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Since time immemorial the warriors of the Paladin Order have harnessed arcane powers to protect their rulers. For Balen, who has given up his chance at love and fought his way to the top of the Paladin Order, there can be no greater honor than to serve his king. But when assassins annihilate the royal family, Balen suddenly finds himself sworn to serve the very man he abandoned.
Now with their nation threatened by enemies both within and outside the kingdom, Balen must fight hidden traitors and unnatural assassins, while also contending with the biting wit and dangerous charm of young King Zavrius. To save themselves and their nation they will have to put aside their past and reforge that trust they lost so long ago.
Rating: Narration – A; Content – C+
Reforged is Seth Haddon’s début novel, and as I rather liked the sound of a fantasy tale with magic and political shenanigans featuring a young king and his former lover-turned-chief-bodyguard and because I’ll always jump at an opportunity to listen to Gary Furlong, I decided to pick it up for review.
Following the deaths of his father – in battle – and then of his four older siblings (three brothers, one sister) in a mysterious incident just over the border with the Rezwyn Empire, Zavirus, fifth heir of the Dued Vuuthrik Dynasty, has become king of Usleth. He is not an especially popular choice. There are those who believe he killed his siblings and are outraged by the thought of his usurping his older brother’s place, and those who just don’t think he’ll be a very good king; he’s too young, he’s weak, he’s too frivolous, he likes men so he’ll never have an heir, etc. etc., and even Zavirus himself wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his throne.
At his side is Balen, his Prime Paladin and chief protector. We learn fairly early on that Zavirus and Balen used to be lovers, but that Balen chose duty and ambition over love, when he was chosen to train to be the Prime for the then heir to the throne, Zav’s oldest brother, Theo. Their relationship is… cordial, at least, although Zav is clearly still hurt by Balen’s decision and tends towards snark and smart-arsery in their interactions. After the ceremony that officially confirms Balen as Zavirus’ Prime, Balen is organising the escort for the journey back to the palace, but the king insists on leaving straight away with only Balen and a couple of other Paladins for protection. Balen fails to do his job and tell the king they need to wait so he can assemble a larger escort, and shrugs off the concerns of his Paladin mentor – it’s only a two hour journey after all.
No surprise – the carriage is set-upon and one of the accompanying Paladins is killed during the attack. When the fight is over, Balen and Zavirus both reach the conclusion that their attackers were arcanists who had somehow been able to drink the ichor of a gedrok (ichor is an elixir used only by rulers and their Paladins to enhance their magical abilities) – and the only way they could have obtained ichor is via someone in the Paladins. There’s a traitor in the ranks – and Balen must root them out.
I admit that it took me a while to really get into the story, but after the first few chapters, I became more engaged as Balen and Zavirus (which sounds like a cold remedy!) have to work out who is trying to kill him, who amongst his Paladins might have betrayed him, and who they are working for, while trying to win over the disgruntled nobles and to keep the peace with their enemies across the border. I like a good bit of political intrigue, and there’s plenty of that here; the action scenes are well-written, the world-building is decent and I liked that Zavirus’ magic is musical – he can play a variety of musical instruments to produce different sorts of magic. Paladins in this world are warriors who are injected with a powerful potion made from the remains of the gedrok that imbues them with magic, and must wear a special armour to prevent the effects of potion from destroying them. I also loved Mallet and Lance – a couple of jobbing players whom Balen and Zav meet along the way – who work brilliantly as the comic relief.
But there are quite a few things that don’t work about the story. Right from the start, Balen – who, remember, has been training to be a Prime for years – arrives late for his own induction ceremony because he, er, lost track of the time. And then he dismisses the idea of a threat to Zavirus on the way back to the palace, which results in the death of another Paladin. I’m not sure that having your main character – whose one job is keeping the king safe – showing himself to be incompetent twice within a chapter – and the opening chapter at that – was the way to go.
And Zavirus behaves inconsistently as well. At one point, when about to enter the great hall where a feast and entertainment is taking place, he tells Balen he does not want anyone else – apart from Balen – to be up on the dais with him. NO-ONE is to go near him. Not long after this, when Balen has gone to speak to some of the other Paladins, he looks at the dais to see a young man sitting on Zavirus’ lap. Naturally, Balen is furious – and jealous, although he won’t admit that – because Zavirus expressly instructed he was to be left alone up there. It turns out that the boy is actually a spy – but Balen didn’t know that because Zavirus didn’t tell him. In fact, that’s not the only time Zavirus doesn’t tell Balen – the man charged with keeping him alive – important information.
The leads are nice enough, but they’re not very complex and don’t really go beyond the two-dimensional. Balen is your classic commoner-who-works-hard-to-rise-to-the-top type, while Zavirus is your beautiful, smart-mouthed hot-mess who has had greatness thrust upon him – and who might just be more than he seems.
The second-chance romance between Balen and Zavirus is more of a sub-plot, really, despite what that lovely cover may imply! I wish the author had included some flashback scenes of their earlier relationship because they would have given the listener some useful context. But once they start to let their guards down and start trusting each other again, I liked them as a couple. The trouble is that it takes them too long to do this – and I had to wonder why on earth Zavirus wanted Balen to be his Prime if he wasn’t prepared to trust him! And because we don’t get Zav’s perspective – the whole story is narrated in Balen’s PoV – we never get to understand his motivations, or to read him as the brilliant mind the author wants us to believe he is.
And then there’s the ending. After the big, climactic battle – which is well done; all the action scenes in the book are – after the death of a key player, half the opposing forces flee… and then we’re into the epilogue, where everything is hunky-dory and at peace. Why is no-one worried about half the army that ran away? Are all those people who didn’t want Zavirus as king okay with him now?
As I was listening to this, I saw that there is a sequel being released in October 2023, featuring one of the secondary characters in this story, so perhaps some of those questions will be answered in that – but when I picked up Reforged, I believed it to be a standalone, and that’s the basis on which I’m reviewing it. I’m pretty sure I can thank the awesome vocal talent of Gary Furlong for the fact that, despite the inconsistencies I’ve laid out (and others I don’t have space to list), I ended up enjoying Reforged more than I thought I was going to. He breathes life into the somewhat stereotypical characters, and manages to convey both chemistry and an emotional connection that I’m not convinced would have been there as strongly had I read the book with my eyes. I liked his interpretations of the two leads – Balen is solid and resolute, except in the face of Zav’s teasing, when he’s usually exasperated – while Zavirus always seems to have a smirk in his voice that makes him sound a bit petulant and a bit supercilious, exactly like the spoiled lordling he appears to be. There’s a fairly large secondary cast, and Mr. Furlong voices every character distinctively and differentiates them clearly from one another using a variety of timbre and accent. (The real stand-outs are Mallet and Lance, who are hilarious.) The performance as a whole is well-paced, expressive, vibrant and engaging – I’ve come to expect no less from this narrator.
In the end, Reforged is a mixed bag. The narration is terrific, and the story has good bones, but is sometimes let down by the execution. I can’t recommend the audiobook unreservedly because the plot has holes and inconsistencies and the characterisation could have been better, but the worldbuilding is good, the action scenes are well done and the central plotlines are intriguing, and Gary Furlong’s fabulous performance helps to paper over the cracks.
This review originally appeared at AudioGals.
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