‘Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress’ – John Jakes (Paperback Library)

I didn’t see myself getting any books read this week, apart from ITIL study books, but I’ve been chipping away at this one (a few pages here and there) and the next thing I knew, it was the last page and I was done. Go me 😊 I don’t think you’ll see another book post this week (seriously, my exam is tomorrow…) but this one isn’t a bad one to be going on with in the meantime 😉

‘Brak the Barbarian’ has been a favourite of mine for years now but this is only the second time, in a number of years, that I’ve been able to read ‘Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress’. These books weren’t so easy to come by, back in the day, and when I did manage to get hold of them, well… I was rubbish at keeping hold of them (not all of it my fault but even so…) Reading ‘Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress’ was like a ‘first time read’ then. Let me tell you about it.

“The road is long to Khurdisan, barbarian. Beware of Septegundus. I will be there…”

Clad only in a lionskin, armed only with his broadsword, a barbarian in a savage, primitive world, Brak rides alone southward to golden Khurdisan. He is menaced every step of the way by the threat of the black wizard Septegundus.

Suddenly one fork in the road is blocked by a magic landfall. The other path leads to a desolate land cursed by a beautiful sorceress who seeks Brak’s life force for the sinister rite that will transform here into the embodiment of evil.

In my review for the first ‘Brak’book I said that, ‘You may feel like you've read 'Brak the Barbarian' before, just with a different title, but you can't deny how much fun it is…’ That’s still very much the case here which is really frustrating, when you’re trying to come up with something new to say about a book, but the bottom line is that’s exactly what this book is. Written to a tried and trusted formula (I mean, it’s the very definition of ‘Sword and Sorcery’) but with loads happening and an engaging lead. It’s a very honest read in that respect; ‘Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress’ makes no attempts to be anything other than it is and while it is a little on the ‘too straightforward side’, it still manages to do what it does very well.

‘Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress’ is just adventure and Brak fighting monsters more or less from start to finish. While the outcome is never really in doubt (again, Sword & Sorcery…), Jakes does really well to keep things suspenseful throughout. Brak is an accomplished fighter but Jakes lets us know that Brak is fighting at the limits of his capabilities and that keeps things finely balanced enough to be interesting. There’s also a sweet little vein of horror running through the book that ties in nicely with the events of the first book, not as Lovecraftian as before but a great line in the whole ‘rot hiding under sweetness’ concept.

And Brak… Not the brightest Barbarian in the box but once he has (finally) solved a mystery, he will hang around and make sure that he does the right thing and that is really all you can ask of a hero. He may find it harder than most but Brak is a hero and he shows it to good affect here.

And that is all I can really say without ending up copying and pasting my first ‘Brak’ review 😉 ‘Brak the Barbarian versus the Sorceress’ is another fun helping of ‘Sword and Sorcery’ that may not do anything new but does its thing very well and is all the more fun for it. I’ll let this read sink in for a bit and then it’s onto ‘The Mark of the Demons’, when I can find it… 😉