Michael Barnes
We first met Fern, the foul-mouthed Rattkin bookseller in the seaside town of Murk in Bookshops & Bonedust. In Legends & Lattes Fern's bookshop was relocated to the larger city of Thune next door to Viv’s (also from Bookshops & Bonedust) successful coffee house. The bookshop opens successfully, customers flood through the door, and the dream materializes exactly as planned….
Which drives Fern to question why she is doing what she is doing, which leads to drinking which leads to the opening that finds her in a wagon rolling away from Thune with an elf warrior Astryx One-Ear—the legendary Oathmaiden whose thousand-year career has fallen into routine. They are currently delivering a very valuable bounty in the form of chaos-goblin named Zyll. chaos-goblin isn't some sort fantasy/race class, it is literally what this she does/brings.
This road trip turns into a meditation on what happens when purpose fossilizes into mere habit. Whilst what we do, isn't sufficiently considered why we do it. The prose is a lyrical as in earlier books, but it’s the reflections on the why we do things that sets it apart from other fantasy stories.
The Bookish Elf sums it up well with "Brigands & Breadknives is a book about the terrifying freedom of admitting you don’t know who you are anymore. About friendships that survive absence and disappointment. About the difference between existing and living. It’s messier than its predecessors, more conflicted, and occasionally frustrating—which makes it more honest about the actual experience of being alive and uncertain".
We first met Fern, the foul-mouthed Rattkin bookseller in the seaside town of Murk in Bookshops & Bonedust. In Legends & Lattes Fern's bookshop was relocated to the larger city of Thune next door to Viv’s (also from Bookshops & Bonedust) successful coffee house. The bookshop opens successfully, customers flood through the door, and the dream materializes exactly as planned….
Which drives Fern to question why she is doing what she is doing, which leads to drinking which leads to the opening that finds her in a wagon rolling away from Thune with an elf warrior Astryx One-Ear—the legendary Oathmaiden whose thousand-year career has fallen into routine. They are currently delivering a very valuable bounty in the form of chaos-goblin named Zyll. chaos-goblin isn't some sort fantasy/race class, it is literally what this she does/brings.
This road trip turns into a meditation on what happens when purpose fossilizes into mere habit. Whilst what we do, isn't sufficiently considered why we do it. The prose is a lyrical as in earlier books, but it’s the reflections on the why we do things that sets it apart from other fantasy stories.
The Bookish Elf sums it up well with "Brigands & Breadknives is a book about the terrifying freedom of admitting you don’t know who you are anymore. About friendships that survive absence and disappointment. About the difference between existing and living. It’s messier than its predecessors, more conflicted, and occasionally frustrating—which makes it more honest about the actual experience of being alive and uncertain".