Review: Noble Roots

Title: Noble Roots

Series: Spells, Swords, & Stealth #5

Author: Drew Hayes

Genre: Sword & Sorcery

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, gore, violence, body horror, parent death (mentions), spouse death, grief, confinement, unreality, injury, murder

Spoiler Warning: This book is fifth in a series, so reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of previous books.

Back Cover:

For generations, nobles have gathered at a scenic estate once per year to compete. What transpires there is spoken of only in rumors, save for the prizes. Potent, powerful, and precious; the winners are said to receive a gift from magic itself.

Reeling after their loss to Kalzidar, the adventurers from Maplebark can only press forward, following advice imparted by the gods. Their divine directions will lead them on a series of twisting paths, branching between old friends and new challenges, before ultimately pointing at a particular estate on a specific evening.

Thrust from the familiar comfort of the wilds, the party will have to navigate the perils of noble society while keeping themselves in the competition. Between scheming nobles, a hidden high priest, dangerous challenges, and too many familiar faces, just making it out alive will be a challenge. But surviving alone won’t be enough; not with a vengeful god scheming in the shadows, and a stolen soul waiting for rescue.

If the party wants their chance to strike back, they’ll have to find a way to emerge victorious.

Review:

I don’t know how many books are left in this series, but it feels like the series is moving into the endgame. Kalzidar has been an enemy since book two, pretty much, but he’s finally taken his position as the main antagonist and BBEG. “Monster of the week”-style plots have overall been replaced with D&D style main plot with sidequests to get things required for the main plot. And overall, the tension is ramping up, and it just feels like everything is going to come to a head soon.

Also, this book is really long and has a lot going on. So this review is probably going to get pretty long and cover a lot of random aspects.

This is, weirdly, a book with more emphasis on parents. In the meta storyline, Russell’s mom gets involved in the mystery of Broken Bridge publishing and even gets a bit of an arc. I have a feeling she’ll be coming back in the future, too. And with our favorite cast of NPCs, the parents left behind in Maplebark are no longer just distant figures causing guilt. Eric and Gabrielle get to confront some stuff!

This is also the first time I noticed symbolism in this series. A big theme here is growth, and there’s a lot of tree and plant symbolism. The NPCs get to see how much they’ve grown since book one, both compared to others who are not as far along their journeys and compared to their memories of their past selves. Having some parents around to see their growth through the eyes of someone who wasn’t along for the journey just emphasized it. Even in the meta storyline, there’s a bit where Russell and Sherry’s mom notices them growing up and maturing. And there’s so much symbolism of plants, trees, and plant monsters mixed into the fantasy elements of the story.

Speaking of elements of the story, there are so many. I feel like I’ve been handed a whole box full of puzzle pieces, but I don’t know where any of them fit yet. There’s the PCs of the people in the meta storyline, who have barely interacted with our NPC protagonists but get enough page time that I know they have to factor in somewhere. There’s Russell’s mom, a new element as of this book but who seems to be more connected to everything than anyone suspects. There’s the whole question of how exactly the meta storyline is going to tie into everything. There’s the mystery of Broken Bridge Publishing and the girl with the colorful hair who definitely knows more than she’s saying. There’s Eric’s parentage, another surprise element introduced in this book. There’s Timiscore’s paladin powers. And of course, there’s the Bridge itself, which has taken a back seat over the past two books but I’m pretty sure is the lynchpin driving all of this somehow. I have no clue how it’s going to fit together but I can’t wait to find out.

I say this every review, but I still adore the NPCs. They’re all growing so much, improving as adventurers, and finding their place in the adventuring life. This series even does a remarkable job balancing the sheer number of characters going on. Noble Roots is more of an Eric and Gabrielle book, but not by much. (I also want to say how much I appreciate that Eric and Gabrielle’s friendship has never once tipped over into romance and they’re explicitly not interested in each other that way. They’re the obvious romantic pairing, but it’s just not happening and it’s refreshing.) I also love how the whole story feels like it definitely could be a D&D adventure, but it also goes off the rails and becomes more. It pretty accurately captures the feeling that this is just a D&D adventure with self-aware NPCs.

I have no clue when the next book in the series comes out. Considering this one just came out earlier this year, I’m guessing it won’t be soon. But I’m very much looking forward to it. It feels like the climax is approaching and I’m excited to find out how all of these pieces and storylines come together. But also I love this idea, I love the world, and I truly adore the NPC characters. Whenever book six does come out, I’m ready.

The Spells, Swords, & Stealth series:

1. NPCs
2. Split the Party
3. Going Rogue
4. Siege Tactics
5. Noble Roots

Review: Siege Tactics

Title: Siege Tactics

Series: Spells, Swords, & Stealth #4

Author: Drew Hayes

Genre: Sword & Sorcery

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, violence, injury, body horror, animal death (mentions), animal injury (mentions), grief (mentions)

Spoiler Warning: This book is fourth in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers for the first three books in the series.

Back Cover:

Putting the Grand Quest behind them, the party rides onward in search of answers. Between one member’s unexpected new condition and the mysteries of the Bridge, their only hope appears to be gaining entrance to Lumal, said to hold the greatest collection of knowledge in all the kingdoms.

But when a curious path appears in a seemingly uninhabited forest, the party finds themselves in a place set apart from the kingdoms, and the world at large: a hidden hamlet, filled by unusual people, all of whom have long histories of their own.

Soon sealed inside the town by unseen forces, the former NPCs will have to uncover what brought them there—and who is keeping them trapped—while there’s still time to fight back. Because something more is brewing, something involving the very gods themselves. With unknown enemies to the front and supposed allies at their rear, the party will need more than their usual tricks if they hope to see the outside world once more.

Review:

This series is dramatically evolving from what it was when it started. But I’m enjoying the new direction quite well.

This book, especially compared with the previous book, had significantly less of the meta storyline. I didn’t mind this – by the end of Going Rogue, I’d accepted that the meta storyline was going to be a bigger part of the rest of the series, but I still like the fantasy world shenanigans with the main cast of NPCs better. What this book did have more of was the PCs played by Russell and his RPG-playing party. I think most of it was to illustrate what the NPC protagonists were learning about the Bridge, but I actually enjoyed it. I’m kinda starting to like the PCs, and I think chances are high they’re going to break free of Russell’s group’s influence at some point in the future. That could be very fun. (It would also be an absolutely astonishing amount of characters to balance, but this series seems to have no problems balancing large amounts of characters.)

The cast of NPCs-turned-adventurers, though, are still my absolute favorite. I adore all of them, and I love how they can take turns in the limelight without any of them falling too far into the background. They’re distinct and unique individuals, but they’re also a coherent and almost entirely unified group. I love their group dynamics, their emotions, and the way they grow. Timiscore really shone in this one, and Gabrielle and Thistle got some of the spotlight as well. In many ways, Thistle is the heart of the group, but they’re all in this together and I love them all so much.

Though there is a bit of adventuring stuff, like exploration and combat, going on in this book, it’s much more about finding answers. The NPCs learn some about how the world works, quite a bit about how magic works, and a little about the Bridge and its whole deal. We also learn a bit more about Fritz (I knew she would be back! I didn’t expect her so soon though), although what we do learn raises a bunch of other questions. And as we learned more about the world and what’s happening, understanding began to dawn (on both me and the NPCs) about the true stakes in this story.

For a series that started as mostly a humorous fantasy poking fun at RPG tropes, it had some surprising serious notes and emotional depth. At this point, there’s almost no humor left. A dark, sinister underlying plot has been slowly rolling into motion and now it’s moved forward enough that we’ve noticed it. And it’s still picking up momentum and catching the NPCs in its cogs. Over the course of the past few books, this series transitioned from humor with an emotional heart to serious and high stakes with far-reaching consequences even into the real world. And now that I’ve figured out that’s what it’s doing and stopped comparing it with NPCs, I’m back on board with this series being 100% awesome again.

This whole series is brilliant. It grabbed me with a funny mockery of fantasy RPG tropes, kept me hooked with loveable and endearing characters, surprising emotional depth and resonance, and an interesting meta element, and deftly transitioned the story from light satire to something deeper and darker, full of magical questions and twisty sinister plots with high stakes for multiple worlds. Whenever I start to expect something from this series, it ends up being so much better than I dreamed. I am loving it.

The Spells, Swords, & Stealth series:

1. NPCs
2. Split the Party
3. Going Rogue
4. Siege Tactics
5. Noble Roots

Review: Going Rogue

Title: Going Rogue

Series: Spells, Swords, & Stealth #3

Author: Drew Hayes

Genre: Sword & Sorcery

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, violence, injury, body horror, major character death, animal death, murder (mentions)

Spoiler Warning: This book is third in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers for the first two books in the series, NPCs and Split the Party.

Back Cover:

Adventuring is a costly affair, and while the tolls are often paid in blood, gold can drain away just as quickly. The party’s trek out of Solium and across the lands of Alcatham has left them with only a handful of gold between them. Fortunately, they have drawn near Camnarael, Alcatham’s capital, where all manner of quests-and rewards-await.

But all is not as expected in the capital. Unusual occurrences have been happening throughout Camnarael: figures in the shadows making unsavory bargains, attackers harassing innocent parishioners, and adventurers from all over the land gathering to partake in a Grand Quest offered by the royal family. Most curious of all are the rumors that speak of a strange artifact serving as the reward for this rare and legendary quest … an artifact that sounds just a bit too familiar to the former NPCs.

Review:

As the surprise and delight of the first book in this series is wearing off, I’m beginning to lose my grip on the enchantment that made me love NPCs. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still good books. Objectively not winning any awards, but entertaining, easy and fun to read, and possessing surprisingly great character depth and emotional resonance for a series whose foundation is poking fun at RPG tropes. But this one had a very rough start – mainly because this book has a much stronger emphasis on the meta storyline.

I was fine with the meta story – the RPG players in the real world having some really weird experiences as our NPCs start making their own decisions – in the first two books. It was interesting in a “wouldn’t it be wild if stuff like that started happening in my D&D sessions” kind of way, but I wasn’t all that into it. (As you might have guessed from the fact that I barely mentioned it in my first two reviews.) I much preferred watching the band of trope-wise NPCs have to deal with the tropes anyway. But this book brings the meta story front and center, with Russell and company getting more involved, the three asshole players from book one getting their own section as they play with a new GM, and the reader (but not the characters) getting a sense that whatever is going on is significantly bigger than just some weird RPG modules.

In the beginning, I did not vibe with it at all. I wanted to see our NPCs being adventurers, not these players trying to figure out what’s up with these modules. But by the end I accepted that this meta mystery is going to be the main plot probably from here on out, and at this point I am kind of curious.

Of course, our pretend adventurers get a lot of the story as well, and have the bulk of it once the beginning gets done setting the hooks for the meta story. As you might guess from the title, Eric gets some skills upgrades, but all the characters are pretty well balanced. Timiscore starts working towards some goals, Gabrielle continues her small emotional arc from the previous book, we get to see some of Thistle’s insecurities that he’s kept hidden, and Grumph is working on a new way to be a mage that combines his magic and his physical abilities. It’s really good. I adore all of these characters and I love watching them work through situations that are straight out of a D&D adventure.

The tone of the series is starting to shift, though, and I really noticed it in this book. There’s less focus on humor and poking fun at RPG tropes. The tropes are there, definitely, but the characters point them out less and roll with them more. Perhaps it’s because they’re adjusting to being actual adventurers and not just pretend ones, or perhaps it’s a symptom of the overall focus shift from satirizing tropes to the meta mystery. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if the characters were less dynamic and lovable, I think I would have had a much more difficult time with the shift away from humor and satire and towards a more serious plot.

I don’t think any of these books are going to make me reexperience the surprise and delight of NPCs. But they are still entertaining and solid adventures. I adore the NPC characters – all of them almost equally, which is rare for a book with so many protagonists – and Russell’s gaming group are pretty good. The meta mystery is a solid hook, the tropes are still there even if they’re not laughed at as much, and there is a great emotional core to the story. I am very much enjoying this series and I am definitely reading the next book. (Was there any doubt, though, really?)

The Spells, Swords, & Stealth series:

1. NPCs
2. Split the Party
3. Going Rogue
4. Siege Tactics
5. Noble Roots

Review: Split the Party

Title: Split the Party

Series: Spells, Swords, & Stealth #2

Author: Drew Hayes

Genre: Sword & Sorcery

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, injury, violence, body horror, murder, illness

Spoiler Warning: This book is second in a series, and both this book and this review contain spoilers of book one, NPCs.

Back Cover:

Fleeing from a vengeful king has sent the former NPCs across Solium’s borders, into the kingdom of Alcatham. As wanted fugitives, they head to the small farming village of Briarwillow, hoping to blend in, lay-low, and avoid trouble at all costs.

Unfortunately, Briarwillow has problems all its own, and its troubles quickly become theirs. If they hope to survive long enough to escape, they’ll have to tackle an all-but-forgotten mystery buried at the town’s border, as well as seek the wisdom of a mysterious group of mages.

With time, magic, and at least one god against them, it will take everything they’ve got to save Briarwillow, and themselves.

Review:

I don’t think I’ve picked up a sequel so soon after reading the first book since middle school. When I finished NPCs it was a struggle to not ignore the other things I had to read and my rule about reviewing the book before reading the sequel. I really, really wanted to read book two.

Several of the series I’ve picked up in the last few years (see Gentlemen Bastards, The Never Tilting World, Sidekick Squad, The Serpent Gates) have had a problem where book one was really good and then book two was distinctly not good (or at least not enjoyable to me). So I had a bit of a concern that maybe Split the Party was the uninspired, amateur RPG-themed fantasy novel that I feared NPCs was going to be. But I was still thrilled with how much fun NPCs was, so I pretty much ignored that worry and dove right in.

With a little distance from the surprise and delight of “Hey, this is actually really enjoyable!” that I had from the first book, I can tell that objectively, these aren’t spectacular books. They’re not going to win any awards or be the books that make aspiring authors despair because they could never write something so great. From a structure and characterization and writing mechanics standpoint, they’re just okay. Nothing to write home about, but perfectly acceptable.

But the lack of literary panache is completely forgivable because, just like the first book in the series, Split the Party is just so. much. fun. Our heroes know the tropes but they still have to live them because that’s just how the world works, and their genre-savviness adds a layer of both meta and amusement as they know exactly what bullshit is coming but have to deal with it anyway. A seemingly simple plot hook gets very complicated very fast, and I love how much it feels like an actual D&D campaign. The tropes that are mocked are more in the details, and the plot itself is less a straight-up trope and more about the characters trying to get a handle on their new roles as adventurers. Plus there’s separate entirely meta storyline that I assume will intersect our adventurers’ story later on.

And there’s a ton of awesome character stuff. Grumph* may not be absurdly powerful, but there’s still a delightful amount of the Absurdly Powerful Protagonist trope as people keep underestimating his magical ability due to his race. Gabrielle started a bit of a character arc/crisis about her abilities and her role in the group. Thistle got to learn more about his god and about his role as a paladin of Grumble. Eric got to do rogue stuff – he didn’t get much character work in this book, but he got a ton at the end of the last book so I’ll forgive it. And Timiscore, new addition to the party, gets a goal and a dream to work towards. Plus we got some interesting new characters, like an elf trader who definitely has some secrets up her sleeves and who I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of.

There isn’t a whole lot of substance to these books. There’s some, definitely, but not a lot if you think hard about it. But these really aren’t “think hard about it” books. They poke fun at tabletop RPG game tropes, they have characters who know the tropes but can’t avoid living them, and they’re packed full of humor, entertainment, and just plain fun. Are they objectively spectacular books? No, not really. But I don’t care because I’m having far too much fun.

The Spells, Swords, & Stealth series:

1. NPCs
2. Split the Party
3. Going Rogue
4. Siege Tactics
5. Noble Roots

*I apologize for any misspellings of character names, I’m reading this series as audiobooks and I can’t find anything online that tells me how to actually spell them.