a log, long, long time before Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
I liked the story a lot and I really hope there will be at least one more book to explain the past of Talus the bard.
One thing I could not really understand. I know detectives are strong but as long as they are human they need some sleep. But it seems Talus and Bran "forgot" to rest ....
Nevertheless if you like a detective story set in a time long ago mixed with northern myths then you should not hesitate to give it a try.
In a couple of days I will add my full review.
April 2, 2014
Pros: intricate mystery, interesting characters
Cons: slow opening, characters never seem to sleep
Talus, a widely travelled bard, and his companion, Bran, a former fisherman, arrive at a Northern island the day after their king has died. A quick examination of the body reveals that the king was murdered, and Talus offers to help find the killer.
Talus is basically a neolithic age Sherlock Holmes. He examines the evidence and observes the world closely to see what others miss. And while he doesn’t use much in the way of scientific deduction, he is highly observant and has a personality that alternates between charming (when he’s telling a story) and abrasive (when he’s exhorting Bran to pay attention and see what’s happening around him). Also like Sherlock, he’s not very good when it comes to relationship matters, and so tends to miss some of the human clues that crop up.
Which is where Bran comes in. Bran is hot tempered and still grieving the loss of his wife and the use of his right hand, which was seriously injured the day she died. He misses a lot of subtle clues but prompts Talus with regards to some of the more human elements of the case.
There are two strong women from the isles who have fairly prominent roles, while maintaining historical deference to the men around them.
The mystery is complex and while it takes a while for the more intricate details to come up, by the end of the book there’s quite a knot of intrigue to untangle.
This is historical fiction and the only fantasy style elements - if you can call them that - are the character’s beliefs in various gods and a judgement style afterlife.
My only complaint with the book is that the action takes place within a few days and the protagonists are constantly on the move. Even after Bran exclaims his exhaustion he and Talus never seem to actually sleep, as they deal with one crisis after another.
The book is fairly slow moving, focusing as much on character as on the mystery. If you like historical fiction and/or interesting mysteries, give this book a try.
Cons: slow opening, characters never seem to sleep
Talus, a widely travelled bard, and his companion, Bran, a former fisherman, arrive at a Northern island the day after their king has died. A quick examination of the body reveals that the king was murdered, and Talus offers to help find the killer.
Talus is basically a neolithic age Sherlock Holmes. He examines the evidence and observes the world closely to see what others miss. And while he doesn’t use much in the way of scientific deduction, he is highly observant and has a personality that alternates between charming (when he’s telling a story) and abrasive (when he’s exhorting Bran to pay attention and see what’s happening around him). Also like Sherlock, he’s not very good when it comes to relationship matters, and so tends to miss some of the human clues that crop up.
Which is where Bran comes in. Bran is hot tempered and still grieving the loss of his wife and the use of his right hand, which was seriously injured the day she died. He misses a lot of subtle clues but prompts Talus with regards to some of the more human elements of the case.
There are two strong women from the isles who have fairly prominent roles, while maintaining historical deference to the men around them.
The mystery is complex and while it takes a while for the more intricate details to come up, by the end of the book there’s quite a knot of intrigue to untangle.
This is historical fiction and the only fantasy style elements - if you can call them that - are the character’s beliefs in various gods and a judgement style afterlife.
My only complaint with the book is that the action takes place within a few days and the protagonists are constantly on the move. Even after Bran exclaims his exhaustion he and Talus never seem to actually sleep, as they deal with one crisis after another.
The book is fairly slow moving, focusing as much on character as on the mystery. If you like historical fiction and/or interesting mysteries, give this book a try.
April 10, 2014
originally posted at: http://thebookplank.blogspot.nl/2014/...
Last year saw a sort of emerging of a new trend, blending more of the crime solving/detective in a fantasy setting such as epic and historical fantasy. Most of the urban fantasy stories have this element but it wasn't often seen in other fantasy genre. I enjoyed Drakenfeld by Mark Charan Newton a lot, which also featured crime investigation in an historical setting and when I saw the release Talus and the Frozen King I had to read this book. Talus and the Frozen King is written by Graham Edwards who is well known for his The Ultimate Dragon Saga and his The Stone Trilogy.Talus and the Frozen King is his latest book and kicks off a new and exciting series.
When I started reading Talus and the Frozen King, one thing directly came to mind. I have been a fan of the series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and one scene sprang to mind. There is this one episode where Grissom relates a story from I think feudal Japan were CSI was "invented", a brutal murder was carried out in a small village, a man's head was decapitated but no suspect was found, one wise man forced every villager with a shovel to stand in the sun and eventually the shovel of one man attracted flies... indicating that he had blood on his shovel and was thus the suspect. It is exactly this feeling that I got when I read Talus and the Frozen King. Graham Edwards neatly blends in the Sherlock Holmes feeling into his story, producing a one-of-a-kind read.
In Talus and the Frozen King, you follow the adventures are the traveling bard Talus and his friend Bran who are on the search of something traveling North. All of a sudden they hear screams coming from a village and Talus is drawn to find out just what caused these screams. They stumble on the dead king Hashath. The villagers presume that he just died of natural causes but Talus already starts to connect some dots and finds evidence that Hashath has been murdered. In his wake Hashath leaves behind six grieving sons... however due to the high amount of rivalry between the sons all the fingers start to point in their direction, that one of them must have murdered their father... Now that the murder has been made public, Talus finds himself intrigued to find out who murder Hashath and why. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Talus. It's just what you want to read in a detective story. A nice case study, evidence is piling up that hardly makes sense to you and eventually a clever plot twist that will make you say out loud: "Why didn't I see this any sooner". Added to this is that Graham Edwards doesn't produce a simplistic story at all. Though the story is contained on the island of Creyak, Graham Edwards involves a lot of other factors into his story, relations good and bad with people from different islands. This nicely broadened the whole scope of the story. And Graham Edwards further shows that you don't need to write a lot to achieve this as Talus and the Frozen King is a fairly short read. He makes every word count.
As for the characters in Talus and the Frozen King. Talus himself makes up for an very interesting protagonist. He is a traveling bard and always has a good story at hand. He is very smart and first takes in everything of his surrounding before speaking or making a judgement. He isn't primarily a detective. Talus more drawn to finding out the things that make life go round and when opposed with an murder case to which no person can yet to be put to blame, it's for him to good an opportunity to let pass. What really made Talus's character great for me was the whole setting of the book, the neolithic atmosphere. There aren't any fancy tools that Talus can use to solve this murder, he has to rely on his observational skills, quick mind, sharp tongue and the questions he asks. Next to Talus you have his trusty companion Bran. Bran has a dark past and partly relies on Talus to show him a direction in life, Bran has lost the one person he loved in his life and this haunts him daily. Talus and Bran are on some front pretty opposite each other, where Talus lets everything sink in before acting, Bran acts on the fly and this produces some very frustrated scenes but also some very funny and humorous ones. Bran is the trusted sidekick to Talus, whenever Talus needs something Bran is by his side to do it, but don't think that Bran is just a mere follower. He does have his own opinion ready to let loose. I think this makes their relation even more dynamic and unpredictable. Besides these two main characters of the story, you do get to get acquainted with several of the inhabitants of Creyak. Mainly the six brothers and the village shaman. From the different brother I really enjoyed reading the story of Tharn. He is the eldest brother and heir to the throne so I more or less naturally comes down that he is the most likely one to have killed Hashath... Another side character that makes you think twice is the village shaman Mishina, it seems that his motive might not be that virtuous at all... .
One thing that caused me to be drawn into the story was the way that Graham Edwards write his story. I already mentioned that he writes in a minimalistic kind of way when it comes down to word, but this doesn't make the story a bad one at all. No, the way that he executes his story more shows that he is an great author and knows what he does and what he wants. There is no trade off in terms of character development and worldbuilding. It's by the investigation that Talus and Bran lead that you get to learn more and more about the island of Creyak and the eventual goal that Talus and Bran have, following the Northern Lights. What I like to see in a detective is to have the author "interact" with the reader, especially when it comes down to revealing clues and seeing how the character react to it. Graham Edwards briefly states facts and a short interpretation by Talus when he discovers something new but does allow you yourself to think about what it all could mean and sort of carry out your own investigation. This is something that I really enjoyed, even though I was wrong... When eventually the murderer was designates, at about 50 pages before the end, I had some reservations about if the book would have climaxed to soon, however, by revealing the murderer Graham Edwards readily transforms his story and a bigger plot twist, the actual reason behind the murder comes to show. Perfect!
Talus and the Frozen King is a unique book and to be honest I hadn't thought that the book would turn out the way it did. I had some expectations of the storyline but Graham Edwards went above my expectations. He has brought a Sherlock Holmes kind of feeling back to the neolithic era. The main protagonist is great to read about he has many essenctric habits that make him interesting, added to it is that he is a bard, not your average detective. This makes him very versatile and doesn't pin his character down as only solving crimes as the series continues. Definitely recommended for everyone who wants to read some new and exciting!
Last year saw a sort of emerging of a new trend, blending more of the crime solving/detective in a fantasy setting such as epic and historical fantasy. Most of the urban fantasy stories have this element but it wasn't often seen in other fantasy genre. I enjoyed Drakenfeld by Mark Charan Newton a lot, which also featured crime investigation in an historical setting and when I saw the release Talus and the Frozen King I had to read this book. Talus and the Frozen King is written by Graham Edwards who is well known for his The Ultimate Dragon Saga and his The Stone Trilogy.Talus and the Frozen King is his latest book and kicks off a new and exciting series.
When I started reading Talus and the Frozen King, one thing directly came to mind. I have been a fan of the series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and one scene sprang to mind. There is this one episode where Grissom relates a story from I think feudal Japan were CSI was "invented", a brutal murder was carried out in a small village, a man's head was decapitated but no suspect was found, one wise man forced every villager with a shovel to stand in the sun and eventually the shovel of one man attracted flies... indicating that he had blood on his shovel and was thus the suspect. It is exactly this feeling that I got when I read Talus and the Frozen King. Graham Edwards neatly blends in the Sherlock Holmes feeling into his story, producing a one-of-a-kind read.
In Talus and the Frozen King, you follow the adventures are the traveling bard Talus and his friend Bran who are on the search of something traveling North. All of a sudden they hear screams coming from a village and Talus is drawn to find out just what caused these screams. They stumble on the dead king Hashath. The villagers presume that he just died of natural causes but Talus already starts to connect some dots and finds evidence that Hashath has been murdered. In his wake Hashath leaves behind six grieving sons... however due to the high amount of rivalry between the sons all the fingers start to point in their direction, that one of them must have murdered their father... Now that the murder has been made public, Talus finds himself intrigued to find out who murder Hashath and why. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Talus. It's just what you want to read in a detective story. A nice case study, evidence is piling up that hardly makes sense to you and eventually a clever plot twist that will make you say out loud: "Why didn't I see this any sooner". Added to this is that Graham Edwards doesn't produce a simplistic story at all. Though the story is contained on the island of Creyak, Graham Edwards involves a lot of other factors into his story, relations good and bad with people from different islands. This nicely broadened the whole scope of the story. And Graham Edwards further shows that you don't need to write a lot to achieve this as Talus and the Frozen King is a fairly short read. He makes every word count.
As for the characters in Talus and the Frozen King. Talus himself makes up for an very interesting protagonist. He is a traveling bard and always has a good story at hand. He is very smart and first takes in everything of his surrounding before speaking or making a judgement. He isn't primarily a detective. Talus more drawn to finding out the things that make life go round and when opposed with an murder case to which no person can yet to be put to blame, it's for him to good an opportunity to let pass. What really made Talus's character great for me was the whole setting of the book, the neolithic atmosphere. There aren't any fancy tools that Talus can use to solve this murder, he has to rely on his observational skills, quick mind, sharp tongue and the questions he asks. Next to Talus you have his trusty companion Bran. Bran has a dark past and partly relies on Talus to show him a direction in life, Bran has lost the one person he loved in his life and this haunts him daily. Talus and Bran are on some front pretty opposite each other, where Talus lets everything sink in before acting, Bran acts on the fly and this produces some very frustrated scenes but also some very funny and humorous ones. Bran is the trusted sidekick to Talus, whenever Talus needs something Bran is by his side to do it, but don't think that Bran is just a mere follower. He does have his own opinion ready to let loose. I think this makes their relation even more dynamic and unpredictable. Besides these two main characters of the story, you do get to get acquainted with several of the inhabitants of Creyak. Mainly the six brothers and the village shaman. From the different brother I really enjoyed reading the story of Tharn. He is the eldest brother and heir to the throne so I more or less naturally comes down that he is the most likely one to have killed Hashath... Another side character that makes you think twice is the village shaman Mishina, it seems that his motive might not be that virtuous at all... .
One thing that caused me to be drawn into the story was the way that Graham Edwards write his story. I already mentioned that he writes in a minimalistic kind of way when it comes down to word, but this doesn't make the story a bad one at all. No, the way that he executes his story more shows that he is an great author and knows what he does and what he wants. There is no trade off in terms of character development and worldbuilding. It's by the investigation that Talus and Bran lead that you get to learn more and more about the island of Creyak and the eventual goal that Talus and Bran have, following the Northern Lights. What I like to see in a detective is to have the author "interact" with the reader, especially when it comes down to revealing clues and seeing how the character react to it. Graham Edwards briefly states facts and a short interpretation by Talus when he discovers something new but does allow you yourself to think about what it all could mean and sort of carry out your own investigation. This is something that I really enjoyed, even though I was wrong... When eventually the murderer was designates, at about 50 pages before the end, I had some reservations about if the book would have climaxed to soon, however, by revealing the murderer Graham Edwards readily transforms his story and a bigger plot twist, the actual reason behind the murder comes to show. Perfect!
Talus and the Frozen King is a unique book and to be honest I hadn't thought that the book would turn out the way it did. I had some expectations of the storyline but Graham Edwards went above my expectations. He has brought a Sherlock Holmes kind of feeling back to the neolithic era. The main protagonist is great to read about he has many essenctric habits that make him interesting, added to it is that he is a bard, not your average detective. This makes him very versatile and doesn't pin his character down as only solving crimes as the series continues. Definitely recommended for everyone who wants to read some new and exciting!
April 1, 2014
...As a mystery I don't think it is the best I've ever read. Talus needs to do a bit too much explaining for the whole thing to make sense. That being said, the novel is a quick and entertaining read. Not heavy on history or bogged down by archaeologic detail, Edwards keeps the story going at a brisk pace. The mystery set before the reader in the opening chapters is fully resolved by the end of it but Talus and Bran clearly have a past and from what we get to see of it, I would be surprised if Edwards meant to keep it to a single volume. Talus and the Frozen King is an entertaining read that offers plenty of opportunities for further adventures. I for one, wouldn't mind seeing another one of these come my way.
Full Random Comments review
Full Random Comments review
April 29, 2014
I would give this 3.5 stars. It was a compact tale, and was pretty interesting. I'd classify it as borderline fantasy as it features an invented culture, but there aren't any real supernatural elements. It's set in our world, in a neolithic culture somewhere in Northern Europe. It's stone-age Sherlock Holmes, absolutely and unashamedly. The dynamic between the main characters is very Holmes-Watsonian. There's even a Moriarty-like figure revealed near the end, who will surely menace Talus and Bran in future books.
The nature of the crime and the ensuing mystery weren't mindblowing, and the ending held no immense reveals; but the big cast of characters and all their secrets kept me interested. The open ending, almost certainly setting up a sequel, was pretty good.
The nature of the crime and the ensuing mystery weren't mindblowing, and the ending held no immense reveals; but the big cast of characters and all their secrets kept me interested. The open ending, almost certainly setting up a sequel, was pretty good.
April 26, 2022
This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 2.5 of 5
Talus, a bard, and his companion Bran, make a journey to the island realm of Creyak. A king has been murdered and there are no shortages of suspects, including the king's six sons, the local shaman, the servant girl, or even a neighboring warlord. Talus, who is clever and insightful, will study the clues and investigate, which could prove quite dangerous, to find justice for the dead king.
It is only a mildly clever premise to write what is essentially a detective mystery using a fantasy setting. Think 'Ice Age Sherlock Holmes (Talus) and Watson (Bran).' But where, then, should the author put his priorities? The mystery? The fantasy setting? The characters? Well, the answer of course, is all of it but the end result here is that none of it is particularly strong.
Our mystery is a bit pedantic. As a modern reader, we're a little bit stuck, having a great source of history to put clues together. If Talus becomes too insightful or too intelligent for the era he lives in, he loses credibility for the reader. But too primitive, and the mystery doesn't stand up.
In regards to the fantasy setting, this story is cut from a generic cloth. There's a little bit of Conan here, a little bit of King Arthur - name some fiction of medieval or pre-medieval locations, and you'll see it here. There are no roots to this world - it's all surface façade.
The same can be said of the characters. I struggled all the way to the end of the book to understand why Talus was a bard and a detective. Sure ... 'detective' didn't exist in these times, but that only added to my confusion. Why was he investigating? What allowed others to trust a bard to make these choices? I don't know.
As I mentioned, the premise was mildly clever, which is what drew me to the book initially, but the writing (the plot, the characters, the world) didn't have a hold on me and I was constantly losing interest. This was a chore.
Looking for a good book? Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards is an experiment (combining two genres) that didn't turn out too well.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Talus, a bard, and his companion Bran, make a journey to the island realm of Creyak. A king has been murdered and there are no shortages of suspects, including the king's six sons, the local shaman, the servant girl, or even a neighboring warlord. Talus, who is clever and insightful, will study the clues and investigate, which could prove quite dangerous, to find justice for the dead king.
It is only a mildly clever premise to write what is essentially a detective mystery using a fantasy setting. Think 'Ice Age Sherlock Holmes (Talus) and Watson (Bran).' But where, then, should the author put his priorities? The mystery? The fantasy setting? The characters? Well, the answer of course, is all of it but the end result here is that none of it is particularly strong.
Our mystery is a bit pedantic. As a modern reader, we're a little bit stuck, having a great source of history to put clues together. If Talus becomes too insightful or too intelligent for the era he lives in, he loses credibility for the reader. But too primitive, and the mystery doesn't stand up.
In regards to the fantasy setting, this story is cut from a generic cloth. There's a little bit of Conan here, a little bit of King Arthur - name some fiction of medieval or pre-medieval locations, and you'll see it here. There are no roots to this world - it's all surface façade.
The same can be said of the characters. I struggled all the way to the end of the book to understand why Talus was a bard and a detective. Sure ... 'detective' didn't exist in these times, but that only added to my confusion. Why was he investigating? What allowed others to trust a bard to make these choices? I don't know.
As I mentioned, the premise was mildly clever, which is what drew me to the book initially, but the writing (the plot, the characters, the world) didn't have a hold on me and I was constantly losing interest. This was a chore.
Looking for a good book? Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards is an experiment (combining two genres) that didn't turn out too well.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
April 22, 2019
The idea to transpose a Sherlockian character into a fantasy setting is an ingenious one. I loved the idea of solving a murder mystery without the aid of smartphones and internet access and other modern facilities, and one of my favourite things about fantasy worlds is exploring them. Often with epic fantasy stories, the plot moves on so rapidly, you have little time to absorb the beauty of the world, but with a claustrophobic murder mystery tale, there's plenty of time to take everything in.
And Creyak is a creepy place - a frozen island only accessible by sea or through a maze. Edwards expertly weaves details in throughout the story about the location, the world mythology - particularly religious elements - and as the fog rolls in for the final, climactic set piece, I felt myself wanting to snuggle up under a blanket as the chill seemed to seep from my Kindle.
But, atmospheric location and world-building aside, I did have a few issues with the book. For one, the big issue with Sherlock is he's really annoying - smug, know it all, and always withholding key information from the layman character (and therefore reader) until it's plot appropriate to reveal. Which gets frustrating after a while.
Talus didn't carry any improvements on this model. He was equally likely to dash off without finishing a sentence or refuse to reveal what he knows, which did irritate me from time to time. Things also didn't seem to pick up very quickly, or ever really move at any considerable pace, even though the dead body of the king was discovered pretty rapidly.
Overall, it just felt a little sluggish to me. I enjoyed the world and the details, I liked some of the twists and turns in the plot, but there just wasn't really anything that was keeping me turning the pages apart from the fact that I wanted to finish it so I could read the next book on my list. Which isn't as damning as it sounds - I didn't give up on it - it was just good enough to make me interested in what happened next, but not quite special enough to make me desperate to know.
And Creyak is a creepy place - a frozen island only accessible by sea or through a maze. Edwards expertly weaves details in throughout the story about the location, the world mythology - particularly religious elements - and as the fog rolls in for the final, climactic set piece, I felt myself wanting to snuggle up under a blanket as the chill seemed to seep from my Kindle.
But, atmospheric location and world-building aside, I did have a few issues with the book. For one, the big issue with Sherlock is he's really annoying - smug, know it all, and always withholding key information from the layman character (and therefore reader) until it's plot appropriate to reveal. Which gets frustrating after a while.
Talus didn't carry any improvements on this model. He was equally likely to dash off without finishing a sentence or refuse to reveal what he knows, which did irritate me from time to time. Things also didn't seem to pick up very quickly, or ever really move at any considerable pace, even though the dead body of the king was discovered pretty rapidly.
Overall, it just felt a little sluggish to me. I enjoyed the world and the details, I liked some of the twists and turns in the plot, but there just wasn't really anything that was keeping me turning the pages apart from the fact that I wanted to finish it so I could read the next book on my list. Which isn't as damning as it sounds - I didn't give up on it - it was just good enough to make me interested in what happened next, but not quite special enough to make me desperate to know.
September 20, 2014
Talus and the Frozen King is a fantasy novel set in the Neolithic Age, where people like intelligent detectives, philosophers and adventurers with gifts of rational and logical observations were rare. The cover of the book however, shows not a Neolithic man, rather a more medieval looking man. The armor is too sophisticated. An error in itself. Also I saw no elements of fantasy in the book. There are concepts of spirits and the afterlife, but nothing to place it in the fantasy genre. This book was a Historical Mystery to me.
Talus and his companion Bran are the Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson of the Stone Age. The similarities and character traits are too obvious to overlook. Now whether this is deliberate, a copy or an homage didn’t make much of a difference to me, though it obviously makes it difficult to not draw comparisons instinctively. However, my observations have nothing to do with this issue.
Talus is a mysterious, highly intelligent bard accompanied by his friend Bran on a journey to the far north. They are following the Aurora Borealis in the hopes that it will lead them to a place where, they’ve been told, worlds meet and time converges; where they may find answers to their own personal quests.
Bran, a former fisherman, is almost at the end of his tether, travelling in the harsh, barren lands in extreme winter. He has lost the drive to seek the mysterious place. But before he can leave, he and Talus hear wild screaming coming from an island down the cliff where they stopped for the night. Talus persuades Bran to check out the dangerous looking island to see what ails the people on it.
They find the island’s king sitting frozen on the ground, naked, surrounded by the villagers. The wailing they heard was the mourning women. Talus quickly deduces, to everyone’s shock that the king was murdered, not frozen to death, and convinces his son, the king-to-be, to let him find the murderer so he can answer for his crime.
The rest of the story is about how Talus, through his observations, draws logical conclusions and finds out information to solve the mystery. Bran is his short tempered friend, with a few demons of his own, who though a bit slow, manages to see and understand things that escape Talus. Together they get embroiled in the lives of the people of that disturbing island, whose shadows are not safe for anyone.
Talus and the Frozen King is mostly a well written novel with an interesting and fairly intricate plot. The world building is well done, and the story very atmospheric. From the very beginning you sense that Creyak is a creepy, uneasy place and it remains so throughout the book.
There are just two female characters in the novel and both are strong, intelligent women who add depth to the story. I really liked that they weren’t the helpless kind or barely there characters.
Coming to the protagonist, Talus is a bard and of course, he narrates a few stories in the novel. I found him to be an unimpressive bard. His language did not seem all that different from the others, but more than that, his storytelling skills were nothing to boast about. When you have a setting and atmosphere like this one, and the character is narrating something, the stage is set for something great. Something that pulls you in, where the words twine and twist through the air, weaving a web of sensations and rapture. Talus failed, quite badly. His oratory was not strong, and his tales too short, some even incomplete and interrupted.
Even his roundabout conversations with fellow humans, especially when he is explaining a clue, or an obvious fact, weren’t always pleasing and fun. And most of the time as the novel was moving towards the end and the answer, his explanations were half formed, incomplete. Too many distractions and cuts to delay the reveal, hence frustrating. Talus’s cleverness had a forced quality to it. The withholding of information from others and hence us, got a little irritating after a while and made the conversations, the transition in scenes and the story stilted and wandering. This led to Talus not being as impressive as his fellow characters and the author make him out to be.
Bran is a little too stupid for my liking even though he contributes to the solving of the mystery in a way Talus can’t. He understands human emotions and sees their connections. But most of the time, he’s impatient and foolish. His tragic back story makes you sympathise. However I didn’t like his attraction to, and fascination with, a female character simply because of her resemblance to someone in his past, and found it unnecessary. And I didn’t feel the chemistry between him and Talus. You don’t feel the bond that forged between them in the past and which has kept them together as a team.
There were also a few contradictions and mistakes on the characters’ observations and reactions. The story began well. But as it hurtled towards the end, it was too rushed. The mystery itself was going at a languid pace even as the action wasn’t, which was frustrating. The answer was forcibly delayed and interrupted constantly.
Another issue was that the characters seemed to not require sleep. Talus and Bran were already exhausted when they came to the island, and yet they don’t sleep for even a few hours for the next few days. They are constantly on the move from one part of the village to another, or doing something or other.
The surprise twist at the end was a definite shocker. It was completely unexpected. Overall the story had promise but it has been weakly characterised and fails at execution. I hope the second book is better.
Review posted on Gemstreet Reviews
Talus and his companion Bran are the Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson of the Stone Age. The similarities and character traits are too obvious to overlook. Now whether this is deliberate, a copy or an homage didn’t make much of a difference to me, though it obviously makes it difficult to not draw comparisons instinctively. However, my observations have nothing to do with this issue.
Talus is a mysterious, highly intelligent bard accompanied by his friend Bran on a journey to the far north. They are following the Aurora Borealis in the hopes that it will lead them to a place where, they’ve been told, worlds meet and time converges; where they may find answers to their own personal quests.
Bran, a former fisherman, is almost at the end of his tether, travelling in the harsh, barren lands in extreme winter. He has lost the drive to seek the mysterious place. But before he can leave, he and Talus hear wild screaming coming from an island down the cliff where they stopped for the night. Talus persuades Bran to check out the dangerous looking island to see what ails the people on it.
They find the island’s king sitting frozen on the ground, naked, surrounded by the villagers. The wailing they heard was the mourning women. Talus quickly deduces, to everyone’s shock that the king was murdered, not frozen to death, and convinces his son, the king-to-be, to let him find the murderer so he can answer for his crime.
The rest of the story is about how Talus, through his observations, draws logical conclusions and finds out information to solve the mystery. Bran is his short tempered friend, with a few demons of his own, who though a bit slow, manages to see and understand things that escape Talus. Together they get embroiled in the lives of the people of that disturbing island, whose shadows are not safe for anyone.
Talus and the Frozen King is mostly a well written novel with an interesting and fairly intricate plot. The world building is well done, and the story very atmospheric. From the very beginning you sense that Creyak is a creepy, uneasy place and it remains so throughout the book.
There are just two female characters in the novel and both are strong, intelligent women who add depth to the story. I really liked that they weren’t the helpless kind or barely there characters.
Coming to the protagonist, Talus is a bard and of course, he narrates a few stories in the novel. I found him to be an unimpressive bard. His language did not seem all that different from the others, but more than that, his storytelling skills were nothing to boast about. When you have a setting and atmosphere like this one, and the character is narrating something, the stage is set for something great. Something that pulls you in, where the words twine and twist through the air, weaving a web of sensations and rapture. Talus failed, quite badly. His oratory was not strong, and his tales too short, some even incomplete and interrupted.
Even his roundabout conversations with fellow humans, especially when he is explaining a clue, or an obvious fact, weren’t always pleasing and fun. And most of the time as the novel was moving towards the end and the answer, his explanations were half formed, incomplete. Too many distractions and cuts to delay the reveal, hence frustrating. Talus’s cleverness had a forced quality to it. The withholding of information from others and hence us, got a little irritating after a while and made the conversations, the transition in scenes and the story stilted and wandering. This led to Talus not being as impressive as his fellow characters and the author make him out to be.
Bran is a little too stupid for my liking even though he contributes to the solving of the mystery in a way Talus can’t. He understands human emotions and sees their connections. But most of the time, he’s impatient and foolish. His tragic back story makes you sympathise. However I didn’t like his attraction to, and fascination with, a female character simply because of her resemblance to someone in his past, and found it unnecessary. And I didn’t feel the chemistry between him and Talus. You don’t feel the bond that forged between them in the past and which has kept them together as a team.
There were also a few contradictions and mistakes on the characters’ observations and reactions. The story began well. But as it hurtled towards the end, it was too rushed. The mystery itself was going at a languid pace even as the action wasn’t, which was frustrating. The answer was forcibly delayed and interrupted constantly.
Another issue was that the characters seemed to not require sleep. Talus and Bran were already exhausted when they came to the island, and yet they don’t sleep for even a few hours for the next few days. They are constantly on the move from one part of the village to another, or doing something or other.
The surprise twist at the end was a definite shocker. It was completely unexpected. Overall the story had promise but it has been weakly characterised and fails at execution. I hope the second book is better.
Review posted on Gemstreet Reviews
July 16, 2025
This book takes place in the northern climate on an island where people have a king. Soon we learned that someone has killed the king. There are six sons, and anyone of them could be the killer. The story goes on for a length of time, and it is only toward the end that we find who the killer really is. In the meantime, other people have died as well. This is an interesting Story, but it is quite lengthy.
May 18, 2020
A light detective sort of novel set in neolithic age. The story line is quite interesting, the story telling and writing though was not amusing. It was hard to get sucked into it's world. Nevertheless interesting enough to read it till the end.
By the way the story n end goes, it seemed like the first of many tales of Talus the bard..
By the way the story n end goes, it seemed like the first of many tales of Talus the bard..
October 16, 2019
The idea of 'neolithic Sherlock Holmes' is a really compelling one - how do you investigate a murder when the concept of 'justice' is something the characters can barely articulate? Unfortunately, the execution is clumsy, the characters are flat, and the prose can charitably be called 'workmanlike'
June 10, 2023
Highly entertaining adventure from a fantasy writer who is new to me.
I enjoyed the style of writing and how the framework managed to skip scenarios without getting confusing. It was so good I stayed up all night reading it!(okay, I couldn't sleep, but it kept me entertained!)
I enjoyed the style of writing and how the framework managed to skip scenarios without getting confusing. It was so good I stayed up all night reading it!(okay, I couldn't sleep, but it kept me entertained!)
October 7, 2017
Inconsistencies and grammatical errors. Predictable. Just read it to finish it.
March 25, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed this read! I felt it was a good Medieval-type mystery.
March 16, 2014
The tagline reads "Introducing the worlds first detective". If you have ever wondered what Sherlock Holmes crossed with the Neolithic era might be like Talus and the Frozen King will give you a reasonable idea.
The reader is introduced to two travelling companions on their way north following the Aurora Borealis in the hope that it will lead them to the place where all the worlds meet and one of the characters will be given one last time to talk to his dead wife. On the way they come across a settlement and hear the voices of people wailing. Never one to overlook a mystery Talus and Bran (who is having second thoughts about their journey) make their way towards the village where they find that a King has been murdered. Talus and Bran, are the only ones who can unearth the killer, but first they have to disperse the fog of suspicion that crowds around all strangers in this cold and isolated village.
The parallels between Sherlock Holmes and the two main characters are, I think obvious, and deliberate. Talus, the book’s Holmes is a story teller, a bard who doubts the existence of the spirit world, who sees truth in patterns and concrete evidence but who has difficulty with emotions and understanding love. Bran, the Neolithic Watson, is a disfigured ex-fisherman, with a temper and a good axe-arm. Talus pieces the clues together and uses Bran to tease out the connections in much the same way Holmes does with Watson. We even have a criminal mastermind.
Talus and the Frozen King works well enough as a mystery and at keeping the reader guessing with a plethora of possible suspects and some interesting personal relationships. Where it fell down for me was in some of the world building. Edwards does a good job with the creation of the landscape and the physicality of the setting but a couple of things dropped me out of the flow of reading.
Now Talus and the Frozen King is set in the Neolithic age, aside from physical evidence left by these peoples, there’s not much for a writer to go on, you’re essentially writing fantasy. I found some of the names in the book jarring, they didn’t seem to ring true to either historical names (which is fair enough, you try finding a neolithic baby name clay tablet) nor any sort of naming/cultural convention set up in the world that’s been created. I felt as if the names were drawn from periods of history much later than the setting ie Talus is a Greek name, Tia an Egyptian queen from the 19th dynasty, Bran, a welsh name from the 12th Century. There was a chance here I think to create a certain verisimilitude by having names that could be linked to the culture in some way.
How powerful and important are names to a book’s world building? This is highlighted in the name of Lethriel, one of the major characters in Talus and the Frozen King. If you dear reader are not automatically thinking of an eleven princess you are lucky. Such is the power Tolkien’s pseudohistory/myth on the genre. It is such a seemingly small thing, but I felt there was a missed opportunity to spend a bit more time on the names of characters and how they might connect, support and evoke the setting. Especially since it looks to be a continuing series.
The second issue I had was with an instance of what felt like klunky back story exposition early on in the book that explains some of Talus’ history. It’s necessary for a later reveal but I was really conscious that I, the reader, was being told this information for a very important reason. I like my back story drip fed a little more.
I think what Edwards has tried to do is ambitious, how do you create a Holmesian character in a world where philosophy, science and logic are still in their infancy. How do you create the world’s first detective without it feeling like it’s Holmes and Watson in bear fur. I think the answer lies in exceptional world and character building. Which in all fairness is perhaps beyond what the author had scope to produce. You can have a pacey murder mystery set in the Neolithic which is a fun, light read or you can spend 10 years trying to produce something resembling Hild.
The landscape was beautifully evoked but I wasn’t entirely convinced of the Neolithic world the characters inhabited in a cultural sense. I felt Talus and the Frozen King was still a fairly modern Holmesian murder mystery (and a reasonable one at that). So if you like Holmes and Watson-like characters in your murder mysteries and you are tired of the body count in Midsomer, give it a go.
The reader is introduced to two travelling companions on their way north following the Aurora Borealis in the hope that it will lead them to the place where all the worlds meet and one of the characters will be given one last time to talk to his dead wife. On the way they come across a settlement and hear the voices of people wailing. Never one to overlook a mystery Talus and Bran (who is having second thoughts about their journey) make their way towards the village where they find that a King has been murdered. Talus and Bran, are the only ones who can unearth the killer, but first they have to disperse the fog of suspicion that crowds around all strangers in this cold and isolated village.
The parallels between Sherlock Holmes and the two main characters are, I think obvious, and deliberate. Talus, the book’s Holmes is a story teller, a bard who doubts the existence of the spirit world, who sees truth in patterns and concrete evidence but who has difficulty with emotions and understanding love. Bran, the Neolithic Watson, is a disfigured ex-fisherman, with a temper and a good axe-arm. Talus pieces the clues together and uses Bran to tease out the connections in much the same way Holmes does with Watson. We even have a criminal mastermind.
Talus and the Frozen King works well enough as a mystery and at keeping the reader guessing with a plethora of possible suspects and some interesting personal relationships. Where it fell down for me was in some of the world building. Edwards does a good job with the creation of the landscape and the physicality of the setting but a couple of things dropped me out of the flow of reading.
Now Talus and the Frozen King is set in the Neolithic age, aside from physical evidence left by these peoples, there’s not much for a writer to go on, you’re essentially writing fantasy. I found some of the names in the book jarring, they didn’t seem to ring true to either historical names (which is fair enough, you try finding a neolithic baby name clay tablet) nor any sort of naming/cultural convention set up in the world that’s been created. I felt as if the names were drawn from periods of history much later than the setting ie Talus is a Greek name, Tia an Egyptian queen from the 19th dynasty, Bran, a welsh name from the 12th Century. There was a chance here I think to create a certain verisimilitude by having names that could be linked to the culture in some way.
How powerful and important are names to a book’s world building? This is highlighted in the name of Lethriel, one of the major characters in Talus and the Frozen King. If you dear reader are not automatically thinking of an eleven princess you are lucky. Such is the power Tolkien’s pseudohistory/myth on the genre. It is such a seemingly small thing, but I felt there was a missed opportunity to spend a bit more time on the names of characters and how they might connect, support and evoke the setting. Especially since it looks to be a continuing series.
The second issue I had was with an instance of what felt like klunky back story exposition early on in the book that explains some of Talus’ history. It’s necessary for a later reveal but I was really conscious that I, the reader, was being told this information for a very important reason. I like my back story drip fed a little more.
I think what Edwards has tried to do is ambitious, how do you create a Holmesian character in a world where philosophy, science and logic are still in their infancy. How do you create the world’s first detective without it feeling like it’s Holmes and Watson in bear fur. I think the answer lies in exceptional world and character building. Which in all fairness is perhaps beyond what the author had scope to produce. You can have a pacey murder mystery set in the Neolithic which is a fun, light read or you can spend 10 years trying to produce something resembling Hild.
The landscape was beautifully evoked but I wasn’t entirely convinced of the Neolithic world the characters inhabited in a cultural sense. I felt Talus and the Frozen King was still a fairly modern Holmesian murder mystery (and a reasonable one at that). So if you like Holmes and Watson-like characters in your murder mysteries and you are tired of the body count in Midsomer, give it a go.
May 31, 2014
Review first appeared on SFFWorld.com.
Talus and the Frozen King is a story about the wandering bard Talus and his (semi) reluctant partner Bran. They are traveling across their world north to the lights that crash in the night sky, heralding a place where lost spirits might be found.
But before they get there, there are mysteries to be solved.
The book opens with Bran and Talus overlooking an island which happens to be home of the Creyak people. Shouts and wails can be heard and the two respond by going down to see what’s going on. To Talus’ piqued interest and Bran’s consternation, they find a dead king, frozen on his throne in a sheltered, outdoor courtyard. In the time it takes Bran to think they ought to move on, Talus claims that the death of the king is no accident, but murder.
Along with Bran, Talus then guides us through an examination of the body, the likely and unlikely suspects, the murder weapon, and possible motives. The plot thickens when a neighboring king shows up with his, let’s just say, popular daughter, who managed to string along just about all the dead king’s heirs.
As Talus gets closer and closer to the answer, the stakes are raised and Talus’ past catches up to him and even he is at risk in the final, frozen hilltop showdown.
All in all, I liked this book. The writing is clear, concise, and the plot moves forward at a satisfactory pace. I like Bran. He’s the down-to-earth counterpoint to Talus’ brilliant mind. The story is (mostly) told from Bran’s point of view and I really sympathized with his plight. The loss of a loved one, no matter what ice-age you may be in, is a terrible thing. Reading about him coming to terms with that loss added a texture to this story that I wasn’t expecting. I especially liked how the author worked in a few female characters that were not just bed warmers (which he could easily have done given the time period). Lethriel, a widow like Bran, proves to be a valuable resource to our budding detectives, and Alayin, the desirous daughter of the attacking king, is a formidable character trying to carve out a life of her own away from her father.
I also liked the stories that Talus tells the people of Creyak. Don’t quote me on this, but after one particularly confounding tale, Talus tells us that stories don’t necessarily have to make sense, they just have to touch us the right way. I completely agree with this sentiment. There are countless stories I’ve read that should have been put through the editorial process a few more times, but somehow connect in such a way that I overlook all its flaws.
However, the style in which Talus and the Frozen King is written, left a sour taste. I guess, more accurately, I just didn’t like the whole premise of the book. A Sherlock Holmes/Watson set up (along with a counter “evil genius”) placed in the ice age just seemed…silly. I don’t see why a traveling bard would be interested in solving a mystery that had nothing to do with him and that could put his life at risk. Even if he didn’t care about his own life, why would he risk Bran’s life that way? I mean, they’re in an icy world, with few resources, and they have some place to be. Would they really stop and muck up a frozen king’s funeral when no one is asking them to do so? It just didn’t make sense.
Most mysteries I’ve read include a crucial, triggering event that makes it absolutely impossible for the main character to move forward without solving the mystery. In Talus and the Frozen King, I was not convinced that that was the case.
So, if you’re a die-hard mystery fan, that lack of plausible motivation on the part of Talus may put you off. But if you can jump over that tall bar of disbelief, give Talus and the Frozen King a try. You just might like it.
Talus and the Frozen King is a story about the wandering bard Talus and his (semi) reluctant partner Bran. They are traveling across their world north to the lights that crash in the night sky, heralding a place where lost spirits might be found.
But before they get there, there are mysteries to be solved.
The book opens with Bran and Talus overlooking an island which happens to be home of the Creyak people. Shouts and wails can be heard and the two respond by going down to see what’s going on. To Talus’ piqued interest and Bran’s consternation, they find a dead king, frozen on his throne in a sheltered, outdoor courtyard. In the time it takes Bran to think they ought to move on, Talus claims that the death of the king is no accident, but murder.
Along with Bran, Talus then guides us through an examination of the body, the likely and unlikely suspects, the murder weapon, and possible motives. The plot thickens when a neighboring king shows up with his, let’s just say, popular daughter, who managed to string along just about all the dead king’s heirs.
As Talus gets closer and closer to the answer, the stakes are raised and Talus’ past catches up to him and even he is at risk in the final, frozen hilltop showdown.
All in all, I liked this book. The writing is clear, concise, and the plot moves forward at a satisfactory pace. I like Bran. He’s the down-to-earth counterpoint to Talus’ brilliant mind. The story is (mostly) told from Bran’s point of view and I really sympathized with his plight. The loss of a loved one, no matter what ice-age you may be in, is a terrible thing. Reading about him coming to terms with that loss added a texture to this story that I wasn’t expecting. I especially liked how the author worked in a few female characters that were not just bed warmers (which he could easily have done given the time period). Lethriel, a widow like Bran, proves to be a valuable resource to our budding detectives, and Alayin, the desirous daughter of the attacking king, is a formidable character trying to carve out a life of her own away from her father.
I also liked the stories that Talus tells the people of Creyak. Don’t quote me on this, but after one particularly confounding tale, Talus tells us that stories don’t necessarily have to make sense, they just have to touch us the right way. I completely agree with this sentiment. There are countless stories I’ve read that should have been put through the editorial process a few more times, but somehow connect in such a way that I overlook all its flaws.
However, the style in which Talus and the Frozen King is written, left a sour taste. I guess, more accurately, I just didn’t like the whole premise of the book. A Sherlock Holmes/Watson set up (along with a counter “evil genius”) placed in the ice age just seemed…silly. I don’t see why a traveling bard would be interested in solving a mystery that had nothing to do with him and that could put his life at risk. Even if he didn’t care about his own life, why would he risk Bran’s life that way? I mean, they’re in an icy world, with few resources, and they have some place to be. Would they really stop and muck up a frozen king’s funeral when no one is asking them to do so? It just didn’t make sense.
Most mysteries I’ve read include a crucial, triggering event that makes it absolutely impossible for the main character to move forward without solving the mystery. In Talus and the Frozen King, I was not convinced that that was the case.
So, if you’re a die-hard mystery fan, that lack of plausible motivation on the part of Talus may put you off. But if you can jump over that tall bar of disbelief, give Talus and the Frozen King a try. You just might like it.
March 24, 2014
Graham Edwards' Talus and the Frozen King combines three of my favourite genres into one fascinating tale. The book is a historical crime fantasy, set in an era which I'd not read any books in since reading the first four books in Jean M. Auel's Children of the Earth series, the Neolithic. As such is more fantasy than historical fiction, a fact corroborated by the author in his Author's Note, since there just isn't enough historic fact to create anything but speculative fiction. The Neolithic island community of Creyak did make for an interesting setting and created the ideal stage for what is essentially a locked room mystery. Living on an island without easy access to the main land, means that the murderer is most likely a member of the community.
Every crime novel needs a detective and Edwards provides him in the person of Talus the bard. Talus is a detective very much in the mould of Sherlock Holmes and Monk. He's idiosyncratic, brilliant, not always easy to deal with, curious to the point of obliviousness, and ultimately always solves the puzzle or the crime. Talus is an old soul. While his age is never stated, he feels like an older person; he's travelled widely, he's balding, and he seems to be able to easily project and receive authority. And he's quite the philosopher; he spends a lot of time thinking about what he sees and about human nature. I liked that Edwards chose to make him a bard, because he's got the gift of the gab and it creates an easy entry into the various communities he encounters.
Every detective needs his sidekick, which in this case was provided by the ex-fisherman Barn. I liked Bran a lot. He's a sounding board for Talus, an assistant and his friend. He is also very much the emotional heart of the novel. While Talus is brilliant, Bran is the one to recognise human connections, while struggling with getting his own feelings under control. Because Bran is still very traumatised by the loss of his beloved wife and trying to find an answer to the question of how to give meaning to his life. His connection to Lethriel, the village herb-mistress, initially due to her resemblance to his late wife and later because they genuinely form a friendship created an interesting dynamic in the relationship between Talus and Bran, when Talus enlist her as another of his assistants.
Every book needs an interesting plot. The one in Talus and the Frozen King is intricate, especially as it's very much a case of Talus and Bran having to unravel the complicated (family) dynamics and history of the Creyak settlement. The one thing that nagged at me was the fact that Talus being a Sherlock-like deductive detective meant that as the reader you are constantly put on the back foot. I never had a sense of what or how he'd reached a conclusion or who'd be the killer. Normally I enjoy being surprised, but in this case I wasn't so much surprised by the plot twists as confused by the lack of clues to form my own suspicions. The only thing that helped me was the fact that Bran often felt much the same and said so in the passages written from his point of view.
The writing was solid with some beautiful passages and some deeply thoughtful considerations on the nature of love, life and death. These somewhat philosophical questions are posed by the various characters to themselves, to others, and of course indirectly to the reader. Answers are suggested or hinted at, but never set in stone. It was this aspect, combined with the Neolithic setting and its crime focus that made me really enjoy Talus and the Frozen King and I hope this was just the first instalment in a series. I'd love to see what else Talus and Bran will come across as they journey farther north towards the Northern Lights.
This book was provided for review by the publisher.
Every crime novel needs a detective and Edwards provides him in the person of Talus the bard. Talus is a detective very much in the mould of Sherlock Holmes and Monk. He's idiosyncratic, brilliant, not always easy to deal with, curious to the point of obliviousness, and ultimately always solves the puzzle or the crime. Talus is an old soul. While his age is never stated, he feels like an older person; he's travelled widely, he's balding, and he seems to be able to easily project and receive authority. And he's quite the philosopher; he spends a lot of time thinking about what he sees and about human nature. I liked that Edwards chose to make him a bard, because he's got the gift of the gab and it creates an easy entry into the various communities he encounters.
Every detective needs his sidekick, which in this case was provided by the ex-fisherman Barn. I liked Bran a lot. He's a sounding board for Talus, an assistant and his friend. He is also very much the emotional heart of the novel. While Talus is brilliant, Bran is the one to recognise human connections, while struggling with getting his own feelings under control. Because Bran is still very traumatised by the loss of his beloved wife and trying to find an answer to the question of how to give meaning to his life. His connection to Lethriel, the village herb-mistress, initially due to her resemblance to his late wife and later because they genuinely form a friendship created an interesting dynamic in the relationship between Talus and Bran, when Talus enlist her as another of his assistants.
Every book needs an interesting plot. The one in Talus and the Frozen King is intricate, especially as it's very much a case of Talus and Bran having to unravel the complicated (family) dynamics and history of the Creyak settlement. The one thing that nagged at me was the fact that Talus being a Sherlock-like deductive detective meant that as the reader you are constantly put on the back foot. I never had a sense of what or how he'd reached a conclusion or who'd be the killer. Normally I enjoy being surprised, but in this case I wasn't so much surprised by the plot twists as confused by the lack of clues to form my own suspicions. The only thing that helped me was the fact that Bran often felt much the same and said so in the passages written from his point of view.
The writing was solid with some beautiful passages and some deeply thoughtful considerations on the nature of love, life and death. These somewhat philosophical questions are posed by the various characters to themselves, to others, and of course indirectly to the reader. Answers are suggested or hinted at, but never set in stone. It was this aspect, combined with the Neolithic setting and its crime focus that made me really enjoy Talus and the Frozen King and I hope this was just the first instalment in a series. I'd love to see what else Talus and Bran will come across as they journey farther north towards the Northern Lights.
This book was provided for review by the publisher.
June 16, 2014
I'm about to break a cardinal rule when it comes to books, and I'm going to do a bit of cover-judging. BUT, not in the way you think. I'm going to reverse it, and judge the cover by the book. The cover depicts a man in very Medieval-looking armor, with equally Medieval-looking sword and shield.
Why, you ask, is this a problem? Well, I'm not sure if the following is a spoiler, but here is your warning that the following may be a small spoiler:
The story is set in the Neolithic Age. That's right, we're dealing with characters who are not much beyond the cave man stage of human evolution. So, in the book, we see a lot of people wearing furs, wielding tools and weapons made of bone and stone, etc.
So, WHY THE COVER WITH THE GUY WITH MEDIEVAL GARB AND WEAPONRY?! I am going to guess that some marketing person decided that depicting Stone Age folks on the cover wouldn't grab the attention of readers. Well, I disagree. Actually, I believe the reverse would be true: I think fantasy readers are tired of seeing another Medieval scene depicted on covers. If you threw some cave men on that cover, you might get MORE readers! Just a thought. Maybe if there's another printing, the cover can be changed to a truer reflection of the content of the book.
So, beyond what I thought was a poor choice of cover art, how was the book itself?
Well, I liked Edwards' concept of basically transplanting Sherlock Holmes into the Stone Age, right along with a Watson-esque partner. I also liked Edwards' turns of phrase to create vivid imagery. He definitely has the chops to write a good novel.
I'm just not sure Talus and the Frozen Kind (hereafter referred to as TatFK) is that good novel. It seemed to be a fairly bog-standard mystery yarn. There's a king that is murdered, and that king has a lot of sons who might have motivation to kill him. OK, not the most original idea I suppose.
There were a lot of characters, and Edwards made an effort to distinguish the sons of the king from one another. Talus himself is an inquisitive and talented bard who has the traits one might associate with someone who has preternatural powers of observation and deduction: Talus is "strange" and socially awkward. Love is a mystery to him, as are the passions that might make someone commit murder. Yes, by now we've all encountered the character of this sort, an outsider and observer of human experience who is quirky, perhaps even somewhere on the autistic spectrum (like Will Graham from the "Hannibal" TV show). So, his character isn't all that original.
What I did find interesting is the overarching quest that Talus and his partner Bran are pursuing. They come upon the mystery of the king's murder on their journey to a specific destination, and their motivation for finding said destination is intriguing. I found myself wishing the story had been focused more on their quest, rather than this stop-over in some obscure village to solve a king's murder.
Ultimately, I think Edwards is a good writer, but he's still in search of a plot that will be more engaging, and a world that is more fully fleshed out. I felt at times he might have depended on a "gee whiz" factor when it comes to his setting in the Neolithic. But that gee whiz will only get you so far. So, perhaps Edwards had a clever idea and just didn't execute it all that well. That's my opinion about the book. Good concept, lackluster execution. But then again, I'm not the biggest fan of mystery novels, so I could also be biased against the plot of TatFK.
Bottom line: TatFK was a good quick read, a lighter bit of fiction that started out slow but picked up the pace. The plot was somewhat predictable and clunky in execution, but the author has a talent for description that is obvious. I would definitely try another novel by Graham Edwards, to see how his style has developed.
Why, you ask, is this a problem? Well, I'm not sure if the following is a spoiler, but here is your warning that the following may be a small spoiler:
The story is set in the Neolithic Age. That's right, we're dealing with characters who are not much beyond the cave man stage of human evolution. So, in the book, we see a lot of people wearing furs, wielding tools and weapons made of bone and stone, etc.
So, WHY THE COVER WITH THE GUY WITH MEDIEVAL GARB AND WEAPONRY?! I am going to guess that some marketing person decided that depicting Stone Age folks on the cover wouldn't grab the attention of readers. Well, I disagree. Actually, I believe the reverse would be true: I think fantasy readers are tired of seeing another Medieval scene depicted on covers. If you threw some cave men on that cover, you might get MORE readers! Just a thought. Maybe if there's another printing, the cover can be changed to a truer reflection of the content of the book.
So, beyond what I thought was a poor choice of cover art, how was the book itself?
Well, I liked Edwards' concept of basically transplanting Sherlock Holmes into the Stone Age, right along with a Watson-esque partner. I also liked Edwards' turns of phrase to create vivid imagery. He definitely has the chops to write a good novel.
I'm just not sure Talus and the Frozen Kind (hereafter referred to as TatFK) is that good novel. It seemed to be a fairly bog-standard mystery yarn. There's a king that is murdered, and that king has a lot of sons who might have motivation to kill him. OK, not the most original idea I suppose.
There were a lot of characters, and Edwards made an effort to distinguish the sons of the king from one another. Talus himself is an inquisitive and talented bard who has the traits one might associate with someone who has preternatural powers of observation and deduction: Talus is "strange" and socially awkward. Love is a mystery to him, as are the passions that might make someone commit murder. Yes, by now we've all encountered the character of this sort, an outsider and observer of human experience who is quirky, perhaps even somewhere on the autistic spectrum (like Will Graham from the "Hannibal" TV show). So, his character isn't all that original.
What I did find interesting is the overarching quest that Talus and his partner Bran are pursuing. They come upon the mystery of the king's murder on their journey to a specific destination, and their motivation for finding said destination is intriguing. I found myself wishing the story had been focused more on their quest, rather than this stop-over in some obscure village to solve a king's murder.
Ultimately, I think Edwards is a good writer, but he's still in search of a plot that will be more engaging, and a world that is more fully fleshed out. I felt at times he might have depended on a "gee whiz" factor when it comes to his setting in the Neolithic. But that gee whiz will only get you so far. So, perhaps Edwards had a clever idea and just didn't execute it all that well. That's my opinion about the book. Good concept, lackluster execution. But then again, I'm not the biggest fan of mystery novels, so I could also be biased against the plot of TatFK.
Bottom line: TatFK was a good quick read, a lighter bit of fiction that started out slow but picked up the pace. The plot was somewhat predictable and clunky in execution, but the author has a talent for description that is obvious. I would definitely try another novel by Graham Edwards, to see how his style has developed.
Read
March 14, 2017I quite enjoyed this. A good mystery, and an interesting imagining of a European neolithic culture.
May 11, 2014
It may not be immediately obvious, but mystery, especially of the whodunit type, is another of my favourite genres. So when an email with the subject line “Meet the world’s first detective…” appeared in my inbox one day, well, let’s just say I wasn’t going to refuse a review copy of Graham Edwards‘ TALUS AND THE FROZEN KING.
The obvious comparison (and judging by the Goodreads reviews, I’m not the only one) for Talus and Bran is to that famous detecting duo of Sherlock and Watson. Talus being the very analytical, super-observant, and well, socially-challenged Sherlock, with Bran his more impulsive and emotional sidekick. I’m in two minds as to whether this was deliberate by the author from the outset (I suspect yes, based on the promo materials), but once I had that comparison in my head, I found it very hard to shake.
While I’ve read most, if not all, of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock stories, I wouldn’t particularly describe myself as a fan. What I’m a fan of, however, is the BBC Sherlock series (because it’s brilliant), and as I’d watched the recent series, I had certain expectations of the characters – or characterisation. Sadly for this story, Talus and Bran didn’t have the same chemistry or charisma as the on-screen pairing of Cumberbatch and Freeman. So I don’t know – yes, it’s an unfairly high bar in terms of expectations, but the book almost sets itself up for that by forcing that comparison.
Having said that, as you’d probably expect based on the Sherlock references, the book doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s certainly an unusual setting, but anyone expecting a “proper” Neolithic-era historical mystery may be disappointed – there is modern dialogue and thinking galore. Which makes it easy reading – and this meant that despite me never really connecting with the protagonists, I found myself racing through the book to find out the who and the how. And yes, I admit I wouldn’t mind returning to this world to see what Talus and Bran do next – the door is certainly left open for more adventures.
My verdict: TALUS AND THE FROZEN KING was a light and fast-paced mystery; while it has its flaws, if you go in with the right set of expectations, I suspect it would make a good beach read.
Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
A version originally published on my blog: http://bookdaze.wordpress.com/2014/04...
The obvious comparison (and judging by the Goodreads reviews, I’m not the only one) for Talus and Bran is to that famous detecting duo of Sherlock and Watson. Talus being the very analytical, super-observant, and well, socially-challenged Sherlock, with Bran his more impulsive and emotional sidekick. I’m in two minds as to whether this was deliberate by the author from the outset (I suspect yes, based on the promo materials), but once I had that comparison in my head, I found it very hard to shake.
While I’ve read most, if not all, of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock stories, I wouldn’t particularly describe myself as a fan. What I’m a fan of, however, is the BBC Sherlock series (because it’s brilliant), and as I’d watched the recent series, I had certain expectations of the characters – or characterisation. Sadly for this story, Talus and Bran didn’t have the same chemistry or charisma as the on-screen pairing of Cumberbatch and Freeman. So I don’t know – yes, it’s an unfairly high bar in terms of expectations, but the book almost sets itself up for that by forcing that comparison.
Having said that, as you’d probably expect based on the Sherlock references, the book doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s certainly an unusual setting, but anyone expecting a “proper” Neolithic-era historical mystery may be disappointed – there is modern dialogue and thinking galore. Which makes it easy reading – and this meant that despite me never really connecting with the protagonists, I found myself racing through the book to find out the who and the how. And yes, I admit I wouldn’t mind returning to this world to see what Talus and Bran do next – the door is certainly left open for more adventures.
My verdict: TALUS AND THE FROZEN KING was a light and fast-paced mystery; while it has its flaws, if you go in with the right set of expectations, I suspect it would make a good beach read.
Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
A version originally published on my blog: http://bookdaze.wordpress.com/2014/04...
December 27, 2014
First and foremost, the moment this book landed on my doormat I fell in love with the front cover. Atmospheric, mysterious and full of depth - it really enticed me in and made me excited about what could be inside the pages within.
The Frozen King throws you straight into the story, there is very little in the way of backstory for Talus and Bran, the two main characters, and you are immediately plunged into the cold northern world they inhabit. This does not mean that their characters are shallow by any means - the details of their lives and characteristics are steady dripped throughout the story so you are never bogged down with information but are plenty capable of building images of them in your mind.
Indeed, the character development through the book is very good - you see how situations bring out the best and worst in people and how even the most confident character can question themselves sometimes to great narrative effect.
I loved the author's way with words - Talus is a bard and so his speech is naturally poetic and dramatic, but the narrative and speech of the other characters are just as stunning. Almost wistful at times and crushingly to the point when needed, the pace is steady but gripping and keeps you turning the pages well past the 'just one more chapter' point you promised yourself.
The story keeps you guessing, too - just as you think you have it all worked out, a curveball is thrown in and you discover you are barking up entirely the wrong tree. I thought I had it nailed, then completely doubted myself as things changed and was somewhat surprised when I was almost right at the end. The mystery of the Frozen King is nicely solved but enough is left open at the end that I am really curious as to where Talus and Bran go next in the series.
I love the world Edwards' builds - it is beautiful but stark, lonely and deadly yet full of vibrance and life. Teetering on the edge of fantastical as well as historical I fell in love with the landscape and was genuinely a bit sad when I finished as I really enjoyed immersing myself in their world.
Not a long read, but a really enjoyable one. Highly recommended.
The Frozen King throws you straight into the story, there is very little in the way of backstory for Talus and Bran, the two main characters, and you are immediately plunged into the cold northern world they inhabit. This does not mean that their characters are shallow by any means - the details of their lives and characteristics are steady dripped throughout the story so you are never bogged down with information but are plenty capable of building images of them in your mind.
Indeed, the character development through the book is very good - you see how situations bring out the best and worst in people and how even the most confident character can question themselves sometimes to great narrative effect.
I loved the author's way with words - Talus is a bard and so his speech is naturally poetic and dramatic, but the narrative and speech of the other characters are just as stunning. Almost wistful at times and crushingly to the point when needed, the pace is steady but gripping and keeps you turning the pages well past the 'just one more chapter' point you promised yourself.
The story keeps you guessing, too - just as you think you have it all worked out, a curveball is thrown in and you discover you are barking up entirely the wrong tree. I thought I had it nailed, then completely doubted myself as things changed and was somewhat surprised when I was almost right at the end. The mystery of the Frozen King is nicely solved but enough is left open at the end that I am really curious as to where Talus and Bran go next in the series.
I love the world Edwards' builds - it is beautiful but stark, lonely and deadly yet full of vibrance and life. Teetering on the edge of fantastical as well as historical I fell in love with the landscape and was genuinely a bit sad when I finished as I really enjoyed immersing myself in their world.
Not a long read, but a really enjoyable one. Highly recommended.
June 5, 2014
I started to read Talus and the Frozen King right after A Discourse in Steel by Paul S. Kemp, and at first I worried it would be too similar, a fantasy buddy adventure. As it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised when I realized the book was not really an action-adventure story, but rather a murder mystery. Now, if I had read the book cover, which proclaims that the book introduces the world’s first detective, maybe I wouldn’t have been surprised, but then again I might not have given it a chance because mysteries aren’t my first choice of reading.
At its base, Talus and the Frozen King is much like a familiar Sherlock Holmes and Watson story, except in this case, Holmes is a bard named Talus and Watson a former fisherman named Bran.
Talus is emotionally-stunted but clever and insightful. Bran, his sidekick, is more rough-and-tumble. He may not figure things out as fast as Talus does, but he understands human motivations in a way the bard-sleuth does not. It’s a familiar trope but both characters are fleshed out well enough that I had as much interest in them as in solving the mystery.
The details of the world building kept me interested at first, especially as I was going into the story blind, unsure of what type of fantasy it was. Interestingly, the level of magic in the story is open to interpretation. Many of the characters believe in it, but as it is a historical fantasy, this could simply reflect that many people in our history believed in magic and spirits.
While the world-building pulled me in to the story at first, the mysteries surrounding the frozen king’s murder eventually grabbed hold of me. By the halfway point of the novel, with mystery piling on top of mystery, including those in Bran and Talus’ past, I found myself racing to the end. I’d definitely buy the next book in the series, because while the book works as a stand-alone mystery, I definitely want to know where Talus and Bran’s adventures take them next.
Reviewer’s Note: I received a review copy of this book but as always this review is my honest reaction.
At its base, Talus and the Frozen King is much like a familiar Sherlock Holmes and Watson story, except in this case, Holmes is a bard named Talus and Watson a former fisherman named Bran.
Talus is emotionally-stunted but clever and insightful. Bran, his sidekick, is more rough-and-tumble. He may not figure things out as fast as Talus does, but he understands human motivations in a way the bard-sleuth does not. It’s a familiar trope but both characters are fleshed out well enough that I had as much interest in them as in solving the mystery.
The details of the world building kept me interested at first, especially as I was going into the story blind, unsure of what type of fantasy it was. Interestingly, the level of magic in the story is open to interpretation. Many of the characters believe in it, but as it is a historical fantasy, this could simply reflect that many people in our history believed in magic and spirits.
While the world-building pulled me in to the story at first, the mysteries surrounding the frozen king’s murder eventually grabbed hold of me. By the halfway point of the novel, with mystery piling on top of mystery, including those in Bran and Talus’ past, I found myself racing to the end. I’d definitely buy the next book in the series, because while the book works as a stand-alone mystery, I definitely want to know where Talus and Bran’s adventures take them next.
Reviewer’s Note: I received a review copy of this book but as always this review is my honest reaction.
April 18, 2014
Talus, an aging bard with a tragic past, and his companion Bran, a brutish fisherman who is crippled both physically and emotionally, travel to Creyak, an ancient island kingdom of the coast of Scotland. They are searching for the Northern Lights, but find themselves in the middle of mystery when the king of Creyak, frozen in more ways than one, is found murdered in a snowy field. As Talus and Bran race to find the kingslayer, the friends meet a varied cast of characters that all of something to hide and more than one has a motive for wanting the all-powerful kind dead.
I was absolutely enthralled with this historical mystery from the first page. Actually, even the cover itself, with the phrase “The World’s First Detective” emblazoned below the title. This is a character driven mystery that has a twisty central mystery that really highlights the complexities of pre-history people that isn’t often talked about in literature. Talus is a great detective; a hint of Sherlock Holmes, a touch of Shakespeare. Edwards’ theory on the world’s first detective is that he would have been a storyteller because that is how ancient cultures made sense of their world and he successfully explores that concept in a fast-paced mystery that has high-stakes and plenty of twists. Talus and Bran are great characters that made me care and want to read more of them. Also, the end nicely hints at future mysteries as the pair continue their travels.
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