So while the scenario may be somewhat unfamiliar, the characters are. While set in a world that includes both magic and guns, the book is almost a detective novel as the main character, Max Gibson, works to find the perpetrator of a heinous crime involving the family of a former adventuring companion.įilling out the story are a series of characters familiar from any detective story - the cop (in this case an elven member of city watch), the love interest (a former adventuring companion), the tavern owner, the bad guy, and other former companions. Set in a fantasy world which Matt Forbeck had originally developed as a role playing game in 2000, shelved, and then returned to this year as a great setting for a trilogy of books. I loved Max's voice, expressed through an expert blend of vivid image and humor. The mystery gets solved in this first of a trilogy, but there are plenty of tantalizing threads lift dangling. The pacing never lets up as Max ventures out against the zombies beyond the gates, and gets chased up and down the tangled levels of the city, finally ending up at the top when surprising things happen.

Especially when the wrong person is accused-and he believes the chief suspect is his ex-girlfriend, a beautiful elf woman who had slummed with the adventurers for a time. But when he discovers the family of an old adventurer friend having been murdered, he has to solve it.

Max Gibson is an ex-adventurer who just wants to kick back and enjoy his friends and a good beer at his favorite hangout in Dragon City, the capital of an empire ruled by an actual dragon. Upside of that is new discoveries: if it hadn't been for the Epic FantasyBundle last summer I might never have discovered Matt Forbeck, and that would have been a shame because he writes one of my favorite flavors of fantasy: a blend of action, magic, and humor. When I was young it was easy to read every book published in SF and F.

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