The Nightrunner Series

Luck in the shadows (Book One of the Nightrunner series)

Lynn Flewelling

Batnam Books

1996

 
Stalking Darkness (Book Two of the Nightrunner series)

Lynn Flewelling

Batnam Books

1997

 
Traitor's Moon (Book Three of the Nightrunner series)

Lynn Flewelling

Batnam Books

1999

 
Shadow's Return (Book Four of the Nightrunner's series)

Lynn Flewelling

Batnam

2008

 
The only reason why I have taken so long to get around to posting on this blog us because my code of updating requires me to review the last four fantasy novels I've read and I was really, really not up to it. Not because writing a review was terrible in and of itself – I could not bring myself to relive this series. In fact, the series traumatized me so badly I could not read a single fantasy novel in the last three weeks and had to resort to reading novels in my mother tongue instead.


Do not get me wrong – the series started well enough, if a very standard fantasy novel, complete with a typical cast: Seregil, a talented thief/spy from a race that is rather akin to mysterious elves; Alex, a young lad fallen into bad times and worse company, taken up as a young apprentice to Seregil and discovering a talent for walking on the dodgy side, a wizard, spy master and guardian of the all-powerful; dark creatures searching for an amulet that Seregil stole; a jealous apprentice Thero play turn coat and then reformed turn-coat among other periphery characters. BUT it started degenerating into a parody of plot devices, and by the fourth book, there were pirates, dragons, prophecies, necromancy and everything you can even muster up in a fantasy series. 


If this short blurb tells you nothing of the actual plot in the series, well, it is because by the end of the series, I am not certain that there is a plot. If there were an actual plot, it is, to use one of my favourite quotes, "as full of holes as a mole's vacation home". At no point in this series, could I suspend disbelief – and so, although I had no issues with the characters (the characterization was decent, if a tad unoriginal and the characters were likeable), I had not enjoyed the reading experience – a state that I had not been in since I picked up Twilight a year and a half ago. The only reason why I survived the series then? Homoeroticism. This is the first fantasy series I know of, mainstream that is, where the two male protagonists are an official couple, which is rather refreshing – especially given my secret pleasure in GLBT literature (I continue to blame my writing class in university.)


Short review, because, well, I really do not want to dwell any longer. I generally have respect for my authors and I also refrain from scathing reviews because well, authors are people too, and I really do not want to show up on a Google search, only to hurt feelings and egos. Flewelling writes better English than some of these authors who would have required a virulently cutting entry, Stephanie Meyers among them; she has better characters whom you can actually like and sympathise with; but good Lord, she needs an editor who can kick her ass on the plot points.



Generally: 1.5/ 5 stars.


Final Verdict: If you really want to read homoerotic fantasy fiction in the mainstream, try Tanya Huff's Smoke and Ashes instead. Now that this is done and over with I can finally get around to reading again.