‘Hero in the Shadows’ – David Gemmell (Corgi)

Thousands of years ago the evil city of Kuan Hador was defeated by a vast army of mystic warriors, the Enemy banished beyond the Gateway between Worlds. Spells of enormous power sealed the Gateway.

Now icy mists begin to form around the ruins of Kuan Hador. Awesome beasts stalk the hills and forests. The spells are fading. Beyond the Gateway the vengeful armies of Kuan Hador await.

And where years before a host stood against the Enemy, now only a handful of warriors prepare to face it once more: Kysumu the Swordsman, last of a dying breed, Yu Yu Liang, the ditch digger, Ustarte, the Beast-Priestess, and the mysterious Waylander.

Together they must solve an ancient mystery, which will bring the dead to life for a final battle outside Time.

But first Waylander must find a way to kill a man who cannot die...

Before we get into the book itself… I used to try and come up with my own blurbs, when writing a review, but now I’m all old and tired so just swipe an online blurb instead. And that’s what I did here and that’s where it should have ended but… no mention of Keeva Taliana? I mean, she didn’t do as much as the people in this blurb but she contributed enough to make it into the blurb on my copy of ‘Hero in the Shadows’, what is this revisionism…? It’s not a showstopper but Keeva hasn’t suddenly stopped being awesome, give her credit where it’s due. And breathe Graeme ;o)

Rant over. If you’ve been following the blog recently, you’ll know that I’ve been thoroughly enjoying revisiting the ‘Waylander’ books. If you haven’t, you can catch up with my reviews for ‘Waylander’ and ‘Waylander 2: In the Realm of the Wolf’ and we’ll see you in a bit.
Either way, you were always going to see me read ‘Hero in the Shadows’ so without further ado, lets crack on shall we…?

‘Hero in the Shadows’ is all the things that you’d expect from a Gemmell book but it’s a somber read at the same time. All the while that we’re with Waylander (as he fights his way through, well… everything), we know that this is his last fight (they don’t come any bigger than this one…) and that can only mean one thing. Waylander is going to be checking out, he has to both for his own sake and that of the story itself. The question isn’t so much ‘when’ as it is ‘how’ then, and that ‘how’… It’s fitting, in terms of the first book in particular, but… Did he deserve it? Maybe not but Waylander himself would understand that a reckoning was due and not only that, it gave him the opportunity to do one last good deed and that was his real ending. And it is so powerful, even after a number of re-reads. Gemmell knows his characters and his readers too… Your mileage may vary but I think we can all agree that Waylander got the ending that he wanted and the ending that he deserved. I’m still coming down after finishing the book yesterday, what Gemmell did there was masterful.

With all of that going on, it’s easy to forget that this war touches a whole load of other characters as well, all equally well drawn and people where I’m still sad where they haven’t made it to the end (even a couple of the evil Joinings, yep I said it). Add in some typically stirring battle scenes and ‘Hero in the Shadows’ is a compelling finale for a compelling character. It may seem a little trite to sum up a book like this but the bottom line is that ‘Hero in the Shadows’ is Gemmell being bloody brilliant (again) at what he does and that is all there is to it. Awesome to read but really difficult to write about if you’ve already reviewed the previous two books. It goes without saying though that you should read ‘Hero in the Shadows’, it really is worth your time.