James Nicoll Reviews

Sung-il Kim’s 2016 Blood of the Old Kings is a secondary universe fantasy. Originally published as Star of Mercia, the English translation is by Anton Hur.

The Empire brings order and conformity to lands previously disorganized and chaotic. The Empire eliminates superstition and guides potential sorcerers toward socially responsible activities. The Empire extracts all the wealth it can from the lands it has conquered with its necromantic arts; its new subjects face poverty and death.

Her husband and child were among the Empire’s victims. Loran is moved to seek out the great dragon that once defended her kingdom of Arland.

The dragon once vowed to defend the kings of Arland. It was not equal to the Empire’s arcane war machines. Now it is kept in chains in a volcano, waiting the day the Empire finds a use for the dragon… or its corpse. Bound in unbreakable chains, the dragon cannot directly assist Loran. It does recognize Loran as a member of the bloodline it promised to protect and it can confer on her some of its power.

Another plotline: far away in the imperial capital, Arlander-born teen Arienne is a mediocre student in the Division of Sorcery in the Imperial Academy. While the lot of sorcerers (while alive) is better than that of the peasant in the field, sorcerers are keenly aware that their fate is to be converted at death into the generators from which the Empire draws its strength. What it is like to be an undead generator is unclear, but it seems unlikely to be pleasant.

Thus, when Arienne begins to hear a mysterious whisper offering escape in exchange for a favour, she accepts the offer. The whisper belongs to the ancient, dead, sorcerer Eldred. With his voice in her ear, Arienne is able to steal Eldred and flee into the city.

Yet another plotline: Cain wants to know why his friend Fienna was murdered. So do the Empire’s intelligence agents. A man once of Arland now living in the Imperial City, he has contacts that conventional agents do not. Also, Cain seems bright and competent. Cain is drafted into the investigation.

The plotlines eventually converge.

Loran discovers that while her growing raw power allows her to defeat imperial soldiers, even those in magically powered armor, the political situation is less trackable. Other would-be kings are unwilling to risk their meagre resources in a joint resistance against the Empire. She does not want to risk overt resistance alone. While Loran herself may be very hard to kill, the innocent people of Arland are not.

The Empire would pursue any escaped student, but a student who absconded with an evil sorcerer warrants special attention. Arienne flees from the Imperial City towards Arland. Close behind, the seemingly indestructible Grand Inquisitor Lysandros follows.

Loran and Arienne will face the Empire’s forces in Arland. As for Cain? The Arlander refugee will find himself the Imperial City’s last defense against a weapon of mass destruction.

~oOo~

As do so many fantasy novels, Blood of the Old Kings comes with an informative map. Unfortunately, the contrast is low enough that the map was very hard to read.

I wonder where on Earth a Korean author would get the idea of a relentlessly expansionist, exploitative empire determined to replace the cultures and religions of neighboring countries with the Empire’s hegemonic culture? It seems almost as though Kim has specific models in mind. I suppose we will never know what those models were.

The English title may sound a bit generic, but it references an amusing, important revelation that comes very early in the novel, which is that of course royal bloodlines tend not to remain confined to a few families. Loran can legitimately claim descent from Arland’s first king. Many Arlanders can. Perhaps most Arlanders can. Apparently Arland’s kings got around.

The Korean title¹, Star of Mercia, references the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the means by which the whole of Mercia was reduced to desert. While setting off what amounts to a nuke in the Imperial City would facilitate independence movements, it would also kill a lot of innocent people (Arlanders included). Which would be bad.

Much of the plot revolves around the costs and benefits of deals with the powerful. These vary from inhuman entities to sorcerous revenants to mortal humans. All have their own agendas. A number of them are even less trustworthy than one might expect from descriptions like ​“evil sorcerer”². The various protagonists should be happy they are being written by Kim, who is clearly on their side, rather than Joe Abercrombie, Glen Cook, or George R. R. Martin.

While the ending seemed a bit muddled, the plot moves along nicely. Kim interweaves his plots deftly³. It seems as if sequels are intended, but the novel stands on its own, as series novels should.

Blood of the Old Kings is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), here(Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).

1: I’m not giving the Korean title in Hangul, because Word doesn’t like Hangul at all. The Korean title can be transliterated as Meylusiauy Pyel Pyeol. Or so the net tells me. Please correct if I’m wrong.

2: Eldred would argue he’s not evil, just a misunderstood champion of freedom. However, the freedom he promotes is the freedom of Eldred to exploit weaker people and to inflict on those around him whatever abuses strike him as funny. There is a reason the Empire thinks it right and proper to run around in powered armor (fueled by dead sorcerous babies) smacking down magical adepts like Eldred.

3: It helps that Kim belongs to the Edgar Rice Burroughs school of narrative contrivance. Protagonists in the same general area, whether a vast, densely populated city or a largely rural kingdom, will cross paths at some point. While it is true all three are Arlander, it is also true the Imperial City is large and Arland even larger.