I’m making a conscious effort to seek out good self-published fantasy. I’ve read some self-published fantasy before, of course, but only by accident, as it were. Some has been good, some has been less good. So I wanted to actually go out of my way to find the really good self-pub stuff that I might be missing.
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids, by Michael McClung was the winner of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off competition for 2015, run by writer Mark Lawrence, so that seemed a good place to start.
The thief Amra Thetys agrees to look after a friend’s looted statuette while he bargains with a buyer. The next morning, the friend is found dead, brutally murdered. Amra is determined to find the killer and avenge her friend. What follows is an adventure full of peril, brutal magic, and fallen gods.
The best thing about The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids were the characters of Amra, who is determined, sarcastic, and loyal, and her ally, the slightly disturbing mage Holgren. The story is told by Amra, and her voice stands out, full of energy and attitude. It’s unusual still to find fantasy where the protagonist has such a distinctive voice, and the book very much benefits from it.
I’ve given this four stars rather than five, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it. For me, the writing could have been tightened up in a few places, and the author’s fondness for occasional sentence fragments didn’t work for me, pulling me out of the story. The epilogue, which isn’t in Amra’s voice, seemed tacked on just to make it clear there would be further stories. But these are minor issues.
I’m very happy to have read this book, and I’ll definitely read more of the Amra Thetys series. I would judge my attempt to find really good self-published fantasy novels a success on this first hit out. Give it a try.
Four stars, edging on four and a half.
(I would add that I’m not a massive fan of this cover, but don’t let it put you off.)