Set in an age where the mass expansion of imperial power is starting to grow beyond its means and a sense of order must be instilled to quell the religious and civil unrest, The Justice of Kings follows Sir Konrad Vonvalt. As the Emperor’s Justice, it is Vonvalt’s mission to roam the lands of Sovan to adjudicate any crimes that have been committed and deliver swift justice.
Acting as judge, jury and executioner, gifted with dark powers of necromancy and equipped with ‘The Emperor’s Voice’ (a supernatural ability to compel a man to speak the truth), Vonvalt, his loyal and fierce right-hand man Bressinger, and Helena the faithful and youthful clerk, arrive in a wealthy merchant town, to investigate the death of a local noblewoman and uncover the perpetrator.
As Vonvalt starts to dig deeper into the underbelly of the town, he soon realises that this murder is not an isolated incident, and something much more sinister and rebellious lurks in the shadows…
Packaged as an epistolary from the perspective of a now-elderly Helena, the story is told with the kind of candour and revere that Doctor Watson might show Sherlock Holmes. The Conan-Doyle influences don’t stop there either. As the plot unravels, there is a giddy urgency to the characters’ actions that pulls you along with a feeling that a game is very much afoot.
Author Richard Swan delivers an addictive new grimdark fantasy with The Justice of Kings, bestowing audiences with compelling characters, vivid worldbuilding and flashes of noble brutality. Indeed, Swan has all but transformed the hard-hitting sci-fi character of Judge Dredd and dressed him the trappings of the finest fantasy.
Taking further character cues from The Witcher, Justice Vonvalt is an intelligent and pensive travelling companion to his friends and a terrifyingly deadly adversary to those who would do wrong. Grumpy and just, what makes Vonvalt all the more engaging is Swan’s willingness to gently erode the traditional fantasy character tropes and bring a sympathetic reality to their actions. Not a hero or a villain, not even an anti-hero, Vonvalt is a recognisably human character – compassionate and flawed – yet injected with enough charm and charisma to suck you into his world.
Billed as book one in the new ‘Empire of the Wolf’ series, Swan has constructed a recognisably Germanic fantasy land sown with rich and fertile ideas that play out with uninhibited confidence. An engrossing story blessed with elegant plotting, considered characters and visceral action, this is a broadsword-brandishing, magically powerful debut that knows what makes fantasy fun.
The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan is out now from Orbit Books. Read more SciFiNow book reviews here.