RFAK No. 9, Billy Blacksmith, The Demonslayer; by Ben Ireland

One of the things I detest the most about your typical high fantasy story is the inevitable training montage. Pupative hero has never wielded a weapon more deadly than a spoon, yet shows natural talent in the arena or ring or whatever when the skeptical trainer puts him or her through the wringer. A little blood is shed and before you know it, WHAMMO, you’ve got the Hero trained up and thumping baddies’ skulls like he or she’s been doing it since they were children.

It’s not often you see such a training montage be mostly baseball, a blood ritual, and a plucky, comic-relief sidekick who’s kinda scary with her fascination with throwing knives.

At least she didn’t end up as bait in the trap to get the hero to go to the spot where the baddies are waiting (that fell to the nebbish book-nerd friend, natch).

And here you have the tale of Billy Blacksmith, Demonslayer.

This is entry-level fantasy, I have to remind myself. Those looking for the kind of tale in which the characters sound like their bums are stuffed with tweed best look elsewhere. Ben Ireland isn’t that kind of writer, clearly. Though it’s also clear he loves a good adventure, and is good at action scenes.

The comic asides are, well, kinda predictable. Humor is much more difficult to write than action. The humor here smacks of the typical in your superhero movie. Battle, smirk, characters say something funny, more battle. It’s fine in its way.

I’m not getting much of a connection with the characters – though sometimes I have to read a book more than once for that to happen. Ireland’s characters are just what you expect them to be – Billy, the tubby baseball player turned hero, amazed at his gnarly powers which came about with the help of a visiting demon who performed one ritual to trigger the “demonseed” blood in Billy’s veins.

There’s Ash-lea (yes, just like that), the throwing-knife champion, who battles right alongside Billy despite NOT having any demonseed blood in her aroused. Then there’s the nerdy Greyson, along for the ride to be the helpless victim. Billy’s a foster kid whose parents (spoiler) died defending him and his slightly older brother as waifs from invading spiders, similar to the one that tries to get Billy at the opening of the novel. So the orphan thing, combined with his terrible foster parents, the Fosters (snigger), are supposed to make him sympathetic.

Eh. It’s been done.

Contrariwise, the rich redneck family going hell-for-leather to rescue their son? Loved every minute of it.

Overall, this is a good, contemporary tale that would probably pull reluctant readers into fantasy novels, and that’s no mean feat.