Some of you might know Paul S. Kemp from his Star Wars expanded universe fiction. Some of you might even know him from his Chronicles of Erevis Cale. I didn’t know him at all until an ARC of his latest novel showed up at my door. And now I feel like I just made a new friend.
The Hammer and the Blade is the first of a series starring the dashingly clever heroes Egil and Nix, and Kemp certainly has started off with a bang. This is good old-fashioned high-frolicking fantasy adventure. He’s created a curious and interesting world that I can’t wait to explore, and populated it with a vast cast of characters who practically burst off the page and start chatting you up. With his wise-cracking, swashbuckling protagonists, Kemp hits all the genre high notes and just a touch of the low ones.
[“Lives are made of moments, Nix. You know that.”]