Review of King of Ashes by Raymond E. Feist

I tried and failed to read Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, so I wanted to fall back to something uncomplicated. Raymond E. Feist’s portrayal of women is at about the same level as Murakami, and his writing is definitely on the less complicated side—but if you know what you’re getting, King of Ashes will give it to you.

In yet another generic fantasy world, King of Ashes follows two main protagonists: Declan and Hatushaly (aka Hatu). These young men don’t know each other, but they have something in common: neither really knows where they belong. Declan has just earned the title of master smith. Hatu is unaware that he is the last surviving heir to the throne of Ithrace. He has nearly completed his training for the Nation of Spies and Assassins—but he isn’t one of them. He’s a ward, boarding there until his seventeenth birthday, upon which he will be sent back to his benefactor, Baron Daylon Dumarch. From there, the baron will decide what to do with Hatu—for Daylon is the one who saved Hatu as a baby.

If this review is sarcastic, it’s only because I know Feist can take it: I wish him well and hope he has made oodles of money from his impressive oeuvre of Riftwar books. (I have vague memories of reading a few when I was younger, but I have no desire to dive into them again—which is part of the reason I was happy to find a new series from him at the used bookstore!) Feist has been around the fantasy block longer than I have been alive. This book is not a self-parody, mind you: Feist is entirely earnest in his storytelling. But I kind of read it like one.

See, when I was in high school, I wrote a fantasy novel. It was not good. It was derivative and probably boring but also a little pretentious—because I was sixteen years old and was modelling everything after the fantasy novels I had read, and that is great. That’s exactly the kind of thing a sixteen-year-old kid should be doing! And I am proud that I churned out 120,000 words of original fiction. I still have aspirations one day to write a good fantasy novel, but we aren’t there yet. That’s OK too. I am busy.

Anyway, all of this is to say: King of Ashes reminds me of that novel. Everything about this story is obvious. Feist seems really worried you might miss the subtext, so there isn’t any. He will tell you everything—in fact, just to be sure, he will tell you everything multiple times. For example, in the prologue, Feist makes sure to mention that Balven is Daylon’s half-brother no fewer than five times across ten pages. Similarly, in case you had any doubts that Hatu is a horny seventeen-year-old, Feist makes sure that every chapter following him emphasizes how much he can’t stop thinking about his crush on his classmate, Hava (and don’t get me started on two main characters with such similar names, omg).

Speaking of which, were you looking for three-dimensional female characters? Well, keep looking then, for there is none to be found here. Hava, to be fair, does get some POV chapters—most of which are spent on her brief stint training to be a seductress, only to be told she’s not pretty enough and doesn’t like sex enough so she stick with killing people. We are reminded repeatedly, by the way, that Hava is nothing to write home about in the looks department. Indeed, there is a memorable scene where she is sparring with another female trainee, and Feist devotes an entire paragraph to comparing the two of them:

Although she was long legged, like Hava, Nessa’s hips and breasts were fuller, giving her a slightly more curvaceous physique. Her honey-brown hair was sun streaked, and her green eyes were striking in her tanned, slightly freckled face. Her ample lips were now tightly pursed in concentration.

Oh goodie, I’m so happy we know her lips are ample! (And I should mention, by way of self-exoneration, that this is not an attribute my unpublished manuscript shares—young Kara didn’t know she was ace and didn’t even know she was a girl back then, yet she still managed to somehow avoid objectifying women. What, like it’s hard?)

Every female character is described in terms of how objectively hot she is. I should mention, to be fair, Feist gives a couple of women some important and more masculine roles. One of them is a really good hunter because her dad is a drunk! Hava herself is a super-cool assassin girlie. But these are the exception, and even they are only there to act as supporting characters for the awesomeness that is Declan or Hatu.

Suffice it to say, if Feist has learned or grown much as a writer in his forty-year career, I don’t see it on display in King of Ashes. This is a by-the-numbers throwback fantasy novel ripped straight from the eighties. And honestly? I’m OK with that. I kind of needed it, like a palate cleanser before tackling anything harder or requiring more than a single braincell.

Oh, and lastly, this book has emphasized how incredibly bad monarchy is as a system of governance. The idea that this seventeen-year-old is at all important, just because his dad was a king, even though he has no king knowledge himself? Wow. (There’s a whole magical element to it that I won’t spoil, too, and it just reinforces how over the Chosen One trope I am.)

Many of my recent reviews of fantasy novels have focused on my jubilation that fantasy is in a renaissance featuring authors of colour, queer authors, and authors who are challenging the colonial and heteronormative roots of the genre. King of Ashes is … not that. To be clear, I’m not saying this book is anti-woke by any means (and if you are reading my reviews looking for that, why are you here?). Rather, it’s just a sign that women and nonbinary people are not pushing white guys out of publishing. Raymond E. Feist is doing just fine.