The Stealer's War is the third in Stephen Hunt’s “Far-Called”
series. It’s an adventure story, filled
with high-stakes duels, roaring battlegrounds, betrayals, romances, and some
serious twists.
The world of The Stealer's war, as with the remainder of the
Far Called series, is part of a far, far larger one. The narrative’s focus is largely
on the nation of Weyland and surrounding areas, but there’s a greater tapestry
visible around the edges. Weyland is a country edging slowly into an industrial
revolution, a hereditary aristocracy gradually being subsumed into an
industrialist class.
There’s some interesting room for conflict there, but
Weyland is being torn apart by other means – divided between two feuding
royals, one rather more heroic than the other, but somewhat less ably supplied.
The former’s troops are now dispersed in guerrilla actions, an informal war
from behind civilian cover. The author shows us the bloody reality of Weyland
at war – hit and run strikes, ambushes, deaths of collaborators. Two books ago,
it felt like the solid backdrop to a different story; it’s now wracked by fire,
and feels far more fragile – but it’s a wonderfully realised country gradually
falling into total war.
Then there’s Vandia. The superpower of the Far Called world,
breaking armies of horses and crossbowmen using gunships and gauss guns, paying
for their progress with a violent, competition-driven society which demands
(and rewards) utter ruthlessness. We spent a good deal of time there in the
previous volume – in this one, we’re following the “punishment expedition” sent
to Weyland to nominally retrieve a lost Princess – and allow the settling of a
few old scores out of sight. The Vandians are always a delight to read; they’re
not, generally, bad people, but live within a system which causes and sustains
untold misery. There’s discussion of how Vandian society remains in place, and
we see a different, more human face to the Empire here – following a group of
Legionnaires, along with a Weylander, as they drive forward on a rescue mission. Vandians, it seems, are people too; they’re just
distorted off the norm by the society they’ve built.
Rodal also features heavily. We’ve heard it mentioned in
previous books, the mountain kingdom, the Walls of the World, and even met one
of its famed pilots. Now we get a little more – clambering the claustrophobic
air ducts inside the mountainous cities; sailing the river with supply barges.
Breathing the thin air alongside the soaring, brutal winds. Hunt makes Rodal
feel distinct to everything we’ve seen
so far – a more confined, but more pervasively spiritual world, with a martial
bent.
And then, of course, there’s the nomads. Rodal’s oldest foe,
breaking against the mountains. They’re familiar in a lot of ways, with a
system of honour, a nomadic semi-democracy, and a tendency to settle
disagreements with single combat. But there’s some lovely twists wrapped up in
there – the way that the nomads are guided by a sorcerer who may be more than
he seems. Or the witches that stare into the darkness of probability and guide
the clans. There’s a complex society here, one it would be great to see more
of. To be fair, that’s true of each of the conflicting groups the author has
conjured. We largely see each society through the eyes of strangers to it, and
pick up as much of the larger and smaller details as we can – there’s enough
here for stories set within each of these places as well. Hunt’s world building
has always been solid. After three books, he’s created a rich weave of
cultures, traditions and societies which it’s a pleasure to be lost in.
As for the characters. Well, by this point in the story, we’re
already familiar with most of them. There’s Pastor Carnehan, the priest-turned
general, a master of total war, increasingly driven by his lust for vengeance. There’s
his son Carter, who spends most of the
text in the company of the cryptic Sariel, a half-mad bard who drifts in and
out of being more than he seems. Carter is defined by his love for another,
Willow Landor, whose tribulations took up some of the preceding text. It’s nice
to see him less conflicted here, given a clear goal and at least theoretically,
the means to achieve it. Sariel, by contrast, gets a bit more time – now more
coherent, he feels like a man trying to play a long game whilst also working
out how the pieces move. It’s interesting to see his development from insanity
to the semi-humanity of this text. He feels like a person developing a conscience
– or at the least some compassion – and trying to decide whether to keep it.
Willow – well, Willow spends an irritating amount of time
getting captured. She really needs to get better at escaping or fighting.
Still, in between bouts of horror, she does reasonably well. There’s some room
for character development here, as she deals with the strains of unwanted
motherhood, and the pressures of being…well, continually abducted or otherwise
tormented. There’s little of the girl from the first book left now, or even the
more hardened ex-slave from the one before . She’s focused now, cool, and able
to drive her agenda with a great deal of talent – when she’s not being
chloroformed or held at gunpoint.
There’s more, of course. The villains are, in the main,
appallingly unpleasant. I’m not entirely convinced that between them they have
a thimbleful of redeeming qualities. Still. As in Othello, there’s a pleasure
in watching an unredeemable villain take apart the scenery to achieve their
goals. There’s some interesting conflict in perception as we watch some
characters prepare to defend Rodal, and others prepare to invade it, one way or
the other, all for the best of motivations. This more subtle conflict between
points of view is subtly done, managing to keep us sympathetic to all sides of
the equation, tearing our empathy between the different factions, who seem
unable to exist together. Of course, every so often, we’re given some time with
some proper black-hearts as well. Hunt manages to keep his plates spinning, all
of his protagonists feeling memorable, distinct, a vivid dance of personalities
at large – and his real antagonists absolute sinkholes of villainy.
The plot – well, it’s a large book, and rather a lot goes
on. I won’t spoil it, but will say this: by the end of the book, absolutely
everything - from the characters relationships, to the Weyland civil war, to
the broader political situation, to the larger conflict hinted at in the
preceding novels – everything changes. We fight wars with the Vandians , guerrilla
strikes with the Weylanders. Follow Willow’s struggles with her family at the
capital of the villainous king. Care for refugees in Rodal, and ride with the
nomads against it. There’s a lot of conflict here, both personal and in a
storm of battles that look to redefine the world we came in to at the start of
the novel. It’s a sea change, one which rumbles on ominously at an
unrelentingly fast pace, gripping onto the reader and not letting go.
Is it worth reading? If you’ve not picked up the previous
books in the series, I’d recommend starting there instead. High adventure and
excitement abound here, but it needs context to be truly intriguing. If you’re
already invested in the series, then you owe it to yourself to pick this one up
– it’s an absolutely wonderful read, and I can’t wait to spend more time in the
Far Called world.
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