Yev's Reviews > Sunset Mantle

I'm going to call this a speculative historical military fiction. There are unrealistic scenes, but there's nothing fantastical, so I prefer not to call it fantasy. A secondary world that mimics the real world without any meaningful divergence isn't fantasy to me. Historical Fantasy is defined in far too vague terms for my preference. That's entirely a personal issue though.

The simplest way to describe this would be a Logen Ninefingers, from Joe Abercrombie's First Law World series, continuation story. The relatively aged protagonist is a wandering veteran who was a hero of a tribal people and has a tendency to go berserk. He finds himself in a a settlement that is obviously doomed and knows it's time to move on. However, he then sees the sunset mantle, and decides it's the greatest piece of fashion that he's ever seen and is smitten with it. Since he can't have it for himself he commissions the blind seamstress to make something for him and he instantly likes her as well. With no other option available he joins the town's military despite assuming it will be his death, because he needs the money for the commission. Problems ensue because insubordination because he knows best, but there's also loyalty.

Sunset Mantle is mostly about the military and large battles, though there's also romance, political maneuvering, and revenge. None of it is a strong point though. It's all rather standard stuff, which provides for a decent experience, but nothing more than that. The setting, writing, characters, plot, and everything else merely suffice. The setting is unclear. It could be anything from Ancient Greek colonization efforts to much later European tribal conflicts. Clans are very important. I saw some mentioning it had an Old Testament feel, but considering how religion is used in this I didn't see that.

Theoretically this is something I ought to like, but I found myself surprisingly indifferent to it. Mostly I couldn't get over what I wrote in my opening paragraph and how it didn't favorably compare to what it made me think of. It made for a strange experience of me being rather uncertain of whether I liked it or not. I thought about it for a while and I still don't know whether I'd want reading any more from this author despite it being fine. Ursula K. Le Guin's Planet of Exile is a mildly similar story that I enjoyed more.