The Maleficent Seven
The Maleficent Seven by Cameron Johnston Published by Angry Robot on August 10th, 2021
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 424
Format: eARC
Goodreads
When you are all out of heroes, all that's left are the villains.
Black Herran was a dread demonologist, and the most ruthless general in all Essoran. She assembled the six most fearsome warriors to captain her armies: a necromancer, a vampire lord, a demigod, an orcish warleader, a pirate queen, and a twisted alchemist. Together they brought the whole continent to its knees... Until the day she abandoned her army, on the eve of total victory.
40 years later, she must bring her former captains back together for one final stand, in the small town of Tarnbrooke - the last bastion against a fanatical new enemy tearing through the land, intent on finishing the job Black Herran started years before.
Seven bloodthirsty monsters. One town. Their last hope.
Firstly, thank you so much to the lovely folks at Angry Robot for sending me a copy for review! And for including me on their tour for this book!
After I started reading this book, I realized that I don’t think I’ve really read a grimdark fantasy before? Okay I guess I’ve read Joe Abercrombie’s Shattered Sea trilogy, but that still felt a bit toned down (maybe because it’s young adult?). Anyway, I was kind of nervous. What if it’s too dark? Too gory? I was worried about liking it BUT it turns out I didn’t need to be worried. Yes, it was dark and gory and gruesome, of course. But it was also filled with humor and super interesting characters and scheming and so much more.
Found…anti-family?
I said this already on my Instagram post for the Angry Robot tour, but the tagline for this book is basically “What up assholes, we’re getting the band back together!” That’s a succinct way of putting the synopsis haha. This isn’t found family, exactly, since all the characters pretty much hate each other. Anti-found family? Is that a thing? Anyway, I really loved seeing how they all planned to betray each other. It was a really neat way to explore how working relationships can change, and how deep personal actions can affect other people. Though to be fair, not all of them HAAAATED each other. Like yes, some did want to kill each other, but I loved the banter and camaraderie between Amogg (orc chief) and Tiarnach (former war god).
The journey to recruit each character was also very well done. Sometimes journey stories can feel boring, just too much description of the travel and landscape, but Johnston did a great job of keeping that part to the point, and making the focus the character interaction along the way. The different places they visited were really cool, and I loved seeing the different creatures (orcs, hivers, vampires, etc).
Good balance of action + character depth
I would say the two major strong points of this book were the fighting/action scenes and the characters themselves. In the section above I talked about how I liked seeing the character interactions. I also loved getting to know each character individually, and to see what is driving them. It was wonderful to see seven unique main characters and actually get to know them all. I can’t say that the characters were relatable, since I’m not an evil mastermind or violence-inclined person. But I still ended up liking each one of the characters! I think that speaks to the author’s ability to create well-fleshed out characters that are fun to read about. Johnston also did a wonderful job of weaving the background and character information in with the action. It never felt boring or info-dumpy to learn about any of them.
So yes, the action, the second major aspect. I mean, it’s a revenge story, and there’s war captains and armies, so there’s going to be some fighting. There was a great balance between the setup and the actual action. I really appreciate that the fight/war scenes lasted just as long as they needed to, and didn’t drag out. There were also a lot of different battle scenes, not just the final stand. It was a great way to build up tension and see what the team was capable of. I think that’s what made the action so strong – it was a way to get to know the characters! So as the title of this section says lol there was a great balance between these two aspects of action and character depth.
I had a great time reading this one, and I’m looking forward to what Cameron Johnston writes next! The Maleficent Seven is out now, so go find it at your favorite (preferably indie) bookstore.
Leave a Comment