Dantastic Book Reviews

When the forces of good prove to be a bunch of assholes, the world needs a bad guy to settle the score.  With his demonic spiked armor and flaming sword, Kannon comes to the City of D to set things right...

Antipaladin Blues is a novella that takes the standard Dungeons & Dragons inspired fantasy tropes and drops them on their heads.  The main character is a carnage-loving antipaladin and the rest of what will eventually resemble an adventuring party consist of a denim-wearing mage, a lady alchemist trying to make a go of things in a man's world, and Frank Burley, last of the red-hot archliches.  

The worldbuilding is surprisingly good for a novella of this type.  Imagine a world where wizards suppress non-magical healing techniques and the emperor plots against his own people.

The book runs on ultraviolence and anachronistic humor, reading like a twisted version of Sam Raimi's Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.  There are also quite a few Dungeons and Dragons inside jokes, making for a funny read but at no time does the humor descend to a silly level.  The ultraviolence is the star of the show.

The thing that separates Kannon from a lot of dark fantasy characters is that he knows what he is and loves it.  There's no lamentation, no regrets, just a bastard in a spikey suit of armor kicking ass and taking names, the asses in question belonging to paladins, wizards, angels, psionicists, and all sorts of other things.

Antipaladin Blues is a fun read and I'm hoping Jess Gulbranson continues the story in the future.  3.5 out of 5 stars.