A. Trae McMaken's Dwarves of Ice Cloak, Books 1-4

(Author's note: The author of this review loves dwarves. The author of this review wishes he was a dwarf. The author of this review writes his own dwarf based fiction. You will see the words, dwarf, dwarves and dwarven a lot, although I think I only used the word Dwarfdom once. For that you should be thankful. Unless you love dwarves like I love dwarves in which case I'm sorry I didn't up the dwarfness. For those of you bothered by this phonemon, I have the following to say. "DWARF UP AND READ THE REVIEW!!")

I have, in the past, been told that epic fantasy stories can only take place in worlds with high magic. I don't think I've ever believed that, but I've always seen it as a wee bit of a challenge to refute. That is the case no longer. A. Trae McMaken's The Dwarves of Ice Cloak, a four book series, puts that argument to rest. This is fantasy as epic as I've ever seen. It's got dwarves. It's got trolls. (and not the internet kind) it's got a dragon at one point. And no dwarf story is complete with goblins as an enemy, even if the author decides to use the dwarven word for the instead. I'm perfectly good with seeing an ursi get a spear to the chest. I mean, it's less typing for the same effect, right?

Good stuff, that.

But that's not what makes The Dwarves of Ice Cloak epic. Reading McMaken's series is almost like taking a history survey course (IE American History 1877- present or Japanese history since the Meiji Restoration) only it's taught using memoirs of the most important people during the time period. Imagine taking American History by reading four books: One about Washington, one about Lincoln, one about Reagan and one about like, Biden or probably someone later but I don't have anyone later to mention. (Oh, and for the record I have a BA in History and love reading that, too)

This analogy stuff, it's difficult okay. And yeah, it's actually a simile because I used like but whatever.

Listen, this is epic fantasy at its finest. The first book, The Crippled King starts out with one lone, poor, dwarven prospector on his own. During the series (of only four books) we see the rise and fall of a proud dwarven kingdom and a potential resurgence. A lonely mining claim becomes the capital of all Dwarfdom. It fights battles. It increases in size and wealth internally. It becomes someplace worth living and a capital worth having.

And the Ice Cloak dwarves are the dwarfiest dwarves that ever dwarfed. They work hard. They fight hard. They live underground for the most part, but have the inevitable surface dwarves that do the boring stuff like farming and husbandry and also the exciting things like scouting and ursi-slaying. But their miners mine, their crafters craft and dwarf-wifs and maids can craft just as well as the men with none of the factial hair. 

The Dwarven society presented in the books works is amazingly well crafted. I'm guessing that McMaken has done some studying in anthropology in his time. I'm also guessing that there is a huge pile, possibly digital, of notes that McMaken made to be able to keep everything consistent. Ice Cloak is home to a living, breathing group of people whose lives change over time. I got a sense of a grand history while reading these, but it's still undeveloped in most cases. A lot of the time when I started a new book I was wondering how we got here. I had to do a lot of the imagining myself and I like that because it's an excuse to write my own story. I just can't use the words "Ice Cloak." I'd even like to think I could do these concepts justice but we'll see.

As I alluded to above, there is a huge time gap between stories and the characters from one don't really carry over to the next. This kind of threw me when I first picked up Book Two, The Mouth of Fire. None of the dwarves I expected to see were there. It took me a bit to get into Mouth because of that but once I did I was off and running. For Book Three, The Second Gate and Book Four, Bones of Stone I didn't get that effect because I expected it. 

And that's probably another one of the strengths of The Dwarves of Ice Cloak. Although I recommend reading the books in order and all together, this is the kind of series where it wouldn't be at all hard to read the books individually or even pick up one of the later books by itself if you wanted to. There are occasional references that people who have read the prior books will enjoy and can hearken back to but they're not overly long nor are they all that important to understanding the story. They're basically just there as incredibly obvious Easter eggs.

None of the books end on what I would consider to be a true cliffhanger, but all of them end up somewhat unresolved. The reader is left to fill in the rest of the stories themselves and even reading what comes after (in the case of the first three books) doesn't fill in many of the details. I'm reminded, in a way, of the Dragonlance Chronicles, and how they skipped important parts of the story but then, the DC are much closer together in time. The gap between books is literally centuries. They still tie together nicely, but you don't have to know every word that has come before to enjoy the book in your hand right now. 

I'm sad to say that there doesn't seem to be a sequel to Bones of Stone. I feel like there was plenty of room to continue the story and that it hasn't happened. I'll be looking for it though, and I'll be following McMaken. He's got some other stuff out there and most of it appears to be fantasy, I'm sure to pick up another McMaken book sometime soon.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Living Steel Mining Picks

The Crippled King
The Mouth of Fire
The Second Gate
Bones of Stone
A. Trae McMaken
Lost Pathway Books, 2022-2023

Dan Parkinson's The Covenant of the Forge

Join us on Facebook!

 When one accepts free books in exchange for reviews, the expectation is that they will read only those books and review them. I mean, I got it for free, right? And people have a right to expect that I'll hold up my end of the bargain. It makes sense on a purely logical level, right?

The problem being that I'm a human being and human beings aren't necessarily "purely logical." I wish I could be sometimes, but real life doesn't work that way. 

So, having gotten an Amazon gift card for Christmas, I decided to buy some comfort food for my brain. I picked up all three of the books from the Dragonlance Dwarven Nations Trilogy. I started with The Covenant of the Forge by Dan Parkinson because, well, it's the first book in the series. And it's definitely comforting. I was thinking that I had originally read it thirty years ago, but a quick Google search shows that it's only been twenty-seven years since it was published. I guess it was less than that.

Still though, I love this book. 

I'll be honest in stating that part of the reason I picked up these novels is because I'm writing a novel with a dwarf main character that starts in a dwarven town and I've been thinking about these books a lot. I'll also be honest in admitting that a lot of the genesis of my book (and it needs a better title than Dwarf Story, but I'm not so good at titles.) comes from the Dwarven Nations Trilogy. The concept of a dwarven society fascinates me and, if the society I'm creating looks different than this one, at least I won't get sued.  

Parkinson does a really good job of making dwarves people that aren't human (because DUH, they're dwarves) but still have recognizable and understandable motivations. The humans in the book aren't necessarily portrayed in a super positive manner, but that makes sense. Humans, to a dwarf's eyes, are short-lived and therefore in too big a rush for everything and kind of flighty. When viewed from a dwarf's eyes, some positive traits (to humans) don't look so positive. And if you've never been told to "look to the left side of your tools" well, it's a concept we could all benefit from and one that's easy to understand. It's also a concept I'd like to incorporate in my own work, but uhh...

Yeah, not sure how I can manage to mention this one and not get sued. Seriously. I don't have the right kind of file to eliminate the serial numbers on this axiom, but it's so useful and so intelligent..

Yeah, it's dwarven and I'M WRITING ABOUT DWARVES!

AHHHH!!!!

But the thing is that these dwarves are not alien to the point where we can't identify with them. They love. They hate. They marry. They have children. They're people just like you and I only they're different. They're not monolithic though, and that makes sense as well. Handil the Drum is a musician. He plays the Call to Balladine, the opening of the autumn trade festival. He ends up as a major hero. Cale Greeneye reminds many dwarves of an elf. Colin Stonetooth leads the Calnar clan with honor and distinction.. for awhile.

 And I guess that's what interests me more than anything: These are characters I care about. When a child is born at a moment that is precisely perfect and terrible (read the book, you'll get it) you want to cheer for the new father as he runs pell mell to where his wife is giving birth. When your hero, and the guy you figured would end up running things dies heroically it hurts, but you're proud of him for doing the right thing even if it ends badly for him personally. He honestly kind of reminds me of a dude named Sturm Brightblade in the Dragonlance Chronicles and that's saying a lot. If you're not familiar with the Chronicles you need to be. You should read them right after you read the Dwarven Nations Trilogy. Of course, Sturm was human, but no one is perfect I suppose...

The Covenant of the Forge has a little bit of everything. There is some extremely light romance. There is some combat. There is politics and scheming. There are loyal followers and treacherous enemies. There are even treacherous allies. You won't find anything missing from your favorite fantasy works, with the possible exception of horror. The Covenant of the Forge is not Ravenloft, even if Ravenloft  does feature a death knight from Krynn, which is the planet Covenant takes place on.

It doesn't need to be though. And the Dwarven Nations Trilogy takes place before the Cataclysm and Soth's descent into Death Knighthood anyway...

Err.. Nevermind. Nerd moment. Those happen.

The point is that this is a damn fine book and an awesome series. Looking back over twenty-five years after I read Covenant for the first time, I find myself amazed that it starts off as quickly as it does. I guess I didn't think about it at the time, but trilogies, and longer series, often start off pretty slowly. Not so much here. Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of worldbuilding that takes place, but it's so well done that I didn't really notice that it was happening. I just kind of understood things and moved on. There's no navel gazing, and no long winded explanations of things. Parkinson somehow managed to get what needs to be there stuffed in without making it feel like a chore to wade through it. 

I... will... not...

Who am I kidding? Of course I will.

Remember that feeling you got when you were a kid and you saw Star Wars for the first time? Remember how cool it was? Do you know how frustrating it can be to watch the prequels and the sequels because they don't make you feel the same way?

Yeah, I hate it too.

The thing is that I got that feeling reading The Covenant of the Forge again. I love these books for a reason. Read them. You will too.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Vibrar Drums

The Covenant of the Forge
Dan Parkinson
Wizards of the Coast, 2012 (current edition)
TSR, 1993 (original edition)

The Covenant of the Forge is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.

 

 

Hank Quense's Contact: Book One of the Zaftan Troubles

What do you get when you cross ugly, smelly, dirty aliens in control of both spacefaring technology and magic with dwarves who own battleaxes and can toss spells of their own? No, not Spelljammer, as much as I enjoyed that. You get Hank Quense's Contact: Book One of the Zaftan Troubles. You also get a rocking good time.

One thing that has always driven me slightly bonkers in fantasy fiction, going back to Tolkein, is that dwarven society is often ignored. I mean, sure Gimli played a major role in The Lord of the Rings but  at no point do you really get to see him in his home setting. He is clearly excited to get to the Mines of Moria but, by the time the Fellowship gets there, everything is gone. Everyone is dead. There are no dwarves left to interact with.

Quense takes care of that problem right off the bat. His story is set in a dwarven society. In Contact we see the problems and advantages of a dwarven society. Dating is apparently even more of a problem than in human societies. Property rights are a big thing. Hard work is valued. Those who don't work don't get a whole lot of respect. It's the kind of society I would love to live in.

And make no mistake about it: Dwarves are, in my humble opinion, the greatest thing that ever happened to fantasy literature. I don't mean just Gimli, son of Gloin. Bruenor Battlehammer and Flint Fireforge are age old favorites. The Dwarven Nations Trilogy is one of a very few good series about dwarves being dwarves. Another good one is the series by Markus Heitz. Quense has a ways to go before I can add him to that list, but he's certainly taken a step in the right direction.

It also seems to say a lot about Mr. Quense's politics. His government is dominated by people looking out only for their own best interests. The local governor is a product of a political dynasty. Taxes are not necessarily seen as a good thing. The needs and wants of the people are viewed mainly as a way of getting re-elected. Just as I was about to label Contact a conservative work though, I get an eyeful of "pipe-weed" use and a hatred of corporations that wouldn't fit a classic conservative. Therefore, Contact must be a work that is Libertarian in nature.

This is a good thing.There is way too much leftist drivel on the market these days. It's good to see someone with some good old-fashioned values and not a bunch of preachy, incoherent, identity politics fueled crap being fed into my Kindle. The best part about it is that Quense shows instead of tells and I, for one, was not able to find anything that looked like a sermon. Quense did a good job here.

The Zaftan themselves, are vicious corporate industrialists. They either conquer places or use corporations to undermine their societies. I kind of don't like these guys, but then again I'm not supposed to. They're the evil foreign invaders out to take everything of value. In a way, they're almost a caricature of the great colonizers from history, to include Romans, Japanese, Ottomans, Mongols, the Moors and lots of others. In a way they're not though. Very rarely in history has a conqueror come to help the people they're conquering. The might makes right theory of conquest has historically been very popular because it works. When the Zaftan don't recognize property rights in the sequels (this is planned as a seven book series) it's going to get ugly. I'm sharpening my axe in anticipation.

The Zaftan are not exactly the universe's most lovable people otherwise either.  Some are cranky. Others are lazy. One may very well be the death of his crew in a most literal sense. They're all focused on personal advancement at the cost of everyone and everything other than themselves. These guys are less trustworthy than my ex-wife. The captain is a woman with an attitude problem, although she may very well have an excuse.

They also appear to be very hard to kill. I'm thinking of my Dungeons and Dragons party from the late Nineties and our first encounter with a troll. Fortunately, my DM allowed me to get away with some meta-gaming and our party didn't wipe, but I'm guessing that the characters in Contact won't be as lucky. The next book looks like it might just get ugly for our dwarves.

I don't do spoilers but I'm looking forward to the sequel (which I have already downloaded) for another very important reason as well. I'm not going to say what it is, but it's a reflection of something that either reflects pop culture or is made fun of by pop culture, depending on your point of view. I want to see how this turns out or if it changes over time. I have a sneaking suspicion it just might because reasons.

Contact is a work of humor but sometimes it can be hard to tell when Quense is being funny and when he's actually making a point. That's actually a good thing though, as it keeps things from getting too preachy and we all love to laugh, right? I mean, that's a great thing. There was a lot here story-wise but it's always good to have a good time.

My only complaint about Contact, if you haven't guessed it already, is that it's not as long as I'd like it to be. I get that many authors are starting to come out with books more quickly now. And with a price point of ninety-nine cents I've got no complaints there, but it seems to be over awfully quickly. It takes a bit of time to get started as well and by the time things start moving we're already a third of the way through the book. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I just wish it was a bit longer. Then again, a good author leaves their audience wanting more.  I'm really looking forward to reading the sequel because the first one was so good. I just wish I hadn't gotten there so quickly.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Braided Beards

Contact: Book One of the Zaftan Troubles
Hank Quense
Strange Worlds Publishing, 2018

Contact: Book One of the Zaftan Troubles is available for purchase at the following link: