Synopsis
The Hinterlands are a lawless place of broken dreams and broken people.
Roth is a bodyguard trying to leave his dark past behind, but history has a way of turning back up.
Cynthia is a bandit who’s trying to make a future by wading through blood.
They travel separately, trying to live by their own codes. All while a man in a red cloak tracks their blood-soaked footprints.
Review
I loved the sound of this when I first read the blurb and it went on the tbr. I SHOULD NOT OF WAITED TO READ THIS BOOK.
This book is absolutely beautifully brutal on levels not done before, world building that puts you there and characters so well written I could not put down. I wish it was longer.
You can see the influences in Steeles writing, by his own admission Streaks of Abercrombie and Tarantino in a grimdark western setting. To me, Steele has taken all the best parts of these influences and firmly stamped his own voice through beautifully dark & graphic prose with sprinkles of hope and goodness.
If you love grimdark fantasy, as I do, then this is a must read. If you struggle like me to find fantasy that really delves into those dark places and delivers in specific detail, making you feel the absence of all light, the suffocating wrongness that some characters can go to and acts of villainy that should only be kept in books. Steele has found a way to transcend his fellow authors in doing just this. The Western background for A Few Days More is a stroke of utter genius. It forces the reader to summon up those feelings of could I survive the times in the old west. Stark, hard country where lawlessness is rife and the lines between good and evil are so often severely blurred. It’s a feel that no one has got right, mixing fantasy and western together and in Steeles writing they compliment each other perfectly.
I also loved that there are no guns. Something that sets this book apart from the typical western genre and in my opinion works well on so many levels in that none of the characters use guns, they use swords and rapiers and other bladed weapons. A doth of the cap that brings west & fantasy together in spectacular fashion.
Steele’s scene setting is outdone only in his character work which also balances out his graphically grim depictions and scene situations throughout the book. All the characters, be them main or side are expertly written, they all have their inner demons and struggles but in the midst of some seriously dark fantasy writing they shine with hope and intentions of doing some real good.
Creating moments of happiness that beam off the pages. Steele also has the ability to make you invest in all his characters, good, bad and all the morally grey you can fit in between. This is yet another stroke of his ability because whilst you are invested let’s just say he uses the George R. R. Martin effect where no one is safe from a sudden, or not so sudden, brutal end.
There is so much more offered by this book, gods that are merely mentioned, characters in Roth and Cynthia, not to mention Red Cloak that I need to read more of. Nobles & outlaws, posses & lawmen. A whole cast system. Also the fact that given its old west vibe suggests to me that the landscape is vast and rife for exploration with infinite potential and possibilities.
Z. B. Steele has a new fan and I will be waiting with bated breath for whatever comes next.
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