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KRISTEN’S REVIEW:
Despite how long this book is, it is a little difficult to sum up. There are a host of POV characters and while the book mostly focuses on two of them, there are a lot of people telling this story.
Violence & Vigilance is the story of Basalt Kale, who is a monk in the order that follows The Sovereign – an immortal man they revere as somewhat of a god. Monks of this order sing to gain elemental magic powers, which despite being in the order since he was a baby, Kale has not gained any of this magic. He does however have the power to negate this magic and unlike any other negators, he doesn’t get sick from doing this. He finds out some secrets about his order and he escapes the order and helps the native people rise up against them.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Irdessa the Undying is an arena fighter in Fohvylda, the city of yet another immortal man. Irdessa escapes the arena and flees, constantly being tracked by her captors. She flees back to her home city and becomes the leader of a vanguard of fighters who rise up against Fohvylda.
There’s a war brewing between the Monks of Ausgan on one side of the sea, and the Heathens of Fohvylda on the other side, and it is a war that has been brewing for hundreds of years. Kale and Irdessa find themselves right in the middle of everything, fighting mostly just to survive.
This book was very long, as I said, and it took me a while to get into it fully. There is quite a lot of lead up to anything of any real substance happening. It got there eventually, but the beginning was just a little bloaty for my liking.
Violence & Vigilance had some really interesting characters. I wasn’t a huge fan of Irdessa at first, but she grew on me by the end. Kale was a character that I could cheer for from the beginning, being the underdog of the story. I looked forward to the chapters where we got Kale’s part of the story, though sometimes they felt too far apart.
After I did get into it, I listened to the whole thing in about 3 sittings – over about 3 days. Jonathan Waters did a great job with the narration, enough that listening to 8+ hours of a book in a day didn’t seem like it was as long as it was. My headphones died before my interest waned, which is always a positive, in my opinion.
It wasn’t my favorite finalist I’ve read thusfar but I can understand how it got to be a finalist. Most of my gripes are minor, and all told I had a good time once this one got going. I gave Violence & Vigilance 7.5/10 stars. It was definitely an epic grimdark adventure, so if you’re into that, you’ll probably like this one!
ESME’S REVIEW:
This opens dark. It does not pull punches. I expect this to be too dark for a lot of readers — but for those who wish Abercrombie would knock it up a notch, here you go. I think maybe it’s round-about the same level of violence as “The Boys”, but just like the show, there’s a layer of humor that for me, keeps things from going too far…most of the time. There are definitely scenes that put a foot over my line, but I was so invested in the story, even if this wasn’t an SPFBO book, I would have kept going. I also feel similar to The Boys; this book definitely pushes limits, but that’s not the point of the scene. There’s real character development, plot points, and world-building that give the violence and brutality context and a sense of realism. I don’t feel like it was trying to be as gross as possible just for the purpose of pushing boundaries, if that makes sense.
There are definitely larger-than-life characters in this, but they were reigned in just enough that I didn’t break my suspension of disbelief. I know a few people in real life who if I wrote them down with complete accuracy into a book, people would tell me I’m trying too hard and they can’t be real.
Although there are a bunch of characters, we’re really following two groups of folks centered around two main characters. We’ve got Irdessa the Undying who we meet in a gladiator type situation. She’s been thrown into a ring of fighters who keep slaying monsters until the monsters slay them. They’re “criminals” who are paying a debt to society through entertainment for the masses — sometimes folks are just thrown in there and labeled a criminal if important folks decide that they don’t like them. She’s known as the Undying because of her lack of dying in the gladiator type battles.
We also follow Basalt Kale, who is a monk living on a different island than the island that Irdessa is stuck on being a gladiator. He’s low on the totem pole in this order and when the reader first meets him, he thinks he’s about to die, he’s contemplating suicide — which is an unusual way to open with a priest character. He ends up stumbling upon a prisoner who reshapes the way he views the world. He experiences things from a different point of view for the first time and it’s a serious mind fuck.
Kraus is a large side character who is a bit larger than life. His demeanor, background, capability of killing and committing atrocities reminds me a lot of The Boys character, Billy Butcher. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to enjoy him as much as I did, but I found him to be fascinating and fun to read about. He’s kind of a foil to Irdessa in a way, they have very different personalities and since they’re both stuck in the fighting pits they are unwilling partners. He’s a little outrageous, a little fucked up, but he has redeeming qualities that become more obvious as the book moves along.
The world was expansive, this is definitely an epic fantasy with an emphasis on epic. The magic is pretty neat, it’s a sound/elemental mashup of sorts. Using different frequencies can tap into different kinds of elemental magics. There’s the classic fire blasting stuff, but there’s also seismic shifts, concentrated blasts of air — the long short of it is that people can turn their own voice into a weapon. I mean, this is a book that gives you land sharks, so, anything goes, lol.
The prose was absolutely fantastic — the style, tone, and humor were consistent throughout. I did, however, feel like this book dragged a bit for me from time to time. It’s nearly 800 pages and there’s essentially no author that’s going to hold my attention consistently for that long over the course of one book. It didn’t drag so hard I wanted to put it down, it just felt a touch bloated in places.
This will be for people who want a gritty, realistic, character driven grim dark epic fantasy.
I give it an 8.5/10