THE PARIAH

RELEASED OUT NOW!

- Dave Bradley

566 pages | Hardback/ebook/ audiobook

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.