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High Rage
Scarface, on his way back to a clan stronghold after assassinating a legate, meets and falls in love with a woman even more ruthless than he. To win her, he must reunite an empire and create a kingdom. His only allies are his wits, his sword, and the power in his scars -- black marks like the taloned finger prints of a demon.To achieve his goals, he must deal with old enemies, gods of dubious worth, and his own family -- who may be the most dangerous of all.
- GenresFantasy
294 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 28, 2017
9/10
The book’s title, High Rage, refers to the stronghold of the Winged Dagger Clan, but rage echoes through the histories, thoughts, feelings, and actions of several of the main characters in this fantasy novel. This world is a gritty and grim place of warring tribes and factions, endless deadly gamesmanship, and calculating and ever-changing affections.
Some strengths of the story are the vivid yet concise descriptions, perceptive insight into the ways of power and deception, and just enough sardonic humor to lighten the overall darkness that permeates the story. The characters are fascinating and compelling; I found myself pulling for some of them even as I was repulsed by their actions.
I wish there had been a map in my edition of the book—even with the references to directions and relative positions of the many kingdoms, I could not keep them straight nor visualize where they were in relation to each other. Newer editions include a map—an excellent addition.
I also wish there had been more explanation of the magic and spells. Could anyone who studied have the power to create or cast spells, or did not have to be born with a certain talent or ability? Was it always necessary to have the spell held by a token of some kind (rod, button, bell, etc.)?
Not a typical fantasy, but definitely a memorable and thought-provoking story.
The book’s title, High Rage, refers to the stronghold of the Winged Dagger Clan, but rage echoes through the histories, thoughts, feelings, and actions of several of the main characters in this fantasy novel. This world is a gritty and grim place of warring tribes and factions, endless deadly gamesmanship, and calculating and ever-changing affections.
Some strengths of the story are the vivid yet concise descriptions, perceptive insight into the ways of power and deception, and just enough sardonic humor to lighten the overall darkness that permeates the story. The characters are fascinating and compelling; I found myself pulling for some of them even as I was repulsed by their actions.
I wish there had been a map in my edition of the book—even with the references to directions and relative positions of the many kingdoms, I could not keep them straight nor visualize where they were in relation to each other. Newer editions include a map—an excellent addition.
I also wish there had been more explanation of the magic and spells. Could anyone who studied have the power to create or cast spells, or did not have to be born with a certain talent or ability? Was it always necessary to have the spell held by a token of some kind (rod, button, bell, etc.)?
Not a typical fantasy, but definitely a memorable and thought-provoking story.
October 25, 2017
The focus of the story of High Rage is a decidedly unromantic love story — the story of what happens when someone perhaps too ruthless to love is romantically pursued by someone perhaps ruthless yet earnest enough to win her over. The book is full of psychology, politics and manipulation, and takes place in an imaginary but fairly realistic world, made clear fantasy by the inclusion of some literal magic.
As the summary above reveals, the plot gets started with the protagonist, Scarface, falling in sudden love with the capable and entirely self-centred Mendarian. Scarface understands just what she is like, someone who cannot be trusted at all, but instead of repelling him as it should, this strikes a chord with him that leads to a rather fatal attraction. Mendarian is already trying to carve a place and a kingdom for herself in the ruthless and volatile game being played between the countries in the area, and to gain her interest, Scarface enters the same game.
I am not generally fond of stories of foolish love that is or should be doomed because it’s an obsession towards someone it makes no sense to want a relationship with. In such a case, love is no better than any other harmful drug. This story handles that well, however. For a start, Scarface is ruthless enough to know, to some extent, what he’s getting into. More importantly, the story examines the consequences of such an infatuation properly. There’s no sugarcoating how it would go, nor romanticisation of how noble the ensuing strife and misery is. It is more a realistic story of what might happen. Love has power in the story, but so do many other things, and as for power so for value. There is real tension and unknowability as to the question of just how Scarface is going to come through the ruhtlessly self-centred but at the same time self-destructive game he gets into. The ending is far from being predictable in advance.
Scarface is an interesting and complicated anti-hero protagonist. He has some integrity, empathy and even virtue, but he is also ruthless and very cruel at specific times. He genuinely cares about some people, manipulates others without much regard to what happens to them, and has no sympathy at all to those he considers enemies. He also has enough insight to be conflicted about all of this.
The world-building in the story is pretty good, with real thought given to the different cultures and political situations over and above the individual characters. Magic is an interesting aspect of this; the world has its own little rules (there’s no huge metaphysical theory or anything) for how magic works, the main thing being the cost to the user — something that Scarface can largely get around in an interesting way involving his distinctive scars.
I’m afraid the fact that the novel is published by a small publisher might show in its quality just a little. There are occasional editing errors, on the level of typos, and if I’m any judge, a systematic error in how commas are used in one syntactical context. Still, the errors are only occasional and not serious. The new cover by Mitchell Bentley is also interesting and unusually fitting; it's actually a decent depiction of something in the story.
A longer and more in-depth version of this review can be found at https://thoughtsonx.wordpress.com/201...
As the summary above reveals, the plot gets started with the protagonist, Scarface, falling in sudden love with the capable and entirely self-centred Mendarian. Scarface understands just what she is like, someone who cannot be trusted at all, but instead of repelling him as it should, this strikes a chord with him that leads to a rather fatal attraction. Mendarian is already trying to carve a place and a kingdom for herself in the ruthless and volatile game being played between the countries in the area, and to gain her interest, Scarface enters the same game.
I am not generally fond of stories of foolish love that is or should be doomed because it’s an obsession towards someone it makes no sense to want a relationship with. In such a case, love is no better than any other harmful drug. This story handles that well, however. For a start, Scarface is ruthless enough to know, to some extent, what he’s getting into. More importantly, the story examines the consequences of such an infatuation properly. There’s no sugarcoating how it would go, nor romanticisation of how noble the ensuing strife and misery is. It is more a realistic story of what might happen. Love has power in the story, but so do many other things, and as for power so for value. There is real tension and unknowability as to the question of just how Scarface is going to come through the ruhtlessly self-centred but at the same time self-destructive game he gets into. The ending is far from being predictable in advance.
Scarface is an interesting and complicated anti-hero protagonist. He has some integrity, empathy and even virtue, but he is also ruthless and very cruel at specific times. He genuinely cares about some people, manipulates others without much regard to what happens to them, and has no sympathy at all to those he considers enemies. He also has enough insight to be conflicted about all of this.
The world-building in the story is pretty good, with real thought given to the different cultures and political situations over and above the individual characters. Magic is an interesting aspect of this; the world has its own little rules (there’s no huge metaphysical theory or anything) for how magic works, the main thing being the cost to the user — something that Scarface can largely get around in an interesting way involving his distinctive scars.
I’m afraid the fact that the novel is published by a small publisher might show in its quality just a little. There are occasional editing errors, on the level of typos, and if I’m any judge, a systematic error in how commas are used in one syntactical context. Still, the errors are only occasional and not serious. The new cover by Mitchell Bentley is also interesting and unusually fitting; it's actually a decent depiction of something in the story.
A longer and more in-depth version of this review can be found at https://thoughtsonx.wordpress.com/201...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews