Greg Keyes - The Blood Knight - Review

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The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes. ***1/2
Third volume of the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone
Rating: Good (3 1/2 out of five stars)

The Blood Knight is the third volume of The Kingdoms of Thorn and bone series by Greg Keyes. The main storyline itself is one of those multi-threaded affairs, much like Erikson and Martin, in which the reader is thrown about between somewhat divergent and convoluted unfolding plot threads which involve different sets of characters. And much like Erikson it’s difficult to pin down exactly who is the main character of the story most of the time.

To start off with, the first two installments of the series are excellent, IMO, with great characters and intricate and intelligent world-building. But The Blood Knight seems to suffer a bit as a result of its own elaborate and, at times, frantic pace of its simultaneously occurring plot threads. No sooner does one settle into the events involving one set of characters, when Keyes suddenly breaks off to another thread, leaving the reader a bit bewildered – because the storyline is barely advanced within the narrow scope of each change. The story “feels” disconnected, with little narrative flow. To be sure, there is an underlying narrative, which advances with each shift in characters and settings, but the story, despite its frantic pace and heavy-handed action, develops in such tiny steps that it feels – at least at times – that the story is really going nowhere.

All the main characters - who are still alive - from the first two books return in the Blood Knight. There is Aspar, the King’s ranger, Murielle, the imprisoned Queen Mother, Anne Dare, the rightful heiress of the Kingdom, Leoff, the court composer, Stephen, the studious and gifted monk, Cazio, Anne’s foppish sidekick, and Sir Neil, the stalwart and battle-hardened knight. They are all well-rendered characters, with depth; sometimes acting in concert and sometimes separated by the events of the story, thus making up its many threads.

The storyline picks up exactly where The Charnel Prince leaves off, with Anne and her company trying to make their way back to the Eslen and to reclaim her throne, which has been usurped by Prince Robert, her uncle. In the meantime, Robert is holding Murielle, Anne’s mother, prisoner in the castle tower (where else?). Along the way, Anne is trying desperately to raise an army to take back the Kingdom, while avoiding Robert’s henchmen. At the same time Aspar and Stephen are trying to unravel the mystery of the Briar King and his mass of followers who have completely overrun the King’s forest and all the surrounding towns and villages.

The problem is that if anything, the elaborate storyline, crafted by Keyes in the first two books, is not any clearer – and if anything – even murkier as a result of the unfolding events in the Blood Knight. To be bluntly honest, a bit of the bizarre twists to the story, are somewhat nonsensical, even bordering occasionally on being downright silly.

Nevertheless, The Blood Knight is saved by its great characters and the well thought-out groundwork, which Keyes accomplished in the previous installments of the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone. Keyes is still an excellent writer, in my opinion. The next volume, The Born Queen, is due out in over a year from now, which only adds to the frustration of how The Blood Knight leaves off – kind of nowhere.