Death’s Angels, by William King

Recently, I had to take some time off, and that meant I had time for some reading. One of the books I read was DEATH’S ANGELS, by William King.

To sum up, the book is basically a cross between Glen Cook’s THE BLACK COMPANY and H.P. Lovecraft, set in an 18th century Europe if 18th century Europe were ruled by racist magic-using elves.

In the setting, the elves call themselves Terrarchs, and invaded the human world after their homeland fell victim to some mysterious catastrophe. A thousand years later, the Terrarchs still rule over the humans, but their empire has fractured into several competing states, all which regard humans differently – some treat humans as free albeit second-class citizens, while others regard humans as enslaved cattle. However, all the Terrarchs are starting to lose their grip, as the humans are simply outbreeding them, and developing technology is beginning to erode the edge the Terrarchs’ magic and longevity give them. Magic beats sword, but a cannon loaded with grapeshot beats both magic and sword.

The chief protagonist of the story is Rik, a half-human, half-Terrarch soldier. Since halfbreeds are despised everywhere, Rik started out as a thief, and then joined the army to escape his vengeful former associates. When sent to fight a gang of demon-worshiping rebels, Rik kills a renegade Terrarch sorcerer who had been aiding the rebels. Rik takes possession of the sorcerer’s spellbooks and tries to teach himself magic from them, failing to realize that a lot of very dangerous people, human and Terrarchs both, want the contents of those spellbooks.

Mayhem ensues.

The book has a compelling plot, and does a good job of capturing the feel of Europe at the start of the industrial era, the poverty and despair alongside the wealth and the massive possibilities. When discussing fantasy, it’s useless to talk about historical realism, because if you have a setting where people can summon up giant spider-demons, you have taken realism out back to be shot. But you can talk about verisimilitude, and DEATH’S ANGELS does a good job with the verisimilitude of the setting. Naturally, the additional of sorcerous elves and otherworldly horrors to early industrial Europe simply adds spice.

Anyway, I recommend the book, though it will be a bit dark for some readers. I will definitely be picking up the sequels.

-JM