Book review: Heir of Autumn

by Giles Carwyn and Todd Fahnestock.

You can’t tell from the cover.  You can’t tell from the description.  You can’t tell from the blurbs.  I have yet to read a review of the book that captures what I’m talking about–but it’s the reason I keep recommending this book to people.  Certain people.

People who like to snigger.

Not at the book, as such.  At the humor buried deep in the book.  I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will provide one example, because it’s on the first few pages.

One of the main characters, a beautiful foreigner who grew up on a pig farm, uses sex magic.  This is explained logically, is used seriously, and is a major plot driver.

This doesn’t stop the authors from having gleeful Beavis and Butthead moments.  “Yeah!  Yeah!  Sex magic!”

Here’s a quote:

Shara’s father called her a whore the day she left home. After ten years, that was what she remembered most about her parents. She could still hear the hate in her father’s voice as he passed his final judgment, could see him scowling in that chicken-scratched yard while her mother stood by, head bowed, saying nothing in Shara’s defense.
…
“If I am a whore,” she said to herself, “what a magnificent whore I will be.”

Not elegant.  Not lyrical.  But I keep trying to foist this book off on people who I think will get it–the compelling surface-level fantasy and the hidden, over-the-top humor.  A hipster book for fantasy geeks.  I love it.