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THE PARIAH
SFX
|October 2021
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Author Anthony Ryan
Publisher Orbit
There’s a real thrill at the midpoint of this picaresque fantasy tale, when the characters gather just as battle starts. The vivid scene places you amid the chaos beside our anti-hero, Alwyn Scribe, and his rag-tag companions, in the claustrophobic press of a company about to charge. Reluctant soldiers swear in fear, then cower as arrows slice into people around them. It’s like a medieval Saving Private Ryan.
The book’s told in the first person, as an older Alwyn recounts his memoirs, mostly resisting the temptation to address the reader directly. A band of not-very-merry outlaws suffer betrayals and wrong turns that transform our narrator from forest urchin to scholar. There’s something of Sergio Leone about The Pariah too – our villains seek vengeance and fortune, while failing to avoid a civil war. It feels fresh and unforced.
This story is from the October 2021 edition of SFX.
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