I can’t claim to know exactly what made George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire and its TV adaptation Game of Thrones so popular, but I’ve often thought that part of the appeal came from the way that Martin gave readers fantasy that often didn’t feel like fantasy – or, at least, not what fantasy is popularly conceived as being. These weren’t elves bantering about the role of men in the world, or forces of moral darkness arising in shadowy lands – Martin’s world was full of human beings scheming, thinking, and feeling, and if it was set against a fantasy backdrop, well, the price of admission was easier to pay for a mainstream audience than a more traditional high fantasy novel would have been. (None of which is to say that Martin invented the genre, mind you.) And authors like Joe Abercrombie, I think, have done similar things, giving rise to a new blend of high and low fantasy that’s deeply appealing to readers, giving us all the fantasy elements we enjoy while also giving us characters that we can engage with.
This is a long buildup to discussing Scott Kaelen’s really great The Blighted City, I know, but it’s also helpful, I think, in telling you what kind of book this is. There’s little denying that Kaelen has thought about his world and fleshed it out incredibly well – there is a sense of history to this place, from old friendships to fallen kingdoms, from forgotten villages to old war wounds, and every bit of it feels naturalistic and lived in. Indeed, even as I sometimes (and very rarely) got a little swamped in some of the world building, I never really minded it, because it was clearly given a shape and structure that made it all work. This never felt like exposition dumps or an author cramming in details; instead, it felt like a world slowly revealing itself to me.
But for all of that, at its core, this is a book about a trio of mercenaries (sellswords, in the language of the book) who are given the job of retrieving a family heirloom from a crypt in Lachyla, the titular blighted city. A place of unburned corpses and many superstitions, it’s a place with a reputation that keeps almost all visitors from its gate. But our trio of sellswords – the religious Dagra, the very atheist Oriken, and their leader (and superior fighter, as well as the sole woman of the group) Jalis – decide that the price can’t be beat. Mind you, if they knew what was waiting for them, they might reconsider that…
Look, the plotting here is a ton of fun – Kaelen does suspense and action well, and the way he slowly plays out his storyline is great in terms of pacing and reveals. I have a couple of issues (Oriken and the number of women who throw themselves at him over the course of these pages, with his constant reluctance, gets a little odd), but they’re relatively minor, and that’s largely thanks to how well-written and crafted the characters are. Kaelen brings this trio and their banter – and interpersonal ties – to rich life, making their dialogues about religion or their fears every bit as intriguing as combat to the death or the revelation of what’s going on in Lachyla. That’s not a small thing, but it’s a welcome one to have, and it kept me rocketing through The Blighted City with more attention and interest than I honestly expected it might when I first was offered a copy for review. By the end, I was sad to see the story come to an end, but glad that it ended well – yes, it may be part of a series, but Kaelen writes it like a standalone, and that’s a welcome choice in an era of constant serialization.
The short version, here at the end: I started this review with mentions of Martin and Abercrombie. If you like those, give this a read. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in the least.
Umney's Alley 
6 thoughts on “The Blighted City, by Scott Kaelen / **** ½”