![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Second Hand Curses
Aug. 31st, 2019 10:34 amI'm really surprised how much I enjoyed Second Hand Curses by Drew Hayes. This is another book I only picked up because it was on sale and looked fun. I ended up with way more than I'd expected.
It's not as lighthearted as the blurb would lead you to believe. Some really horrible, gruesome things happen, often perpetrated by our three leads, Jack, Frank, and Marie, collectively known as the Bastard Champions. You can't call them heroes really, but they're not quite villains either. They're the people you call when you have no other choice. When you need to welsh on a fairy bargain that would deliver you into slavery, when all of your town's children are being held to ransom by a con-man playing a flute, when a witch has captured a significant portion of your citizenry, and IF you can pay, you call the Bastard Champions.
As you can tell, there's a heavy element of twisted fairy tales at work in this story. The world it's set in is made up of lands focused on a certain type of stories, separated by difficult (to impossible) to pass seas. Although the bulk of the action takes place in the fairy tale lands, we see glimpses of a land of Gothic stories and one dedicated to The Arabian Nights tales. There's also a guiding principle overseeing each of these lands; for the fairy tale kingdoms that principle is called "The Narrative." The Narrative gives aid to certain types of people (royalty, for example) or people occupying certain roles (victims, those defending themselves). Everyone else can find themselves ground down and discarded - the red shirts of the story, utterly expendable. Learning to navigate the rules of The Narrative and turn them to your advantage, however, can lead to profit, and that's what the Bastard Champions try to do.
As interesting as that idea is, the real strengths of the story are the three leads and the audio format. There are three narrators for this story, one for each main character and then they split the supporting characters among them. As a result, it sounds more like a full cast audio than a traditional audiobook. The voice actors do a fantastic job and really make the characters endearing - even Jack eventually, who I found a bit annoying in the first few chapters. There's also some real depth to all three characters. The title comes from the fact that they're all dealing with curses they've inherited from their parents. I won't say any more for fear of spoilers, but I'll happily talk about them in the comments if anyone is interested.
All in all, the book is like following a bizarre D&D campaign set in a fairy tale universe. Check it out, if that sounds like your thing.
It's not as lighthearted as the blurb would lead you to believe. Some really horrible, gruesome things happen, often perpetrated by our three leads, Jack, Frank, and Marie, collectively known as the Bastard Champions. You can't call them heroes really, but they're not quite villains either. They're the people you call when you have no other choice. When you need to welsh on a fairy bargain that would deliver you into slavery, when all of your town's children are being held to ransom by a con-man playing a flute, when a witch has captured a significant portion of your citizenry, and IF you can pay, you call the Bastard Champions.
As you can tell, there's a heavy element of twisted fairy tales at work in this story. The world it's set in is made up of lands focused on a certain type of stories, separated by difficult (to impossible) to pass seas. Although the bulk of the action takes place in the fairy tale lands, we see glimpses of a land of Gothic stories and one dedicated to The Arabian Nights tales. There's also a guiding principle overseeing each of these lands; for the fairy tale kingdoms that principle is called "The Narrative." The Narrative gives aid to certain types of people (royalty, for example) or people occupying certain roles (victims, those defending themselves). Everyone else can find themselves ground down and discarded - the red shirts of the story, utterly expendable. Learning to navigate the rules of The Narrative and turn them to your advantage, however, can lead to profit, and that's what the Bastard Champions try to do.
As interesting as that idea is, the real strengths of the story are the three leads and the audio format. There are three narrators for this story, one for each main character and then they split the supporting characters among them. As a result, it sounds more like a full cast audio than a traditional audiobook. The voice actors do a fantastic job and really make the characters endearing - even Jack eventually, who I found a bit annoying in the first few chapters. There's also some real depth to all three characters. The title comes from the fact that they're all dealing with curses they've inherited from their parents. I won't say any more for fear of spoilers, but I'll happily talk about them in the comments if anyone is interested.
All in all, the book is like following a bizarre D&D campaign set in a fairy tale universe. Check it out, if that sounds like your thing.
