Swords and Sorcery Fiction Review: White Wolf
Review by Ken St. Andre
Product:
White Wolf: A Novel of Druss the Legend
Product Type:
Swords and Sorcery Fiction Novel, 480 pages
Author:
David Gemmell
Cover Artist:
John Picacio
Publisher:
Del Rey
Publication Date:
March 2, 2004
Review Date:
June 27, 2009
Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat, or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil.
This is the code of Druss the Legend. Druss is a secondary character in White Wolf, yet he is the central figure in the Drenai series by David Gemmell. Druss is an axe-wielding warrior who turned the course of history more than once in the great battles of his time.
The protagonist is Olek Skilgannon, called 'the Damned' because he led the massacre of every man, woman, and child in the city of Perapolis. This he did at the command of Jianna, the Witch Queen of Naashan, but he knew it was wrong. Skilgannon was the warrior son of a long line of warriors. In his youth he rescued the young princess Jianna from the forces of Bokram the usurper and his sadistic henchman Borannius. He became her protector, war leader, and sometime lover. Although young Olek and Jianna loved each other, the politics of power made it impossible for them to wed.
The tale begins with Skilgannon the Damned walking away from his position as Queen's General and taking the magical swords of Day and Night with him. The first scene shows him slaying five killers who were sent to retrieve the swords of Day and Night. This sets a pattern for the rest of the book. Enemies will come against Skilgannon again and again. He gives them a chance to walk away with their lives, and when they foolishly push the quarrel, he kills them.
During a journey to escort a young priest and a courageous boy to the besieged city of Mellicane, Skilgannon encounters Druss. These supreme warriors join forces to protect a group of refugees trying to escape the war-torn countryside and find safety in the capitol city. Magical beasts and arrogant soldiers are defeated and deflected by Druss and Skilgannon. It turns out that both Druss and Skilgannon have quests to complete that will keep them together and propel them into an encounter with a sadistic madman in a fortress full of soldiers.
It is not my plan to tell you about every encounter and every nice piece of action writing between the covers. I want to use White Wolf to talk about heroic fantasy and swords and sorcery fiction. A term like 'heroic fantasy' encompasses everything—from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy to the picaresque short stories by Fritz Leiber about the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd to Robert Jordan's unending Wheel of Time to Andre Norton's Witch World books, and on and on and on. I could mention David Eddings and Terry Brooks and Glen Cook, and Steven Ericksen and Michael Stackpole and Terry Pratchett and Michael Moorcock, and dozens of others. (You can probably tell, Dear Reader, that I prefer the male authors to the female ones, but if I went to the library or bookstore I could make an equally long list of female writers who all write heroic fantasy.) Some of these authors write epic fantasy (Tolkien, Jordan, Eddings, Brooks, Eriksen) and others write swords and sorcery (Howard, Leiber, Cook, and especially David Gemmell). What I like is swords and sorcery! Epic fantasy is generally a tale of events that shake the whole world where the actions of many characters shape the outcome of the story. There may be a central character or two, but the whole story is bigger than the efforts of one character. Frodo fails and dies if not for the combined efforts of the entire Fellowship of the Ring and those of the nations of Rohan and Gondor and the help of the Elves. Swords and sorcery is about one hero with perhaps a small band of companions who faces occult evil in what is usually a personal quest. Conan lives or dies on his own.
David Gemmell wrote in much the same style as Robert E. Howard. His heroes are a bit more conflicted than Howard's, but they are the same kind of men—pure fighting men who never let the odds deter them. Skilgannon is like Conan in that he battles superior numbers of foes without hesitation or fear. He is fast, strong, and deadly. Such a hero makes for the sweetest descriptions of combat. Or, perhaps Skilgannon is more like Elric—Michael Moorcock's doomed albino. Both men became legends of fear and disaster in their own time.
Gemmell died on July 28, 2006, aged 58. His writing career spanned about 20 years, and in that period he wrote 33 novels of which 27 could be called heroic fantasy. I haven't read them all, not even all 11 of the Drenai novels about Druss and Waylander and Skilgannon. Five others are historical fiction set in ancient times (Greece and Troy and Macedon). During this 20 year span of time, I would assert that Gemmell was the best swords and sorcery writer in the world. Although the stories are morally complex and offer no simple answers, the action never falters. The sense of one person facing and overcoming enormous odds lends urgency and involvement to the books. They have excitement, and color (and usually a nice fantasy map near the title page—grin). I like them very, very much.
Many of Gemmell's books are out of print now. Your favorite library or bookstore isn't going to have them all. That is why, when I saw White Wolf at Bookman's in Flagstaff, I made it my number one priority for purchase. (I put back two other very fine books of occult and folkloric wisdom for this bloody tale of a demon-haunted swordsman on a quest, and I'm not sorry.) Each of his books stands alone, so you don't have to read all eleven of the Drenai books to understand what is happening, but they each have links to the others. This is swords and sorcery the way it should be written.
After reading White Wolf, you may find yourself willing to subscribe to the Code of Druss also.
Buy it here:
White Wolf: A Novel of Druss the Legend
About The Reviewer: Ken St. Andre is the creator of the fantasy roleplaying game Tunnels and Trolls. He also co-created the classic PC game Wasteland. He has written various other games and fiction, and is an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He currently dwells in Phoenix, Arizona, where by day he takes on the guise of a public librarian. He is worshipped as the Trollgod in a universe parallel to Earth's, in a place called Trollhalla, where he is also known by the name Khenn Arrth.
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