Revenge to the Tennth Power

This review contains minor spoilers, but please read on.
I received this book as an ARC and my review contains my honest opinion.

Revenge to the Tennth Power: Old School Pulp Fantasy with a Twist of Fresh Writing and Characterisation.

I love old school pulp fantasy. Stephen Donaldson? Yes please – with a C.J. Cherryh on top. Revenge story? Yes siree! LGBT elements? Well, all of you are gonna love that. Solid world building? Did somebody say Sanderson?

So this book begins with the mysterious young girl named Tenn. And boy is the opening wickedly cool.

The second time Antero ever laid eyes on Tenn, she appeared far too beautiful to sing for the rag-tag regular of a back-country shit cave like the Tomb of the Living.\

Now you have to understand that in the world of Mammyth, no one is allowed to sing. Singing riles the masses up and incites rebellions – and so King Ryzthar bans it. But little does he know that the daughter whom he locked up to be tortured and raped for years on end would be the one to sing of his demise.

Tenn, called Marinde by her father, begins to “bloom”. This is the day she is to be sacrificed to the Nine – the gods in this world. Little do the priests know that she was named Tenn as her mother knew she was more powerful than the Nine.

Then one of the most awesome revenge sequences happens. When Tenn is scheduled to be burned, she is unscathed by the fire and instead lights up the party on the bastard priests. We learn of the sickening actions of the priests – and so the revenge that Tenn takes a part in is all the more sweet.

The ensuing eerie silence, quickly knifed by screams of agony in every direction, jarred Tenn to years. She had braced for a horrible and liberating death, but now she was very much alive and shivering uncontrollably, as she felt the heat leave her body instead of consuming it. She dropped to one knee and continued to tremble, but she kept her head up enough to see the priests desperately clawing at their necks and ripping at their robes.

The other side of the story
Enter Hagema, Zakk and Antero. They are low-borns seeking to find gold. No low-borns are allowed to climb so high up the mountain. But these three are pretty brave, since you’re thrown to your death if caught.

Then, Tenn runs into a girl/woman named Jett, who is the pinnacle of bad-assery. Eventually, everyone comes together and forms a little Fellowship of Revenge to kill king Rythazar.
I won’t spoil much more, but the revenge arc from the middle to the end of the book is filled with twists, turns and savagery to the tenth degree. There are fortune tellers, deaths, love, adventure and ultimately the a Kill Bill style revenge sequence.


The characters:
Zakk: Zakk, burly, blonde and bearded, quaffed some ale and flashed Antero a toothy smile as he watched his friend fall for her like a rock into a ravine.

Antero:Antero added, jerking his thumb into his own bare chest before taking a drag from his water skin. He hadn’t bothered to put his long, matted and tangled brown hair into a ponytail, so he looked like a talking mop.

Hagema: Hagema felt the pull of gold, but not nearly enough to pull from her supposedly many fellow rock climbers. “Did you two dawdling fux stop to talk again?” she yelled down from the top of Ass Head, the pinnacle of a rocky headwall that apparently looked like the head of an ass to some lackwit sheperd who’d craned his neck from Aron’s Ravine centuries ago. (Hagema is my absolute favourite)

Tenn:The initial adrenaline of defying death, embracing freedom and fresh air, and findin a young man as vulnerable as her – at least until he woke up – had been replaced by the pain in her scarred, bare feet, the hunger in her gut and the fear of what might jump out at her from behind the next tree.

Jett:(after handling some bad dudes): “You won’t be raping anybody today so get back on your cart and go. In exchange for letting you live, please leave the entire basket of bread and one deer behind. Fair trade. Understood?” And then she killed them anyway. Love Jett.

Thoughts, comments and ramblings

I enjoy that Tenn realizes that not all men are evil. This book had strong characters – both male and female, which is awesome. I’m quite tired of the trope of men being weak or female characters being “strong independent women” who have unlimited power but still fall for two guys in a love triangle – this book has anything but a love triangle.

Replacing “fuck” with “fux” did get on my nerves a little at times, and I would have liked flat out swearing. This book is an angry and uplifting book and needs that edge.

I feel that Tenn may have been a little too powerful – she could have struggled a bit more and had more barriers – instead she walks through guards, enemies and the like very easily. I wanted more nail-biting sequences.

At the end of the book, I was satisfied by the revenge story but felt like so much more could be added to the world (the characters were solid though – written well for such a short book). This book feels more like Mammyth 0.5# than Mammyth 1#. My appetite is whet and I’m excited to learn more of the world. The world-building is solid but I feel like there could be so much more!

I would have liked to understand why Rythazar was the way he was – I prefer three dimensional villains. Looking for a male heir isn’t a reason to be a bastard – it would be interesting to have known about his childhood or reasons for why he’s so fucked up.

I love that this isn’t a straight-out feminazi text but built on a foundation of equality among the main characters while hinting at many inequalities faced by men and women.
I absolutely love the dialogue and banter in this book. I want more!

Conclusion
I recommend this to anyone who loves fantasy – be it 80s pulp, modern Young Adult, modern Adult, Grim Dark – anything. I feel that there are elements in this book to be enjoyed by all lovers of fantasy.