Book one of the two-part Articles of Faith series, David Wragg’s action packed and foul-mouthed The Black Hawks gleefully tramples over genre norms to deliver a fun new perspective on the fantasy quest story. Vedren Chel is neither heroic nor especially capable, and he would much rather be back home than in Denirnas, fetching and carrying for his step-uncle. When the city is attacked, however, he finds himself in the accidental service of the young, somewhat pitiful Prince Tarfel, and in the disreputable company of a band of mercenaries calling themselves the Black Hawks. If he can keep Tarfel alive long enough to deliver him safely into the hands of the mercenaries’ suspiciously vague employers, Chel might just be able to go home, but in order to do that he has to evade vengeful agents of the church and survive wolves, cannibals and all manner of other dangers.
It reads like a classic fantasy novel, full of action and excitement as the plucky hero sets off on a vital quest accompanied by a ragtag band of brave adventurers. Except Chel doesn’t have a choice in what he’s doing (and would definitely choose otherwise if he could), his companions, while undoubtedly handy in a fight, are about as dysfunctional a group of lowlifes as you could imagine, and the quest turns out to not be quite what he expected. Chel himself is frequently surly and stubborn, with an alarming tendency to unwisely stand his ground that regularly gets him into trouble – although the same stubbornness does gradually earn him a little respect from his fellows. Tarfel is morose and a bit pathetic, and while Chel feels a bit sorry for him the mercenaries give him short shrift. The Black Hawks themselves, however, steal the show with a consistently entertaining dynamic between the six-strong group of foul-mouthed and dubiously trustworthy reprobates [no spoilers – I’ll leave you to get to know each character when you meet them in the book].
Wragg sets out his stall early on with some eye-wateringly (and imaginatively) coarse language and a pacy, action-packed opening that throws the reader straight into the thick of things. There’s very little exposition provided so it’s a bit tricky at times to pick up the details of this world, its history and Chel’s backstory – there’s a sense that the world building has all been thought through, it’s just only coming through to the reader in small doses. If it’s a touch under-explained in places (and some readers will love that, of course) there’s certainly enough context to keep the plot moving and allow plenty of time for frantic, exciting action scenes shot through with obscenities and frequent explosions of extreme violence. As a largely helpless protagonist, at times Chel feels a little bit passive, but over time he grows into the story and his role within the group, and as the book progresses the world and the characters’ places within it all comes into much clearer focus.
What stands out right throughout the book, however, is an overriding sense of fun. There’s constant forward motion as the characters lurch from one almost-disaster to the next, and every step of the way the sharp and snappy (and often filthy) dialogue helps bring Chel, Tarfel and the Black Hawks to sarcastic, offensive (in a good way) life. None of these characters are noble or heroic, and nor are they really what you’d call anti-heroes, but they’re believable and entertaining, and it’s hard not to care about them (apart from Spider…nothing good will come from a character called Spider). All that said, however coarse and funny this book may be, it absolutely isn’t a comedy. Humour aside, it’s a tale of underdogs scrapping to survive, railing against the undeserved power of a manipulative church and the corrupt, power-hungry men and women who flock to its banner. It just happens to be full of characters who are genuinely fun to read about, and written by an author clearly enjoying himself using and subverting classic fantasy tropes.
The language might put some readers off, but as long as you don’t mind the copious swearing (or, like me, you find it genuinely amusing) and you go into this aware that it’s darkly funny but not what you would call ‘humorous fantasy’, there’s an awful lot to enjoy. It’s definitely the first part of a wider story, leaving a fair few things hanging for the second part to conclude, but by the time the dust has settled the world building has come nicely into focus and the characters are so well realised that the prospect of more – in the shape of The Righteous – is tantalising. If you’re a fantasy fan and you’re on the lookout for an alternative to the grimdark stylings that are prevalent in a lot of modern fantasy, The Black Hawks – and the Articles of Faith series as a whole – is well worth investigating!
See also: my interview with David Wragg discussing book 2 in this series, The Righteous.
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