'The Man With One Name' – Tom Lloyd (Gollancz)

It's been ages since I've read anything by Tom Lloyd, years in fact. I don't know how that happened as I enjoyed reading 'Stormcaller' but life well and truly got in the way and the next thing I know, it's years later and I'm wondering where the time went. Damn...

Anyway... 'The Twilight Reign' series may be beyond me now (a bit gutted about this but the fact is, I'm just rubbish at finishing big series) but Lloyd has written other series since then and I thought I'd check one of those out instead. I'll be totally honest, what swung it for 'The God Fragments' series was 'The Man With No Name' only being £1.99 on Kindle and also only being 68 pages long. I'm all about the quick reads these days so I bought 'The Man With One Name' and started reading...

I'll talk about it in greater detail a paragraph or two down the page but what I'll tell you now is that when I finished 'The Man With One Name', I went and ordered myself a copy of 'Stranger of Tempest' which should tell you all you need to know about 'The Man With One Name'. If you want to know more anyway, keep reading...

Salterin is a town full of fear. Fear and sheep. But mostly fear.
It lies in the north of a principality recently shattered by the Hanese war, cut off from its neighbours and warily watching the advance of winter. Bandits and wolves haunt the woods, but something worse lies within. A monster named Therian has installed himself as lord of the manor and no one is foolish enough to oppose him.

In their hour of need comes a man with one name. A man who will not suffer monsters. Or mutton. But mostly monsters.

I might have missed it (it's half term and the kids have been manic...) but I never found out Lynx's views on mutton, one way or the other, but who am I to get in the way of a funny bit of blurb? We do find out about all the rest of it though and it all bundles together to make a quick, high spirited read that left this reader more than keen to find out more about Lynx. I think you'll be seeing more of his adventures, on this blog, in the near future.

It's funny how, a couple of days ago, I was saying how I don't really read Westerns... 'The Man With One Name' is very much a Western masquerading as a fantasy. It kind of crept up on me and before I knew, I was reading about a stranger coming to town, reluctantly taking up the sheriff's badge (well, 'Reeve' but we all know different don't we?) and taking on the evil land Baron (well, just 'Baron' here but again, we all know different) who has the town in the grip of fear... All it needed was a couple of shoot outs, on the main street, and a bar brawl and... Hang on, there were a couple of shoot outs, on the main street and a bar brawl. The evil henchmen even tried to attack the elderly lady's farm.

I'm being a little flippant here but don't get me wrong, I loved this little slice of world that Lloyd has put together in just 68 pages, it's brilliant and I want more. There is none of that self consciousness that you get when you know you're mining tropes and play things a little too serious to balance that out. Nope, Lloyd knows exactly what he has on his hands and clearly knows that the best thing to do is pay a little homage by letting those tropes run wild and just be what they are. The result feels a little familiar (because you watched it on TV as a kid) but it is so much fun. I can't stress that enough actually. So. Much, Fun.

Especially the ending, I never saw that coming but it totally made sense for Lynx to do that and it may be the only time I've ever laughed out loud at a gunfight. I won't spoil it for you but you should read it for yourself.

'The Man With One Name' is a short read but Lloyd makes room amongst the gunfire to let us get to know Lynx just a little bit and it's time well spent. At first glance, he's your average gunfighter (although there's nothing average about his mage-gun and what it shoots, I'm looking forward to finding out more) but there are enough hints at a hard past which has led Lynx to where he is now. There's only so much you can fit into 68 pages, I'm hoping that a lot more will be made of Lynx's past in the full length novels.

'The Man With One Name' was £1.99 very well spent and a great exercise in how much fun can be found in just over an hour and a half's reading. If you've got a Kindle, I'd grab a copy sooner rather than later if you have a soft spot for 'fantasy Westerns'. I didn't know that I had that particular soft spot but now I do, I'm going to indulge it.