Does Everything, But Better

There's no getting away from the fact that any summary will make this book sound like the same old same-old. Orphan, a loner, in a creepy orphanage, who is about to come into his powers, is whisked away to previously unknown stern and humorless aunt, to join a secret society of knights, who need to be trained up, to fight evil from an alternate shadow world, in the company of an accomplished girl knight and an older ironic knight, while the society seems to be hiding the real story about what happened to his parents. At least there's no sarcastic cat. Yet.

But get this. Every single one of these cliches gets freshened up, polished, re-imagined, and fine tuned to the point that the reader hangs on every page despite pretty much knowing, or at least suspecting, what's probably going to happen next. And that's for readers who've been around for a while. For a new young reader, maybe reading this sort of tale for the first time, this is all going to be ripping. And, while the frame may seem standard issue, there are turns and twists and surprises and tweaks that not only make the frame fresh, but that also inject new and unexpected vitality.

I attribute a lot of this to the fact that Rudden always seems to add just an extra twist, or layer, or bit of description, or detail at each step that makes each element a bit more and better than it needs to be. The orphanage is just a bit more "orphanagey" than usual. The three bad guys are surrounded by more cleverly imagined evil than is strictly necessary. The secret society has a deeper and broader history; the threat is darker; the shadow evil is more complex and has multiple forms and personalities. Even the distracting attractive girl knight is more interesting and unpredictable than one would expect.

All this is complemented by fine writing. Rudden gets atmosphere right. He gets the action scenes right, and easy to follow even at their most intense. Descriptions are complete and have a certain flair. There are some great throwaway lines and a few subtle good-natured hints of humor about the genre. There is the occasional tension lightening funny bit. Even the darkness is handled with aplomb, and is just slightly over the top enough to remind the younger reader that this is just a fantasy tale. The book "feels" right and the story flows seamlessly - in tone, pacing, and the apparent authenticity of the characters.

To be fair, I thought the hero, Denizen, was too emo for too long. Sure, he's a loner, no one will answer questions about his parents, auntie ignores him, and so on. But maybe that's realistic too. In the face of the wildly implausible and fantastic maybe a thirteen year old does hold on to what he was before finally letting go and becoming what he must be. Certainly, eventually, that is where the book starts to go, and it is satisfying to see Denizen develop and start to grow up and get a grip. So, even here, Rudden is trying to do something with the character beyond just take him through the action/adventure/chosen-one paces.

The upshot, for me, was that this was an admirable, entertaining and accomplished find. Sometimes you can become a little jaded as you read your way through the middle grade fantasy shelf, and this book was a nice wake up call and a nice reminder that really good books can be made from materials you sometimes take for granted. This was an excellent find.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)