Review: "A Pilgrimage of Swords" and "The Kraken's Tooth" by Anthony Ryan

Fresh off reading "The Pariah", I took the recommendation of a friend of mine and gave Anthony Ryan's "Seven Swords" series a try. So far it's only two books: "A Pilgrimage of Swords" and "The Kraken's Tooth".

I burned through "A Pilgrimage of Swords" in about two days. I got "The Kraken's Tooth" immediately after and started in on that.

The two books go together, so it's easier to ramble about my overall impressions.

In a nutshell, the series is about Guyime, aka "Pilgrim", who bears a cursed sword with a bloodthirsty demon within it. The sword and the demon give our (anti-)hero long life and enhance his badass talents. Guyime, a former king with a decidedly bloodthirsty reputation, is sort of done with the whole mass-murderer routine and is looking to get out of his arrangement with his snarky demonic blade.

In "A Pilgrimage of Swords", Guyime joins a quest to meet the Mad God in order to get a prayer answered. He meets a variety of folk on his quest (as is typical of the trope), including a woman who calls herself "Seeker". Seeker is a beast-charmer on a quest to find her daughter, abducted by slavers.

As one might imagine when one looks for a being called "the Mad God", things go sideways pretty quickly. Guyime and Seeker wind up joining forces, leading into "The Kraken's Tooth". In the second book, the two are on a quest that has tied Seeker's quest for her daughter to Guyime's quest for an end to things. Without giving too much away, krakens are the scariest creatures in the world. Hunting for something called "The Kraken's Tooth", predictably goes in some horribly-wrong directions and involves a magic, demonically-possessed sword. Yes, I think there will be seven books in this series.

Overall the books are quick reads. I'm not going to suggest there's deep character development or anything, but the new characters who come on in the quest are intriguing. I think my favorite character is actually Guyime's sword. Hilariously-evil. I look forward to the rest of the series.