#REVIEW: The Vagrant Gods series, by David Dalglish

On June 9, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn Reading, ReviewsLeave a comment

It took me eight days to read through David Dalglish’s three-volume, 1500-page Vagrant Gods series, the covers of which ought to be clickable above. I don’t recall what drew my attention to this series initially, but I bought all three in a fit of consumerism before reading any of them, and they’ve been sitting on a shelf for perhaps longer than they should have before I finally got to them. I’m not about to go back and look to find out how long; it’s been a while.

Shoulda read ’em earlier, because they’re awesome, and they manage the rare feat of starting off pretty good (I four-starred the first book) and then getting better with each successive volume. The series tells the story of Cyrus, a young (initially, at least) prince who not only witnesses his parents’ executions in front of him during an invasion but also literally witnesses the death of one of his gods. Cyrus is held in captivity as a puppet regent for a few years, and ultimately is able to escape with the help of a small band of revolutionaries, who forge him into the Vagrant, a vicious assassin whose one and only goal is to drive the Everlorn Empire from his native island of Thanet.

It is possible you are rolling your eyes right now; the word “assassin” is used way too much in fantasy literature nowadays, and a whole lot of assassins don’t really do a lot of assassinating because the authors want them to be relatable, and it’s harder to do that with somebody who is killing people all the time. You will possibly be pleased to learn that Cyrus does an immense amount of assassinating in Vagrant Gods. Holy crap, does he do a lot of assassinating, and his body count by the end of the series is horrifying. He’s practically the PC of a first-person shooter out there; this is a series that does not shy away from violence and is really not at all interested in a relatable main character. (It’s also, for what it’s worth, rotating-POV third person, but Cyrus is absolutely the main character for all that.) The books also do a pretty good job of making even the ultimate big bad guy of the series feel, if not relatable, at least understandable; the Everlorn Emperor is (mostly) immortal but the previous emperors live in his head, and he’s really only about half-sane during the book his POV shows up in, which makes him a fascinating character.

But the most interesting thing about this series is the way it handles divinity. Gods can be killed, and in fact are killed, and resurrected and sometimes killed again after resurrection, all over the place in this series, and the Everlorn Empire’s drive for, well, empire is due mostly to the need of the Divine Emperor for more worshippers. I’d call it an analogue of Christian imperialism, but only if Jesus was, like, still alive, but on his fifth or sixth body, and if he literally got more powerful with every new worshipper. One character ends up channeling one of the deceased gods for most of the series, and she can literally transform back and forth like the world’s most awesome lycanthrope between her form and the god’s. The crew that Cyrus amasses around himself is uniformly very cool, with a lot of interesting abilities, some of which are divinely inspired and some of which aren’t. Basically everything magical can be traced back to some god or another; this isn’t a world where mages, per se, exist, but the gods are generous with their followers.

Also, for what it’s worth, nearly everyone in the series is brown to some degree or another, and there’s a handful of prominent gay characters. Thanet is clearly more friendly to the LGBTQIA spectrum (not that they call it that, and the words “gay,” “lesbian” and “transgender” are never actually used) than Everlorn is, and some of the most noteworthy revolutionary activities are triggered by Everlorn trying to mess with Thanet’s rules about who can marry who.

Again, I don’t remember what brought me to this series, but it turns out David Dalglish has written a lot of books, so I’ve got a nice back catalogue to dip into if I want. I’m pretty sure this series is the only one set in this world, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of what he has to offer. If you’re looking for a series with a lot of political intrigue, great action, and a fascinating perspective on fantasy religion, you’ll love these books.

In which I #review things

On October 9, 2015October 9, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Reviews1 Comment

…a whole bunch of things, actually, none of which are really worth a post on their own.

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #1. Let’s start with this: I’m not a fan of the new armor design, particularly given how awesome the last two suits were. I don’t like the faceplate at all, although I can’t put my finger on exactly why, and the whole suit seems a little too streamlined for my tastes. That said, Brian Michael Bendis is one of my favorite comic book writers, and David Marquez’ art is excellent throughout– I’m just not a fan of the design itself. This first arc is bringing back Madam Masque, who I haven’t seen in a long time, and the villain who shows up at the end is, without spoiling things, a hell of a surprise. I’ve been really happy with Iron Man for quite some time, so it’s good to see the book is still in good hands. My only complaint: BMB is fond of multi-panel layouts that stretch across two pages, but isn’t a hundred percent about doing it that way, so there are occasional moments where it takes a while to figure out the panel flow on any given two-page spread. I attribute this to Marquez not being used to working with him; Mark Bagley, his frequent contributor, hardly has pages like that at all any longer. I’m sure it’ll get better.

DOCTOR STRANGE #1. Doctor Strange is one of those characters who I have historically not been a fan of, but have always sorta wanted to be a fan of, if that makes any sense. And he has an axe on the cover of his new book, which pretty much guaranteed I was going to pick it up. I know little about the character other than what you’d pick up via osmosis after 30 years of buying comic books, so it’s possible Jason Aaron’s take on him as a sort of exhausted, cigaretteless John Constantine is going to annoy longtime readers, but I liked the book enough that it guaranteed a few more issues. Chris Bachalo’s art is superb, too, which doesn’t hurt at all, and the book was way more action-packed than I was expecting. The axe comes in handy; let’s put it that way.

INJECTION TPB, by Ellis, Shalvey & Bellaire. I almost didn’t buy this. I bought INJECTION in single issues as it came out, and by the end of the six-issue run I had no damn idea what was going on at all and was basically only buying the book because I was too lazy to take it off my pull list– which, I think, comic fans know happens a bit more often than it probably should. So why spend more on the TPB? Because I had a hunch that the book would work better if I sat down and read it at a gulp than it would have in singles when I’ve read 30 comics since the last time it came out. And… man. Yeah. That’s exactly what happened. INJECTION is complicated enough that honestly I feel like it should have just come out as a trade paperback rather than bothering with the singles, and I’m glad I jumped at it twice. Warren Ellis doesn’t do bad work, guys. I shoulda known better. Check it out.

EMPIRE, the entire first season. I had to stand up and walk away for a bit before I wrote this part, because I’m still sort of in “What the hell?” mode on this show. Some facts: We watched the first season in maybe three or four big gulps. The acting is, by and large, phenomenal. And the characters and story arcs and quite possibly the entire setting of the show make no goddamn sense at all, especially if you know anything about the music business. Watch this show for Taraji P. Henson as Cookie, because she’s Goddamned amazing, and she needs to win all the awards. Pay no attention to the fact that the show seems to have no goddamn idea what year it is, or to know anything about trends in music at all, and definitely ignore the guy in the first couple of episodes who appears to have been unsealed from a time capsule first buried in 1985. Do not think too hard about consistency, because this is a soap opera, and holy shit is it a soap opera, and it’s probably best if you go in knowing that and don’t have to figure it out like I did. But watch it anyway.