‘Kings of the Wyld’ – Nicholas Eames (Orbit)

It looks like it will be another short post today, work is being really demanding and I’ve got to finish in good time so I can go and hang out with my daughter’s pet rabbit (who is absolutely adorable but that is the subject of another post in an entirely different blog, anyway…) So, no change from normal then 😉

‘Kings of the Wyld’ is another one of those books that was lost in a number of culls/house moves back in the day. A few weeks ago, I had a real hankering to read it again and so here I am to tell you all about it 😊 It is definitely the book I remember reading and in this case, that is very much a good thing.

Glory never gets old…

Clay Cooper and his band were the best of the best, the most feared and renowned crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld.

Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay’s door with a plea for help – the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for. It’s time to get the band back together.

Having vague memories of ‘Kings of the Wyld’, I knew I was in for a good read but I’d completely forgotten how much fun it was at the same time. What I got then was a book that was incredibly easy to get into and very hard to put down. In fact, there was more than one occasion where I knew I wasn’t going to be able to put the book down, so I didn’t and this may explain why certain deadlines have become more pressing… 😉

The other reason this is going to be a fairly short post is that I’m well aware that ‘Kings of the Wyld’ is a slightly older book that a lot of people have had a lot of things to say about. I’m not really up for posting stuff that other people have said already (there doesn’t seem a lot point somehow) but there are a couple of things that did jump out at me and they’re things that I think you should read this book for, if you haven’t already.

I’m always on the lookout for more books to read that are reminiscent of David Gemmell at his most ‘lets explore the nature of humanity and look at what makes a hero’; it’s a ‘not guilty pleasure’ of mine to read his books and I’ll always pick up anything that promises more of the same. I don’t think I’ve come across anything that’s ‘more Gemmell’ than Eames showing us what makes his heroes tick, even when they don’t want to be the heroes that they are. You’ve got people like Clay who will do the right thing because it’s the right thing but you’ve got people like Ganelon and Matrick who doing it to further their own agenda (Mat wanting to escape his life) or just because they’re good at killing and the heroism is a bonus (Ganelon of course). I enjoyed really getting to know Clay but just as enjoyable was finding out that anyone can be a hero if they do the right thing, no matter what their reasons were to start off with.

And just as enjoyable was the fact that ‘Kings of the Wyld’ doesn’t take itself seriously at all, something that I’ve really needed over the last few weeks. It’s a full blown Technicolour cartoon of a read where the most amazing shit happens, just because it can and the story needs it to. Are the band ever in any real danger? Not at all but that’s kind of the whole point of the book. We’re getting the band back together and they are still amazing at what they do so you hang around for that final gig. What you get is a band that may be starting to rely on their reputation a little but is still more than capable of pulling off something amazing when they absolutely have to. And that is why we keep reading, books like this don’t come along all that often so we make the most of it while it’s here.

Can you tell that I enjoyed ‘Kings of the Wyld’? 😉 It’s the shot in the arm that every jaded fantasy fan needs, now I need to go and find a copy of ‘Bloody Rose’ and get myself all caught up…