A VALLEY OF SHADOW
By Lee Patton
Published by The Arcanist: Fantasy Publishing
First released October 2025; Second edition March 2026
190 pages
This is a brisk, colourfully written sword and sorcery novel with possibly the most unusual hero I have ever come across, because he is a dead man, with a skeletal face. Although there is more to his body beneath its battered armour, it is still that of someone who should have been interred in a grave many years ago.
Izrak Laav is a veteran mercenary who has not been allowed to rest even though he died centuries in the past. Punished by becoming a member of The Call, he must carry out whatever missions he is sent on. Now haunted and guilt-ridden by half remembered events from his long ago past, he chances on a girl being pursued by strange, mysterious creatures. When he intervenes to rescue her, their two fates become intertwined, even though his continued involvement with her is against his better judgement. Or is it? About this he becomes increasingly unsure, as he tries to do what is right, even though what that is isn't always obvious to him.
This is a dark story, in a world filled with bizarre menace, and often the odds against even his own survival seem slim to non-existent, never mind that of the girl, Elishei.
I enjoyed the writing, which is both vivid and fast moving and never boring. Sometimes I had to reread a few passages, as there are so many named characters I occasionally became a little confused as to who was who, but that could have been me. A quick reread certainly put that straight – and usually the second reading was even more enjoyable than the first!
For anyone bored of yet another Conan-type hero, this is a refreshingly fantastical and grotesquely unusual change.
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