Nightrunners

Luck in the Shadows, Stalking Darkness, Traitor’s Moon – The Nightrunner series Lynn Flewelling ***

Is there anything worse in the world than the bitter disappointment in a book?
Well, yes, of course there is lots of worse things. But right now, let me tell you, it’s hard to imagine more than one or two.
It’s not that Luck in the Shadows a poor book. It’s just...just...just not all I imagined it would be. I feel like I did when I first saw the casting of Legolas in PJ’s LotR. What was supposed to be one of the greatest moments of my life just fell flat on the ground and left med with a horrendous disappointment and a growing rage. At least this time I will not howl threats about cliffs, manacles and wrists in the general direction of the perpetrator.
Will not.
Will not.
Ah, what the hell just once more...(You’re gone live to regret this, Peter Jackson! I’ll hang you from a cliff by your hand until someone finds an eagle huge enough to carry you down, fat boy!)

Back on track....
Nightrunners is what you would get if you took Eddings character Silk and gave him his own story. Great premises, right? A lot of cloak-and-daggers, intrigues and witty remarks. Alas, no. This story is as straightforward as anything, and anyway the super-spy Seregil lays mad, wounded and/or unconscious most of the time. Wasn’t he supposed to be good at his job?

Alec is a young boy, accidentally mistaken for a spy, who get rescued by this strange man
(? yeah, you get pretty quickly what he is, pointy ears or not...) called Seregil. Having apparently nothing better to do with his life, he decides to follow this supposed clever, suspicious, charming and dangerous man, who seems thinks it’s a great idea to pull a farm boy who’s showing some talent with a bow into his life.
Or is that really the meat–and-bone of their relationship?
Something is growing between the two of them, something more than pure friendship, and it’s complicating Seregils relationship to his pupil to no end as the story moves on through the usual “evil whatnot found and must be destroyed through horrendous suffering” plot. Alecs more and more bemused reactions to his teachers desperate attempts not to show his growing love are somewhat amusing, but not as much as you would think.
This is a shameless fantasy, with no intention of pretending to reality or even realism (people who have just been tortured for a couple of days just shake that of and walk away once they’re freed). But I can live with that, no problem. Unfortunately the plot is really drab and uninteresting. The bad guys are really bad – they’re necromancers, so of course they’re evil. (Wouldn’t it be nice with a necromancer hero? After all, it must be a lot better using already dead bodies in war than fresh and living ones, right? Right? Then again, Abhorrsen is a good necromancer... And I suppose there are ‘good’ necromancers in the Death Gate cycle as well...fine! The idea was as fresh as a week old corpse.) Good guys are really good - or at least their burglary and thieving is explained away; it can’t be bad since their on the good side, right? and the only new fresh and exciting part is the ‘Brokeback Fantasy’ theme (nothing explicit, don’t worry ;o) and even that is barely enough to keep up interest. After all, slash has been done before and oh so much better in, for example, Poppy. Z. Brites novels, or Ann Rice, or Robin Hobb or indeed Steven Erikson.
All in all, a nice little read on a rainy autumn evening but not much more.
And yes, I can spot the innuendo in the title “Luck in the shadows” as well as anyone, thank you, but a lady does not speak of such matters.

Book quote: I’ve seen him go through fire, swordfights, magic and two feet worth of shit without complaining, but deny him a hot bath at the end of it, and he fusses like a kept whore.