Synopsis
John, the Long Arm, leads a life as a bounty hunter at the Three Heads. His name has spread far and wide across the north while plenty of gold weighs down his pockets. Just when everything seems to be going well for him, a group of soldiers order him to take on a new mission.
This time, his task is to track down a very dangerous man—a knight who rejected his oaths, turning his back on Gaeldeath and its ruler.
Will John choose the way of honour and devotion or will be succumb to his unquenchable thirst for wealth?
As part of “The Dance of Light” series, “The Knight of the Moon” is a novella which takes place seventeen years preceding the events of “The Return of the Knights.”
Review
Firstly, thanks to Gregory Kontaxis for sending me a copy of The Knight of the Moon to review. This obviously doesn’t affect my thoughts and review.
The Knight of the Moon is set 30 years before the events in The Return of the Knights and follows Long Arm John, one of the main characters in The Return of the Knights, during his bounty hunting days. Long Arm John was already an interesting character in The Return of the Knights, so it was great to see some of his back story and get more of an idea of events hinted at during the main series.
While short, this novella covers a lot of story. The beginning starts a bit slow, but ends up packing a serious action punch towards the end. Long Arm John, a famous bounty hunter, is recruited by Walter (oh yes Walter…) and tasked to kill the Knight of the Moon, a forsaken Knight and possibly the last existing one. He teams up with Nemesis, a disgraced soldier, who must prove herself to Walter. The two make an unlikely but likeable team of reluctant, underdog heroes. There’s lots of tropey fantasy mixed into their bounty adventure that brews into a fantastic fantasy novella.
As mentioned, the action did take a while to start as it felt like the relationship between Long Arm John and Nemesis took precedence. I enjoyed their character development alongside their relationship, but would have liked this to be more of a side story. Despite this, it still worked very well and once the action started, it started with a bang and I couldn’t help ploughing through the rest of the book.
It helped that both characters were super likeable, both coming to terms with issues in their past and showing nice character development throughout such a short book. Long Arm John was especially enjoyable to read about, not just for back-story, but also because of his humorous, moral and easy-going nature that somehow fit with his edgy and badass, bounty hunting personality.
I highly recommend this read for fans who want more of a background knowledge of past events or more detail into Long John. I also think The Knight of the Moon could be a great stepping stone for readers, who want a taste of the unique world that Gregory Kontaxis has created.
Leave a Reply