The Roads to Baldairn Motte

By: Craig Comer, Ahimsa Kerp, and Garrett Calcaterra
Paperback: 230 pages
Publisher: L & L Dreamspell (May 22, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1603183124
ISBN-13: 978-1603183123

For a story about a war of succession, this was something of an unusual novel.  That’s a compliment.  What this really is, is three novellas set against a common background, telling parts of a larger story, and at times recounting the same events from totally different perspectives.

Each of the authors wrote one of the novellas.  I hadn’t read any of their previous works, nor was I familiar with their names.  I’ll be keeping an eye out for them in the future.

The basic plot of the over-arching storyline is that the king has died, his daughter dies in childbirth shortly thereafter, and a war of succession ensues between the northern and southern nobility, one that is instigated by the South.

The book opens with not one but two prefaces, although they’re not called that.  Initially, this was a little offputting, since both were in a slightly overwritten style.  After finishing the book, I went back and looked them over and realized one was “written” by a character who shows up in the third part of the novel, which added a little more depth to the story for me.

It didn’t take me long to get into the book, though.  The first section, “On the Black Wind to Baldairn Motte” by Garrett Calcaterra, tells the story of a southern sea captain conscripted to ferry soldiers north for the coming invasion.  What he doesn’t know is that the minor nobleman traveling with him has brought along a prostitute disguised as a boy.  It turns out she’s the woman the captain loves.  This is a dark and twisty tale of cross and double cross.

The second entry in the book, “Blades of the North” by Ahimsa Kerp, tells the story of a commander of an elite company of soldiers who makes a devil’s bargain and discovers sometimes your allies are as dangerous as your enemies.  There’s a great deal of hinting at secret societies (of which the commander is a member) and conspiracies, with a number of loose ends left dangling.  I’d like to see these tied up in a future book.  (That’s a hint, Ahimsa.)  There’s also some things in the commander’s past that are alluded to but never explained.  I’ll be waiting for the explanation.  (Another hint.)  This one ends with a bloody battle sequence that kept me riveted.

The final story, “Thralls of the Fairie” by Craig Comer, tells the story of the same battle from a different perspective.  In this case, of two friends, commoners who are conscripted to fight for the lords of the North.  One deserts to make sure his family is safe and taken care of.  The other has no family and stays with the men from his village and fights.  This was an in-depth look at courage, responsibility and duty, and the different things those ideals mean to different men.  In spite of the title, there were no fairies in the story.

That brings up one of the more unusual points.  While there is a belief in more than one deity and in fairies, there are none active in any of the stories.  In fact there’s little magic at all.  This is primarily a book about people, specifically common people.  There are no viewpoint characters from the upper classes or nobility.  Instead the authors have chosen to focus on the individuals who are most affected by the war, the commoners whose lives are disrupted.  Ultimately, this is a book about individuals and how they are affected by, and affect, the larger events around them.

The title of the novel refers to the location of the final battle, and the roads mentioned are the different routes the characters take to end up there.

Most interesting to me was the different ways the characters acted heroic.  We tend to think of heroes as larger than life figures who commit acts of great valor.  The authors amply demonstrated that often the greatest heroes aren’t the ones who commit great deeds.  In fact, in the second story, “Blades of the North”, the protagonist, Henry Barlow, arguably commits the greatest acts of bravery, yet to my mind he was the least heroic of the viewpoint characters because of some of the things he does.  I found the farmer Trask in “Thralls of the Faerie” was the most heroic because he took great risks to keep his family safe.  At the same time he wrestled with guilt because he couldn’t be with his friends fighting battles at the same time.  He had conflicting loyalties–noble and honorable and good–and struggled with making the right moral choice when many would argue there was no right choice.  The captain (sailing kind, not army variety) Terryll Pace and the whore Lyrie in “On the Black Wind to Baldairn Motte” also display great heroism, he risking his life to save her, and she risking her life to warn the Earl of treachery.  All in all, The Roads to Baldairn Motte contains some of the best and most thought provoking studies in heroism at the individual level that I’ve seen in quite a while.

The writing in this novel is professional level, much better than I typically expect from newer writers.  The prose is crisp, and the characters fleshed out as real people, not archetypes.  The book had an epic feel to it.  There are epic events occurring, and we see those events from more than one perspective.  We find out what becomes of some of the characters we met early on later, as other characters perceive them.  Yet the authors don’t focus on every single detail of the war.  There aren’t a couple of dozen viewpoint characters to keep track of.  At only 232 pages, this is an epic you can enjoy without making a second career out of it.  If you’re as pressed for time as I am right now, that’s a major plus.

This was an enjoyable book.  There’s enough background hinted at that the authors, either collaboratively or individually can return to this world for quite a while.  I hope they do.

I would like to thank RBE for making this novel available for review.  I’m not sure I would have found it or read it otherwise.  If that had been the case, I would have missed an enjoyable read and the opportunity to discover three new authors.