The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan

Review by Markus Mäurer

 

Review:

“When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options.”

That is the first sentence of the book, and that is the senctence that made me buy it. It is a really good first sentence that makes a big promise. But is Richard Morgan able to keep this promise? We will see.

Ringil is a hero. And like most heros in the sword and sorcery buisness, he has a big sword that cuts the things in the right shape for Ringil. It starts with cutting some Zombies at a local cementary, in the fucked up village, which is now the home of the brave war-hero. That is the first promise Richard Morgan is keeping – Zombies.

Ringil (who is a gay Takeshi Kovac with a big sword, taking things personal) thinks that he likes it, in this quite little town, but than his aristocratic mother comes along, and tells her son to find his cousin Sherin, which has been sold as a slave. First ringil is pissed of, but than he starts to enjoying to be back in the buisness. So, after a long time he has to go back to his homtown, facing some enemies of the past and making some new ones.

At the same time, Egar the Dragonbane (in this kind of stories, names likes these are to be ment literally), head of his clan, and (guess what?) former war hero, has to face an intrigue from his brothers and the local shamen. The one moment, Egar is just fucking a sixteen year old Milkmaid, the next moment he is involved in some supernatural beef of gods, that only has been a myth to him before.

Same concept for our third maincharacter and (suprise) former war hero, Archid. Which is the last of the Kiriath. An none-human race, that has left the continent after the last great war against the reptile-people of the skaled folk. Archid is close to the emporer of the Ylteth Empire, and starts to investigate in an supernatural and destructive attack against an small porttown.

 

All three of our heros, were friends in the good old wartime, and so, it is now wonder, that the three seperate plotlines are suposed to met at some point of the book. But Morgan is no very subtle writer. He writes his story straight ahead, without much confusion or elegant crosslines. Just like an warrior, who cuts his way through his enemys, Morgan cuts his way through the plot. But he is not a bad writer. His charakter are well drafted, and his direct language ist quite refreshing.

The story is about some supernatural bad ass motherfuckers threatening the world, and some, even more, bad ass motherfuckers, trying to kick the supernatural’s asses. If your are offended by this language, you should not read The Steel Remains, because Morgan is using a lot of it. His characters are making no compremises, neither does Morgan.

 

My problem with the story is it’s uninspired plotline. The characters are just going from one scene into another, without big connections between. Morgan has some good ideas, but he fails to use them well. He brings in a lot of interesting alien races, but only for some good effects, than he drops them off.

 

Summary

Morgan’s debutnovel Altered Carbon was a big hit in the Science Fiction Genre. It was dirty, hard, innovative and had an great atmosphere. After five books in the same Genre, Morgan decided to change thinks, and wrote a fantasy novel. Unfortunatly, the most quality points from his sf-novels are missing. He fails to create an unique atmosphere and a thrilling plot. Only his characters saves this book from beeing “just another fantasy novel in the mass”. He can do better.

Nach oben