A Dance of Cloaks
By David Dalglish
David Dalglish was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (My God…) on April 2nd, 1984. His family moved to the town of Purdy Missouri when he was four years old and he spent the rest of his childhood in Missouri (The poor soul). According to Mr. Dalglish, the pivotal moment that sent him down the path of becoming a writer is when a creative writing teacher in high school got them into the computer lab every day of the week under the rule that they spend the time writing something, anything. I got to admit that's a lot different than my experience with creative writing (He had a good teacher then.). Mr. Dalglish would go on to polish his writing in college, describing it as meeting real writers who could write circles around him. He graduated with a degree in Mathematics from Missouri Southern State University in 2006. It took four years before he was able to self-publish his first novel Weight of the Blood, the first book in the half-orc series, in 2010. Since then he has been amazingly prolific. Self Publishing over 15 novels and traditionally publishing another 12 through Orbit and 47North (which is an Amazon imprint to be fair). Most of his work is focused on his fantasy world of Dezrel, a young world that was recently created and because of that much of its history is still driven by a falling out between two of its gods. A Dance of Cloaks is one of those novels, being the first in the Shadowdance series. It was first developed as Mr. Daglish tried to give one of his characters, Haern the Watcher a backstory (When you create one life, you also create an entire universe. A modification of an old Jewish saying…) and was independently published. However, he was approached by Orbit and given a chance to republish the book through them. Some of you might be asking why bother? Well, the simple fact is that most books stores won't carry independently published authors. On top of that lot of folks will base their buying habits on what they see in a bookstore as opposed to online. So getting even part of your library traditionally published helps build name recognition and increases the chances of someone buying your independently published work. Additionally, this let Mr. Dalglish rewrite the book to address parts that bothered him and even better, be paid for it and since he's now a married man with three daughters. Getting paid to do what you want is great, doing that and feeding your family is even better. We'll be taking a look at the version published by Orbit in 2013.
Thern is a man with problems. A legendary assassin and possibly one of the best killers in the world, he's settled in the city of Veldaren with his sons and taken over the criminal underworld. You would think all he has to do is relax and let the money come in but that's not enough for Thern. In fact, that's the central issue with this character, nothing is enough for him. A guild/gang of devoted thieves and killers carrying out his every order? Not enough he has to rule all crime in the city. Actually, break every gang/guild to his will and rule the underworld of Veldaren supreme? Not enough he has to confront the powerful merchant families of the city and even the King and break them to his will. A pair of sons willing to follow his orders and generally looking up to him? Not enough. He needs a son that is a pure and perfect killer with no attachments beyond doing Thern's will (What the fuck? This isn’t a guy with problems. This guy IS the problem.{I mean… Yes?}). Even after Thern has become dust. I can't help but feel that Thern is either so terrified of everything and everyone around him that he can only deal with the world by trying to control everything completely through a combination of brutality and reward or the hole in his soul is so deep and profound that he is just unable to have relationships that don't revolve around fear and submission (He’s a sociopath. He views other people as objects to be used. Either that or a narcissist, but the two are...very close.{Can he be both?} Yes, it can be both.). Even with his own sons. This is established in the prologue when Thern out of a combination of pride, fear, and need to dominate everything around him not only starts a war with the Trifect (we'll get back to them) but has his younger son murder his eldest son (What the actual hell? Okay this is… wow. Um. This is a really abusive dynamic, just gonna come out and say it.). Why? Because his eldest son made a mistake that left Thern in a vulnerable position and almost got him killed (So the solution is to kill him, and traumatize the other one?! {Well, I mean killing and traumatizing people is what got him here…} Yes to but to a certain extent that is business. This is his kid.). So Thern has his eight-year-old son kill his seventeen-year-old brother and proceeds to spend five years locked in a violent street war with the economic elite of the city while sidelining the government and convincing the organized religions to take a backseat (And they just… let him do this? {After a lot of killing and traumatizing}). Thern is the guy who drives a lot of the plot in that he's the one setting up and maintaining this whole insane situation through a combination of his skills, leadership, and out-of-control fear and pride. He's also our main antagonist (Oh good! Not the protagonist!). Who is our main protagonist you ask? Why Aaron, the boy who we're introduced to as cold bloodily killing his older brother of course! (Oh this poor boy…)
Aaron is about 13 at this point and whatever energy Thern has not uselessly spent turning the city of Veldaren into a bloody battlefield has gone into making him the perfect killing machine. However, Thern has also worked very hard to socially and emotionally isolate Aaron, making sure the boy has no friends, no mentors besides himself, and a very pared-down understanding of the human experience (Killing his brother is the sort of transgression that will tend to isolate him from the rest of humanity. Warlords who recruit child-soldiers use a similar tactic. Make them do something horrible like murder a baby or gang-rape someone so they feel like they can never go back to being a person. {This isn’t just done to child soldiers, terror groups will do this with adult recruits to} Holy fuck. Where are the combat social workers!? {We’re in the not really middle ages, they haven’t been invented yet}). So a young man just entering the turbulent period of puberty has the skills to murder entire squads of armed men and underdeveloped communication and social skills. Which you know, is something that isn't terrifying at all to anyone with a drop of sanity! Thankfully Aaron channels his rebellion into wanting to do things like finding out what having friends is like, having his first crush, learning just who the heck the main god of his culture is and how to perform the actual act of prayer... (I… I want to reach through the fourth wall and hug this kid.) And also constructing an entirely separate personality and identity to aid in his rebellion against his father the world-renowned assassin. Despite his casualness when it comes to the act of murder, Aaron is touchingly innocent and wanting so hard to explore what life could be that it's hard not to react to that and that’s reinforced by the fact that Thern's own advisers go behind his back to give Aaron the moments of humanity and connection that he's desperately searching for. Such as Kayla, who is Aaron's first crush and despite being terrified out of her mind works hard to give Aaron space to be a person (I want to hug her too.). This is going to become a problem when Aaron does something unforgivable though, refusing to kill on his father's orders.
On the other side, we also have Alyssa Maynard of the Trifect. The Trifect is an alliance of the three richest and most powerful merchant families in the kingdom, their power outstrips most noble houses and they are wealthier than kings, or they were. Thern’s psychotically unrelenting war of murder, theft, and terrorism has drained the coffers of the Trifect as profits are lost or poured into increasingly byzantine security procedures and ever-growing armies of mercenaries. Thern wants the Trifect to accept his leadership in much the same way as the gangs and guilds of the underworld do. The Trifect wants to kill Thern and everyone who ever followed him to teach the thieves of Veldaren their place. Alyssa is her father's only child and as such has become a part of this and other struggles caused by this. As she returns to the city of Veldaren, from being fostered in the outer parts of the kingdom, she becomes a game piece in a power game between her father and a family of nobles looking to cut away chunks of the Maynard holdings. These nobles are emboldened by what they see as the Trifect's failure to deal with mere bandits and have encouraged Alyssa to underestimate Thern and the others (A lethal mistake…). She also becomes the center of religious struggle between two competing sects of the outlawed god Karnak (Wow. That’s a lot for one person to handle. This world is fucked.). Now, Mr. Dalglish doesn't get too deep into the weeds but from what's presented in the book, Karnak is a god of merciless order and brutal control, who also seems to dabble in objectivism by declaring altruism at best a delusion (Kill this God. Right now.). Karnak is opposed by the god Ashhur, who according to the characters in the book is everything good and noble about humanity even if we constantly fail to live up to that. Shockingly (Not shockingly.) no one powerful has much time for Ashhur and despite the fact that the very worship of Karnak is illegal we see both Thern and Alyssa's father go to the priest of Karnak for help pretty quickly when they need it to control their wayward children (Because of course they fucking do.). Alyssa has to figure out how to deal with the man she thought she loved and how to create an alliance with the Faceless, a breakaway sect of Karnak, while also struggling with her father's attempt to force her into a mold of what he believes his daughter should be.
Many other factions are working for their own ends in this book as well, there's the King and his main advisor who are mainly fighting to be relevant in their own capital (I... Jesus fucking christ. That’s monarchy for you. It’s almost like sortition would be a better means of selecting rulers and leaders than heredity.{To do the editor’s job, sortition is selecting people at random to fill government posts}). Which is a bad sign if you're a king I think (Yes. Because you are sane.). Their main way of doing this is trying to put an end to Thern's war on the Trifect but so far it hasn't gone well with Thern managing to kill several members of the royal family as a way of convincing the government to stay back (Who the fuck is this king? Nigel Thornberry?). With the new King finally reaching his age of majority though, all bets are off. There's also the temple of Ashhur. Thern initially bribed the high priest, but increasingly the priests under him are not happy with sitting on their hands while people are being butchered right in front of them and they're told not to use their divine powers to help (Kill the high priest. Simple fucking solution.{killing your high priest is frowned upon} Well he’s obviously fallen from grace!). Just in case this pile-up doesn't have enough moving parts, there are also thief guilds who are less than happy with being dragooned into being soldiers in a five-year street war and Thern's grip is being threatened from within and without.
Mr. Dalglish has done an incredible job setting up a metaphorical pool of gasoline made up of competing interests and desires that just need a match. Well, as any writer will tell you every good story will provide that match and here it comes in the event of the Kensgold, when all the families of the Trifect come together to plot and plan and throw a huge wild party that shows off their wealth and power. As you can imagine this is an irresistible target for... Everyone. (Yes. I can imagine it so readily, that if I were in their position I never would have held the gathering that way!). As all the competing interests and characters collide, you can be sure that no one is walking away unscathed. Mr. Dalglish spends over 350 pages of this book building the climax and he does not hesitate to take off the breaks and let the train jump the track, which is honestly what you have to do here when you get such a collision of opposing plans and factions. I won't spoil anything. I'll just say that the climax of this book does not disappoint.
That said, the book isn't perfect. I was often left feeling that the King and his adviser didn't really perform much of a function (Insert commentary on monarchism here). They're not connected to much of anything besides Thern, and are off to the side. We get the same feeling with the priest of Ashhur, where one chapter makes a big deal about the priest coming off the sidelines but they don't really play too much of a role in the climax. So I was left asking why we spent even as little time as we did with them. I did find the decisions that Mr. Dalglish made regarding Alyssa and Aaron interesting because they played counter to my exceptions. To try and avoid too many spoilers I was expecting a lot more cross-over between the two storylines than what I got. To be honest, despite Aaron being the protagonist of the book and his character arc being the main one, he's not the center of the plot nor is he what ties everyone together. Instead, it's Thern, our antagonist, who's not only the narrative core of the book but the main element tying everyone together. You could almost read this as a story of his fall from power and glory due to his obsessions and fear, but not quite. This puts the book in this odd state where the protagonist only matters for half the storylines and the antagonist is the center of the plot but the arc of the plot isn't about him, it's about the protagonist's growth and development away from him. It's an interesting experiment in writing but it honestly feels kind of awkward to me. Still, the characterization and the action is well done and while I've seen the story of the son who must grow past his father before, this version had enough interesting twists and turns to keep me interested. So A Dance of Cloaks by David Dalglish gets a B- from me.
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