The Seventh Friend, by Tim Stead
Review and Author Interview
From Goodreads:
Hero. Monster. Saviour. Butcher. Madman. Recluse. Wolf Narak, the deadly and charismatic god of wolves, has earned all the names men give him, and since the climactic and bloody final battle of the Great War he has shunned the company of mortal men and withdrawn to his forest home. There he is troubled by dreams of blood and fire, tormented by memories of his own deeds.
But fate has not quite finished with the victor of Afael.
He receives an impossible message, and as he follows the trail a suspicion grows to a certainty within him. War is coming again, and Narak must leave his beloved wolves and once more take up his twin blades. Once again he must become the general of the six kingdoms, the terror of his enemies, a hero, a butcher, the bloodstained god
But fate has not quite finished with the victor of Afael.
He receives an impossible message, and as he follows the trail a suspicion grows to a certainty within him. War is coming again, and Narak must leave his beloved wolves and once more take up his twin blades. Once again he must become the general of the six kingdoms, the terror of his enemies, a hero, a butcher, the bloodstained god
My Review:
The writing here is beautiful, the imagery and
characterization very good. The
worldbuilding is fascinating, complex, and epic, while the story stays very
close to the characters, which is the best of both worlds. I love the cultural differences between the
five kingdoms and the Seth Yarra. I couldn’t always keep all the ancillary
geography and political structure straight, but Tim Stead did a really good job
of subtly re-explaining what was necessary as he went, so I never had trouble
following the actual story. If the
academic geography essay in the prologue puts you off, just skip it and go back
later if you need a refresher on the layout of the kingdoms.
Some parts are too detailed for my taste, and there’s a bit
of repetition. I may not have noticed
these had the book not been so very long.
For example, the final battle builds up for a long time, in great detail, and then ends
rather abruptly, followed by a really lengthy denouement. I really enjoyed the novel, but I would have
enjoyed it even more if it had been trimmed a bit.
I would also have liked to see a few more female characters
with the same depth as the male characters, who are wonderfully drawn. Narak is fantastic, as are many of the
others, and I love getting in the head of the Seth Yarra spy. Well done there.
There are a few typos, but not enough to distract from the
enjoyment of the story or the excellent writing. This is the quality independent authors need
to aspire to.
This is a great story, with great writing, and so close—so
very close—to earning five stars, something I don’t give out liberally. I will certainly read the next book.
êêêê+
And read my review of another of Tim Stead's novels: Shanakan
Exclusive Interview with the author:
I loved Narak’s character. Was he your favorite character to write, or did you have another?
I have always been fascinated by characters with real power. What is it that restrains them? Why don't they run amok? Narak is constrained by conscience and a deep mistrust of his own personality. It is conscience that redeems him. I really can't say if he was my favorite character, but he was certainly the most fun to write. Many of my major characters, Narak included, are fragments of my own personality broken off, exagerated and distorted by the funhouse mirror of fiction. Cain Arbak is another that is close to my heart. When I wrote the first chapter when Narak met Cain it was going to be Cain's only chapter, but Narak liked him, and so he survived to grow and become a rival focus for the tale.
Narak is the wolf god. Other members of the Benetheon are gods of sparrows, bears, and other animals. If you were one of the Benetheon, what animal would you have an affinity with?
A sloth? Perhaps not, though I do confess to enjoying sitting down with a good book, sitting down to write, sitting around with friends and a beer or a glass of wine - sitting seems to feature prominently. As a former diver I have to say that it would be hard to go past a dolphin. I met one once, a lone dolphin off the coast of the UK in about twenty feet of water. I juggled for it (that's hard underwater) which it seemed to like. We shook fins and went our seperate ways. Yes, I think a bottlenose dolphin.
Though the Seth Yarra are universally feared and hated by the people of the Six Kingdoms, their culture and traditions have some redeeming qualities, and that’s part of what makes the book so interesting. What would you say the best things about the Seth Yarra are?
Now that's an interesting question! I deliberately made Seth Yarra society egalitarian - a quality I much admire - but handicapped them with a destructive dogma. It's a poke at how I see fundementalist societies, those that persecute difference and change. The majority of people do well in such societies, but they tend to stagnate. The kingdoms on the other hand revel in their freedoms but are quite firmly elitist, and not especially troubled by the condition of the poorest among them. Like Narak, we tend to side with freedom, but for the Seth Yarra it's more important that everyone has enough to eat and a house to live in. How can you not find good in a society that cares for its citizens?
How long did it take you to write, revise, and publish The Seventh Friend?
If you stitched all the time I spent on it together, probably about a year. At the time I was writing a steady 5,000 words a week, perhaps a little more. Chronologicaly it probaby took three years. After I finished it I went on the write the other two in the series almost without pausing. At the same time I was offering the book to various agents and publishers with no success (though one complimented me on my writing - I'm not sure the others got past the submission letter). After I'd completed five novels and got some pretty good feedback I decided to go indie and see what happened.
What are some of your favorite fantasy books or series?
I have to start with Lord of the Rings, which I re-read quite recently. It still presses all the right buttons if you can get past the absence of women in leading roles. Robin Hobb's Assassin books are good. My reading of George Martin has been overtaken by the TV series. I loved the first book, but will probably wait for the show to finish and then some before I resume with the second. Pat Rothfuss is entertaining, though I fear the third book is too long delayed and may be just too long when it comes out. I have a problem with books over a thousand pages - there is a tendency to ramble. I like Naomi Novik's dragons and ships, Kate Elliott's Crossroads (Gate) series, Michelle Sagara's Cast in ... series. I could go on for ever, but can't stop without mentioning Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, which started me down this road, and Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, which is a slightly more challenging read, but quite exceptional (check out the reviews for this on amazon - it's a love or hate it book).
What are you writing now?
I'm writing a fill in novel - The Lawkeeper of Samara - for an unpublished series (The Fourth Age of Shanakan). This is seriously ambitious for me, so I will expand on it a little. There is a main series of novels which concern another power figure who is not totally unlike Wolf Narak, but the first book picks up his tale when he's no more than eighteen. There are three books in this series, but they are widely spaced. Allied to these are several other 'Mage' books that deal with the lives and times of other Mages living in the same place and time. Then, just for the fun of it, I'm adding a fantasy detective who will be solving a series of bizarre cases in the great city of Samara - that's what I'm writing now (71,000 words done). There will also be an explorer/mathematician character with his own series, and more may be added. I have no idea how many books it will take to finish this - it depends on how many people like it, I guess, but I can't see it being less that 12 books in total. Hope I live long enough :-)
How can people find you online?
I have a website at: http://www.timstead.info/
You can find me on Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8120958.Tim_Stead
You can find me on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Tim-Stead/e/B00JEKIE2I/
You can find me on Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8120958.Tim_Stead
You can find me on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Tim-Stead/e/B00JEKIE2I/
About Tim Stead:
Born in the UK, lived in Hong Kong, London, Hampshire, and eventually moved to New Zealand.
Always seem to be moving to more deserted places.
He wasted many years not writing, but now has the time to devote to it. He has written six books, three of which are available on Amazon (The Sparrow and the Wolf trilogy). The others will follow, as will editions for Createspace and Smashwords.
He writes fantasy because it is so open to the imagination, which is half the fun, and also because it permits exaggerated explorations of humanity and all its excesses.
He is a former avid scuba diver, a former beekeeper, and a very poor skier, archer and fencer.
Torn between reading and writing, but writing is winning.
He now spends most of his time writing, reading, planting trees, cutting them down and cutting them up, and trying to persuade people to read his books.
