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Description:
"Sicarius, the emperor’s personal assassin, returns from a successful mission only to discover that the enemy is retaliating by sending an assassin of their own. The target? Five-year-old Prince Sespian. Shadows over Innocence is a 4,500-word short story set fourteen years before the first Emperor’s Edge novel."
Let me just start by reminding everyone that I hate fantasy. Especially these "A short story from The KingSword Bollucks Castrilfriligantor universe" shits that plague Amazon are just unappealing to me.
That being said, this story was really solid. Maybe it's because there was none of that requisite mystical bullshit. I don't at all understand why if you want to have magic, you also must have swords and British accents and use words that went out of style in the 16th century and elves. Fucking elves. This story didn't have any of that, just had all the stupid long names for no reason. No, nobody can ever be named Charles even though it's like the most common medieval name ever.
But, since this story didn't have all the magic shit and just had like some swords, I'm just going to call it historical fiction. Much more comfortable for me.
Alright, so this historical fiction is about an assassin who is not supposed to have feelings, but when the emperor chastises his son for drawing, the assassin feels sympathy.
After that, he goes around generally being a badass until he uncovers a plot to assassinate someone in the palace. He runs around, interrupting the emperor's orgy and stuff, trying to find the rival assassin until he realizes the target must be the sissy son of the emperor that nobody likes or cares about.
He is right, and of course he stops the murder just in time, not even waking the boy in his bed he's so skillful at silently fighting. In the aftermath he finds some drawing utensils on the rival assassin he was using to make maps, and he leaves them in the boy's room.
Heartwarming.
Ratings:
Getting Bogged Down in Fantasy Politics: 0 out of 5. This story naturally dealt with politics. The assassin arrived back from another kingdom with a sackful of nobles' heads, and that kingdom sent a rival assassin. What's more, the story's other characters are all in politics--the emperor, his son, the head of war, etc. Despite all that, there wasn't the usual fucking awful boring shitload of politics. This was a human story. Instead of explaining to the boy that instead of drawing he should be learning how to fill out form W-I in order to file a formal complaint against the misappropriation of gherkins, the emperor opts to give the boy a lesson in what politics are like by having the assassin empty out his sack of heads in front of him.
The only downside is we'll never find out what those gherkins were used for.
Giving the Assassin Superpowers in Order to Make Him Badass: 0 out of 5. The assassin simply trained and trained and then after eating bland food in order to try to keep emotionless, he trained a hell of a lot more. He was good at his job, but he still fucked up letting a rival assassin get far enough to almost kill the emperor's son. He didn't have magic eyes or the ability to turn into mist or a pet falcon who could shit acid on his foes or any other fruity shit you may have read in your shitty dark elves book. He was human, and that was the point of the story, and any totally wicked fantasy powers would have taken away from that.
Having an Actual Point: 5 out of 5. And ANOTHER thing I hate about FANTASY--shut up, shut up, just lissen, no YOU'RE drunk! If this was the average teenage authored fantasy, it would exist just for the sake of...well, fucking ASSASSIN, that's why! Assassins are totally awesome, and everyone knows it. Why do you think Assassin's Creed has sold so many fucking copies? It's not because it's a good game, because the story and gameplay and basically everything are shit. No, it's because it has the word Assassin in the title. And yeah, fine, this story played on that quite a bit, but what it also did is instead of showcasing how heartless this stealthy killer was, it showcased how heartless he tried to be out of duty but how he still failed and ended up acting from his heart. And that's what the world really needs--contract killers with love in their hearts.
Overall: 4 out of 5. POP THE CHAMPAGNE! This is probably the best story I've reviewed so far. Fucking solid work. Every single word was spelled correctly and everything! And I fucking remind you: I hate fantasy. It's not my job to review something based on the genre, but it definitely doesn't help when I go in with a huge bias. Oh, and my for reals apologies, for once, for spoiling it, because it would have been worth a read. But now it might not be. It's nothing mindblowing, but it's good writing.
If you want to find out what I did with the gherkins, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.
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