I finished reading this book in work today during my lunch hour, and so on with the review while it is still fresh in my mind. Master Of Chains by Jess Lebow is a Forgotten Realms novel, and the first in a set of 4 novels, the set being titled The Fighters. Each novel in the quartet features one central warrior type character with an unusual fighting style. In the case of this book, that character is Ryder, a freedom fighter in the oppressed Barony of Ahlarkhem, part of the Kingdom of Erlkazar.
To be honest I was surprised to see a novel set in this corner of the Realms, as Erlkazar has always been scarcely detailed, so that people wanting to run a D&D campaign in the Realms would have a part of the continent to "make their own", with only the very bare minimum of details provided about that area. Clearly that policy has undergone some change recently. I'm not going to be able to review this without some major spoilers, so if you intend on reading this novel, stop reading this post now.
This is a very confusing book, as there isn't any clear hero. Ryder I suppose, is meant to be that, but he just doesn't work well in the role. The closest person I can find in the plot to that part is Ryder's younger brother Liam, yet he is woefully naive throughout much of the storyline. There is a lot of grey though. Ryder leads The Crimson Awl (or at least he thinks he does), a peasant rebellion (think Robin Hood's Merry Men, only not as well organised) meant to unseat the oppressive Baron Purdun who overtaxes the citizens to maintain a large military force, with which he enforces his iron grip on the land.
Baron Purdun though doesn't see himself as an oppressor at all, he levies high taxes yes, he keeps a large army with the revenue true, but this is to guard the people against the forces of the vampiress Shyressa who he inadvertantly woke from her slumber in the novels prologue, set several years before the main narrative. He knows that the Crimson Awl has been subverted by the vampiress, into a tool to remove him from power so that Shyressa can claim the Barony, as a first step to conquering all of Erlkazar itself. So if he isn't evil, then why when he captures Ryder, does he sell him (and 30 others at the same time) into slavery?
His own greed was what led him to open the tomb that housed Shyressa, and he lost his mentor in the process, he fleeing as undead tore his companion apart. His soldiers are brutal thugs, he has a sextet of half-giant enforcers to back him up, and he uses both honeyed words, and threats against Liam's family to get the young man to work for him. Not to mention the fact that he never tells Liam that his supposedly dead brother is actually alive. I've heard of the term "the ends justify the means" but this really does push it to breaking point.
Ryder gets free of the slave chain when bandits attack it, several weeks walk from home, and then he gets imprisoned by the bandits themselves when he refuses to join them, wanting only to return home to his wife and family (who all think he is dead). The novel covers months worth of events, and Ryder does eventually get his freedom from the bandits, by aiding them in defending their stronghold from a trio of undead giants, he using the chains and shackles that had bound him in coffle with the other slaves, as his weapons, hence the name of the book.
What breaks all credibility for me, is how one of the bandits after seeing Ryder fighting in that manner, just happens to have a length of magical spiked chain lying around to give to him! Worse, the young man claims to have never thought of it as a weapon, despite it clearly being exactly that, even to having leather wrapped hand-holds, and the thing discharging magical electricity on impact! I mean come on!!
The books pacing is terrible, at times dragging its heels, at others horribly rushed (the finale especially). Also the couple erotic scenes in the book are just awful, not even remotely romantic and/or sexual. I'm going to give this book 2/5, because while it is bad, it does flesh out a scarcely detailed part of a world I love, and the combat scenes are actually well written and pretty gruesome in places (not surprising when Ryder is essentially whipping his foes with chains and shackles!!).
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