Weaver of Shadow, by William King
WEAVER OF SHADOW, by William King, is another installment of the adventure of Kormak, the Guardian of the Dawn. If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. King’s Kormak books, they’re sword-and-sorcery novels in the classic tradition of Robert Howard. Kormark is a Guardian of the Dawn, a knight sworn to fight the various forces of dark magic, and while he has the grim hardness of an antihero, he nonetheless puts himself at extreme risk again and again to defend people from supernatural predators.
In Weaver of Shadow, Kormak fights to defend frontiersmen from an invasion of sinister, spider-worshiping elves. I enjoyed the treatment of the elves in WEAVER – the elves were truly alien, with alien motivations. The common fantasy cliche is that elves are in tune with nature and worship trees, but that’s as oversimplified as saying Baptists immerse themselves in a religious rite. An excellent explanation for why the elves worship tree is key to the plot and setting of the book.
Anyway, this was an excellent sword-and-sorcery tale, and I recommend it.
-JM
I really am going to have to try this series out. They keep sounding more interesting with each tale.
“The common fantasy cliche is that elves are in tune with nature and worship trees”
Ah, the hippie elves. I do hate them.
Why is it that cliche became dominat, rather than Tolkien’s version of the elf? He is the one who popularized them after all! Why is the D&D elf the dominant one? Any thoughts Jon?
I think because it’s a less complicated view of elves. The “firstborn children of Illuvatar, strong in mind and body, but forever mourning the lost world destroyed by the evil of Morgoth Bauglir” is a beautiful and tragic concept, but markedly more complicated and subtle than “pointy-eared tree-worshippers”. That said, WEAVER OF SHADOW is an excellent and logical explanation of the “pointy-eared tree-worshipers” idea.
“I think because it’s a less complicated view of elves.”
Sadly, your probably right. It’s funny that so much is taken from Tolkien, yet often his deepest, most profound stuff is left untouched. No, that is not really funny, it’s just sad. 🙁