As someone who has been involved in "the Games Workshop hobby" for many years I know Dan Abnett as the writer of some of the best gaming fiction available so naturally I was curious to see what Triumff, his first original novel, had to offer.
The story is set on an alternate Earth in which Elizabeth XXX rules an Anglo-Spanish unity forged when Elizabeth I married Spain's King Phillip. And there's magick, rediscovered by no less a personage than Leonardo Da Vinci. The year is 2010 but for all that technology has advanced it might as well be the late sixteenth century. A plot is afoot and the only one who can save Queen and country is Sir Rupert Triumff, lately returned from his discovery of Australia.
If you're an Abnett fan looking for something along the lines of Eisenhorn or Gaunt's Ghosts you'll be more than a little surprised by the tone, which is somewhere south of Pratchett. Don't expect any rigorous historical extrapolation either. For all that he uses four centuries of world history Abnett might as well have set the book in the reign of Elizabeth I. There are some truly god awful puns (I almost put the book down when the Swiss Army Rapier showed up) but there are quite a few laugh out loud funny bits.
On the plus side the book moves at a decent pace and is very hard to put down once you're into it. The setting is well realized if a bit silly, and the author's affection for and knowledge of Elizabethan England is apparent on every page. There are some interesting literary experiments as well. The narration is mostly third person but shifts into first when the narrator is actually present for events giving the whole book an air of unreliable omniscience that I don't think has ever been used before. The plot is nicely tied up in the end but at the same time the setting is big enough for further stories.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment