Synopsis
Don’t kill the messengers.
As a bodyguard for the King’s Envoys, Gen is content with her life of traveling, drinking wine, and hitting things with her sword. It’s the perfect job. Until the King sends her and her friend Cordyn into war-torn enemy territory on a mission to deliver vital military intelligence to an allied nation.
The problem? The mission is a sham.
Gen is tasked with determining if Cordyn is a spy who is selling information to the enemy. Cordyn is the worst kind of libertine: brash, arrogant, and on the run from half the husbands in the kingdom, but Gen can’t imagine him betraying her or their nation.
With obtuse bandits, vengeful mages, and a resolute lutist, they embark on a daring rescue mission, complicated by Cordyn’s increasingly complex schemes. As ominous enemy plots surface, Gen and Cordyn must decide what matters most. Their nation or their friends.
Review – Why is this one of the best indie fantasy debut of 2024?
Let’s cut straight to the chase in this review. Yes. This is one of the best indie fantasy debuts of 2024. With its wit and its charm, Envoys had me grinning from ear-to-ear throughout the book. Dave Lawson is a new and flippant voice at a time when the indie scene is a little too grimdragon and macabre-heavy for me. We really need some stories like this too.
I’ll kick off this review answering a question no-one asked. Is the Terry Pratchett-style humorous fantasy no longer relevant? I’d argue it’s coming back – we’re starting to see more cozy stories for sure, and now we’re finding the funny in fantasy again. Certainly one book I enjoyed last year was The Hero Interviews by Andy Ewington, another laugh-out-loud read. (It just so happens I reviewed that book here.) However, where Ewington’s novel was footnote fantasy, Lawson focuses on a different genre instead: sidequest fantasy.
Another question no-one has asked is “What the hell is sidequest fantasy, you bearded fool?” Well, it’s this book! Gen and Cordyn are two friends but neither are the chosen one. The world won’t end if either of them don’t make it to the end of the book. Yet their story is well worth the trip. What starts as a sham mission to determine whether Cordyn is a spy turns into a rescue of children kidnapped by mages.
One of Lawson’s strongest writing attributes is his eye for a well-dressed scene. You can see influences of his background teaching theatre in the body language of characters and their snappy dialogue. An example comes very early on when Master Gillus, in assigning Gen her mission, purposefully chooses her seat as his own to establish superiority. It’s subtle but this sort of scene setting is everywhere.
Worldbuilding is geared mainly towards political intrigue but we’re only seeing things from a narrow and somewhat lowly point of view. There is a magic system where mages are able to manipulate and use water – a bit like an airbender crossed with a Blastoise. All is fine but the book concerns itself more with its characters and its story, rather than reinventing the fantasy wheel, it has to be said.
The Characters
A special mention here then to the characters who bring this story to life.
Gen is the stoic bodyguard. An ACE character, whose chief motivations are fighting and wine. For such a simple base though, she was by far my favourite character. I liked Gen naming a spider in the woods “Francois” and her sword “Maralda” without need for explanation. I liked her refusal to ever back down or give up. She more than earns her winterplum wine.
Cordyn is the Sir John Falstaff-like bounder, a serial philandering bastard who verbally ties people up in knots. You might not necessarily like him (although I did) but you certainly like the scenes that involve him. I think this exchange sums him up:
“I agree with Mr. Tallen.”
“Thank you, madam.”
“I still think you’re a reprobate.”
“As do I, madam. As do I.”
Every notable character has their own idiosyncrasies in Envoys. I enjoyed hating Tobias despite understanding his motivations. I appreciated every Dickensian swear word shared between Gen and Cordyn. Evalia’s unwavering commitment to saving her brother and simultaneously loving/loathing Cordyn rounded their party up nicely. The late introduction of Cork is the sweary cherry on top of it all.
And, I love the way this reads like a D&D campaign where the party are all fantastic roleplayers. There’s so much humour and natural chemistry – even between characters who dislike each other – that I could read page after page.
Envoys of Indie Fantasy
An unmissable debut, all in all. There’s not really anything I could find fault with. I’m really looking forward to the upcoming novella that explores one of the latterly-introduced side characters and more stories, Kirth-dammit. Dave, keep these coming, I’ll be reading the bloody bollocks off them.
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