Pathfinder Tales: Master of Devils [Paperback]

Dave Gross is back in his third (out of five) Pathfinder Tales novels with him on a byline. This one leaves nothing wanting other than more work from him in the future. Master of Devils has plenty of action and action is what Dave Gross does best.

The current book brings Chelaxian Count Varian Jeggare and his devil-spawn body-guard Radovan on a journey to Tian Xia in order to recover the husk of a wishing pearl that is left every twelve years by the Celestial Dragon. The journey is sponsored by the Pathfinder Society, but mostly seems to be an excuse to get their Venture-Captain/Count away from Absolam for a while.

The pair barely arrives at their destination and are immediately separated from each other by bandits. Varian ends up as a disciple at the Dragon Temple, where he begins a series of training that he never wanted. The situation places him in a most distressing subservient position as "First Brother of the Kitchen." While he originally tries to get out of his un-agreeable discipleship, he eventually realizes that more can be done from his current position that he originally supposed.

Radovan also ends up serving an unwanted master. Burning Cloud Devil traps him in his diabolic form and uses the deadly "quivering palm" technique to force him to train in the ways of the martial artist in preparation for destroying the Celestial Dragon.

I've already mentioned that Dave Gross is a master of action scenes and that this book has lots of them. While I'm not an expert at all on martial arts or oriental culture, the flavor of the story is consistent with what I do know. I particularly liked the nine-tailed fox and the hopper. For small minor character that had maybe a page of lines total (none for the hopper) they were brilliantly three dimensional. Using Jeggare's dog Arnisant as a periodic narrator was also a welcome surprise and pleasure.

There is nothing in this book not to like.

That said, I do try and leave little tidbits of the technical in my reviews and this book barely gave me anything to go on. There are three first person narrative points of view used in the novel. In the beginning, it is very clear stylistically who is speaking, but as the story progresses it becomes less clear. While I'm sure that part of this is because of how the different characters are progressing, not all of the change could be easily accounted by that. (The rest of this paragraph is a mild spoiler) It was easy to envision a dog that could see color, but some of the intellectual leaps made by Arnisant seemed a little more than just character progression. While I'm sure that some of Radovan's "New York" gangster style of presentation would lose its edge in a foreign country, I'm not convinced that he'd lose that much of it. Jeggare's change seemed the most fluid and predictable as he went from haughty and arrogant, to someone less abrupt.

My second nit picky (and yes, I'm very much admitting that neither of these are problems that should discourage people from reading the book) problem I blame more on the editor than the writer. It is difficult for a writer to gauge exactly how a novel is paced when forced to read it again and again from the start to where he left off. Often it is left to the editor, as the first to read the novel from beginning to end just once to see the places where time is taken and the story is not advanced. Not only does this save the publisher money, but it also subtly increases the value of the product.

While not as bad as what was seen in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, this book could have benefited from a little bit of editing. Not much. Just a little. Less than 2 chapter worth, I'm sure.

To summarize: 4 out of 5 stars. Very good stuff. I'd expect that most people that enjoy fantasy in one form or another will find this an enjoyable book.

The sequel to Prince of Wolves takes place in Tian-Xa (think a fantasy China/Japan setting). This book is heavily influenced by Chinese cinema, so you have monks that fly (like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) and weapons that act impossibly (at one point cloth is used as a weapon). Fights (lots of these) are described very cinematically. This is a very fun book with some very strange characters in it. If I knew more asian mythology, I might understand them better, but that did not detract from my enjoyment or understanding of the book in any way. Under the MPAA rating system, I would call this book PG. It is appropriate and enjoyable for anyone from teens to adults.

I was approached by Dave Gross to review Master of Devils after I had reviewed a separate novel set in the same Pathfinder universe, The Winter Witch. I was hesitant, because my life doesn't really easily allow much time for reading (it can take me a month to read one book), but I deeply respect Dave and felt I owed it to him when he contacted me directly. I met him at Gen Con and he personally handed the book to me - that's one way to get me to review it!

I'm glad I did. Master of Devils is as much about the extraplanar fiends that lurk in Dungeons & Dragons as it is about the fiends that lurk in our hearts. It begins as a fish-out-of-water story, weaving three different protagonists together into one final climax. The de facto leader is Chelaxian Count Varian Jeggare, a snooty half-elf aristocrat/wizard who can only cast spells through "riffle scrolls" (flip books). His bodyguard is a half-fiend brawler named Radovan who is fond of showing off his fangs when he gives opponents "the big smile." And finally, there's Arnisant, a real son of a b*tch. That's right. He's a dog.

I didn't warm to Jeggare. His arch prose and winding narrative sometimes makes him a chore to read. Radovan on the other hand, is far more relatable. He's a no-nonsense bruiser with a heart of gold, and when he becomes trapped in an even more frightening demonic form it's easy to sympathize with him. But it's Arnisant who steals the show as a "good dog," who loves to work on jobs for his master. He ends up leading a group of kami and other magical beasts in a final battle reminiscent of Tolkien's Battle of Five Armies.

Complicating matters is the fact that all these characters have been thrust into an Asian-fantasy realm. Dave's grasp on the tropes that fill Hong Kong fantasy cinema is breathtaking. He manages to wedge in Asian ghosts, the aforementioned kami, foo lions, Asian-style dragons, a dizzying array of martial arts, the Monkey King, drunken-style boxing made famous by Jackie Chan, a variety of monkish disciplines, wise old tutors, scheming eunuchs, warrior princesses, hopping vampires, ninja-style assassins, star-crossed lovers, multiple curses, flying magical scrolls, a one-armed warrior, "tree jumping," and the infamous Quivering Palm. Dave knows his stuff and he uses all of it to good effect, from blades that move quicker than the eye can follow to heroic duels to the death.

Each character's journey through Tian Xia introduces a different part of the culture. For Jeggare, it's the disciplined life of a martial arts monk. For Radovan, it's the life of a warrior hero. And for Arnisant, it's about enlisting the aid of a variety of colorful creatures from folklore. If this was just one protagonist, it would be too much to take in, but separated across three different threads it's a real treat to read.

The ending is stuffed with everything but the kitchen sink. There are not one but two female ghosts out for revenge, a variety of false deaths, a revelation about one character that was broadcast too early, and a moral choice made by Radovan that unfortunately falls a little flat. But the fun is in the telling, and our heroes all come through their trials changed men (and dogs).

For readers who want a change of pace but find reading an Asian-style setting too daunting, Master of Devils is a perfect way to transition from sword-and-sorcery fantasy to martial arts fantasy. It evokes a world that's even more exotic than a half-elf, half-fiend, and a dog adventuring together.