Review: The Old Ways (Paladins III) by David Dalglish

Rating: 5 out of 5

No one’s perfect, but sometimes everything comes together, especially in literature. It’s fascinating to watch an author grow and grow, slowly improving over time, fixing faults in their writing, finding new ways to explore tired old plot devices, coming to grips with their weaknesses and making them strengths. It’s not all that rare in the world of books, but it’s still special.

And this brings us to The Old Ways: Paladins Book III by David Dalglish.

I, for one, am a huge fan of the author’s work. (Surprised? Look through my archived reviews and you won’t be.) I’ve read every book Dalglish has come out with, and either loved or really liked every one. But this one is something special. Gone is his penchant for rushing, for occasionally taking the easy way out and brushing aside important internal conflict. Instead, what the author has given us in this book is a pace that moves slowly, fluidly, that gradually builds the tension and grows the characters until they explode off the page in the last act.

The Old Ways continues with the struggles of Jericho, paladin of Ashhur, and Darius, former paladin of Karak. The story picks up where we left off in Clash of Faiths, with Darius being converted to the side of light in his trial-by-fire (and unnecessarily rushed) clash with his old friend. He’s a man isolated even when he’s surrounded by people. He’s haunted by his past deeds, both inwardly and outwardly, and the fact that many of those past deeds hurt a great many people does nothing but make life much more difficult for our poor antihero.

But he’s learning, changing, determined to become a better man, even if it kills him.

On the other side of the coin we have Jericho, the sometimes too-good-to-be-true goodie-goodie. While I loved his character when he first appeared in Half-Orcs, truth be told he can be a bit one-note with how honorable and loyal he is. But then again, his purpose in this story is to act as foil for Darius, for Darius is the true star of the show, the character that grows and experiences pain and redemption and acts like a living, breathing human being. He is the backbone of this novel—the backbone of the series, really—and in this book he really shines.

Along with Darius’s redemption, Dalglish also pushes the envelope with his new cadre of villains. We have Valessa, the Grey Sister who died in Faiths, only to be reborn as something dark and complex, a being of shadow that cannot rest until her mission (killing Darius) is accomplished. The scenes involving her were brilliantly done, full of contradiction, self-loathing, and doubt. If there’s one character that I hope future books explore deeper, it’s her.

Then we have Luther and Cyric, priests of Karak who start up the journey toward changing the world to fit their god’s image. The complexity of each character is fantastic. They’re literary interpretations of different ways of obtaining political power—subterfuge cunning, and force and tradition. Both are effective in their own ways, and to watch their respective plans unfold on the page was awe-inspiring. Especially with Luther, who offers a surprise at the end that literally left me speechless.

So yes, I can say that David Dalglish has done it again. He’s written a book full of trepidation and turmoil, full of violence and self-discovery, a book that I fully ingested with aplomb. I may not be someone you really want to listen to in regards to my opinion on this book, since I’m a little more than biased toward him, but in my humble opinion he has created a work that goes far beyond simply being a third book in a series.

And that’s because The Old Ways, while not perfect, is just about as close as any writer can get to that unreachable ideal.

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Review: Clash of Faiths by David Dalglish

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

David Dalglish writes what I want to read. He’s listed as a fantasy author, and his books take place in a world that includes magic, orcs, wolf-men, paladins, knights, and ancient gods, but that’s only the surface of what’s happening. I look at Dalglish’s work like this – whimsical explorations of modern-day themes and issues that both entertain and force the reader to examine what goes on in the real world around them.

Clash of Faiths, the second book in his Paladins series, is no different. It continues the story of Jerico and Darius, the paladins of Ashhur and Karak, respectively, and their struggles in the time after the attempted wolf-man invasion of Durham. Jerico finds himself up north, prisoner of a man named Kaide, who is heading up a people’s rebellion against the brutal Lord Hemman. It might not be the best of situations to be in, but at least he’s hidden from the legions of Karak who are hunting him, those who’ve recently destroyed the Citadel, leaving Jerico as possibly the last of his kind. All the while Darius is stumbling about all by his lonesome, getting into trouble and being an overall grouchypants after his run-in with Velixar, Karak’s prophet. And Velixar isn’t done with him…not in the slightest. It is the Big V’s principal goal to lead Darius back to his faith – or the Dark Side, if you will.

The story plays out in equally distributed parts, flipping from Jerico to Darius and back again, paralleling their respective struggles and demonstrating just the types of people these two faithful men are. Jerico joins forces with Kaide (who is actually one of my favorite characters Dalglish has ever created; a living, breathing, gray area of a concept) against Lord Sebastian Hemman, while Darius ends up being thrown in prison by said Lord, for the sin of not being faithful enough to Karak’s cause, even though Darius is constantly professing his love of the deity…and believing every word of it. It is there, while in prison, that Velixar comes to him once again, therefore setting the stage for the rest of the tale to play out.

The story climaxes in a final battle between Hemman’s men and Kaide’s army of farmers and merchants. Unlike most episodes of warfare in Dalglish’s novels, this one is brisk, taking up only perhaps a tenth of the text. Why is that? Because the fighting, while intriguing, isn’t the point of the book. It only serves as a metaphor for the war raging inside Darius’s head – can he love his friend even after all he’s been through, what constitutes righteousness in a faith that preaches order and conquest above adoration, and which system of belief is right, which is wrong, and does it even matter if he chooses one over the other?

This is what makes Dalglish’s books so special to me – those posed questions. And finally, we have the order of Karak shown to be what I’ve long suspected it is – a religious cult that uses suppression and mind control to grow its following. One might ask, but why would someone willingly join a cult like that? The answer is quite simple, given the context of the world it exists in: there is safety in power, in influence, and Karak offers that. The deity promises protection (and a lack of decapitation) to those who follow, while those who don’t are doomed to a lifetime of pain and flight from an aggressive enemy. Add to that the fact that the concepts of order and self-control are the tenets of the faith, and one could understand how an individual who feels unstable could look at the order as a way to heal the fractured parts within them. There are many similar cults, such as Scientology, in the world today that do much of the same. They rely on coercion and peoples’ inherent insecurities to draw them in, promising solutions to the ills of their lives, and then instill the members with an us-against-the-world mentality. If you’re not for us, you’re against us, to the extreme. It is these elements that make Dalglish’s books that much more important, not to mention insightful, than many other works of fiction.

To counterbalance Karak’s aggressive, neo-fascist nature, we have followers of Ashhur, the passive, loving god. When I first started reading these novels, I always took Ashhur to be a representation of Christianity – which I’m sure the author intended. However, the more I read, the more I realize that this is not entirely the case. In fact, you can look at it like this: Ashhur’s teachings are the manifestation of all that is good in spiritual belief; the care for others, the virtue of forgiveness, the living of life with the sole aim of being the best individual you can be. It’s an inclusive system of belief, one in which all people, even those who don’t believe, are treated as equals. Unlike the history of Christianity, Ashhur’s followers don’t actively seek to convert the people, only to show how much they care, saying that if you ever need a place to stay, a steadying hand to lead the way, someone to heal your sore and tired bones, we’ll be here with no strings attached. In other words, everyone has a chance at salvation, whether they buy into the dogma or not. And Jerico embodies this. He treats every person he meets with the same amount of respect until they prove a danger. This is also the reason why Darius has a very difficult time understanding his friend’s actions: to the dark paladin, existence is a series of trials, of sacrifices, both mentally and physically, to a demanding god. The mere concept of something like forgiveness, or even pity, are lost on him, at least on the surface. But once he dives a little deeper, he has the potential to learn that not only is he capable of changing, of becoming something other than the stormtrooper of death he is, but all people are. And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent here, and I’m sure this sounds more like a term paper than a review, but I felt this book deserved to be broken down in this way. Every word written down means something ­– each line of dialogue, each description, each instance of cruelty or kindness. That being said, the only thing I didn’t like about Clash of Faiths was the very end of the book. After so much flowing prose and inner turmoil, it seemed that suddenly everything happens too quickly, especially Darius’s character development. I would’ve liked some more exposition, more scenes of him questioning his faith and coming to grips with the possibility that what he’s always believed may be a lie. But that didn’t happen, and in a way that’s a shame. Darius and Jerico, and their relationship as brothers-in-spirit, deserved it.

That being said, this is still a wonderful book. It more than adds to the canon of David Dalglish’s work – it creates a template for the beliefs of the world that I’m sure will be carried on in volumes to come. The scenes that built upon what we already know about the characters were wonderful. And Velixar? Let’s just say he’s deliciously evil, and whenever he appears on the page, that scene becomes his. Also, one thing the ending did get right was introduce us to a new, potentially lethal villain, one that I’m sure will appear in the next book and wreck all sorts of ungodly havoc. Just that has me excited to continue.

In closing, Clash of Faiths is well worth a read, for both fans of Dalglish and those new to his work. It’s filled with important questions and shrewd observations of the world at large, and it is an improvement on the previous book in the series. I seriously can’t give the author any more props than to say I’m a fan for life, that everything he does strikes me where it counts, and it is always a joy to read what he puts on paper. To me he is the best fantasy author of his generation, the Stephen King of the sword-and-sorcery genre who transcends the normal tropes, and even when there are things I think can be improved, what he puts out there is second to absolutely no one.

Seriously.

Plot – 10

Characters - 10

Voice - 10

Execution - 7

Personal Enjoyment – 9

Overall – 46/50 (4.6/5)

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