A Darkness Forged in Fire – Book One of The Iron Elves

Chris Evans

Pocket Books, 2008

In fantasy fiction, the Tolkienesque pattern holds what seems like permanent sway: Ancient Evils awaken and must be faced by a) a league of elves, dwarves, and plucky members of other species, and b) the use of some weapon or artifact that dates from the age of that ancient evil.

The authors involve dutifully go about their business, creating cultures, songs, and well-documented feuds to govern the worlds they create. They make up whole languages in an attempt to give verisimilitude to something that never existed in the first place. The reader learns to know the patterns and to spot the differences.

If popular fantasy writers today are going to confine themselves to such a restrictive template (and they don’t all do so: a couple – such as Steve Erickson or R. Scott Bakker – have tried to step outside the mold), the least they’d better offer us, their readers, is some interesting variations.

In A Darkness Forged in Fire, debut author Chris Evans (not to be confused with Hollywood superhottie and Massachusetts native Chris Evans, from whom we need not fear any high fantasy epics in the foreseeable future) gives his readers the most interesting variation of all: really good prose.

His story is as familiar as predicted: Konowa, a fallible and out-of-favor former commander of the Calahrian Empire’s elite Iron Elves, is recalled to service in order to find a newly-resurrected ancient magic, in part to forestall its falling into the hands of the evil Shadow Monarch. There are elves, dwarves, and plucky members of other species, and there’s plenty of action and history. But the thing that immediately sets this book apart from its considerable competition is its snappy writing. Here’s a scene in which hapless everyman Alwyn (in the company of the irrepressible dwarf Yimt and under the command of the martinet Kritton) starts to regret some recent decisions:

“Her Majesty doesn’t pay you for your opinions. I think what we have here is a case of dereliction of duty, allowing an enemy of the Empire to get this close to the lines,” he [Kritton] said. “I could have you flogged for this.”

“Flogged?” Yimt said, puffing out his chest and looking at the rest of the soldiers now gathered around them. “All we did was save lives tonight, same as we do any time we get piquet duty, ain’t that right, Ally?”

Alwyn tried to speak, but though his mouth opened and closed, no words would come out. An off-kilter dwarf, a monster from a storybook, and a maniacal elf for a corporal, and all because he thought wearing a uniform would impress women.

If I’m really lucky, Alwyn decided, I’ll pass out before they start to flog me.

As with most first-time novelists, Evans thanks everybody in creation in his acknowledgements. But his opening remarks contain a comment that stands out:

I began taking riding lessons in the course of writing this book. I wasn’t charged for the added bonus of learning how to fall.

I saved a fortune.

Still, each time I dusted myself off and climbed back into the saddle, I realized that writing a novel is not all that different. You are going to make mistakes. You are going to wonder why you ever embarked on this in the first place. You are going to become intimate with entirely new types of fear. And you are going to feel an exhilaration unlike anything else.

A Darkness Forged in Fire fairly bristles with that exhilaration. It’s a decidedly promising start.