THE MOONSTEEL CROWN

A Fistful Of Silver

RELEASED 9 FEBRUARY 384 pages | Paperback/ebook

Author Stephen Deas

Publisher Angry Robot

On SFX’S off-duty evenings, a favourite non-sf film is The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. We’re fond of how the Civil War is quietly unfolding all around them – that sweeping struggle to decide the States’ future is a backdrop to the real business of digging up gold, a mere inconvenience to our picaresque protagonists.

There’s something of that in The Moonsteel Crown. The Emperor’s dead, and factions are squabbling for control. The regent needs to secure a mystical crown. But our lowlife trio Myla, Fings and Seth couldn’t care less. They’re handling their own private crises: eating, staying warm, and regretting misspent years angering the wrong people. As members of Blackhand’s gang, the Unrulys, they’re paid to do a simple job. Go steal a box – don’t look in it! – and keep whatever silver you can find on the way.

In this respect, it betrays its roots as a role-playing campaign that author Stephen Deas used to play with friends. You can almost imagine thief Fings rolling a d20 stealth check as he sneaks past sleeping guards. But next we’re assailed by betrayal and deception, and the story accelerates.

Deas’s prose is witty, occasionally almost Pratchett-like, certainly reminiscent of Joe Abercrombie at his driest. In its tight focus on back-alley crime, it brings to mind the low fantasy of Peter Mclean’s recent Priest Of Bones books too. When fights break out they tend to be smallscale but choreographed with skill. No vast battlefields here; instead there’s the flash of knives in the dark. We’re drip-fed an understanding of how magic works, with its sigils and fire, which is inventive without overpowering the story.

As with Sergio Leone’s tale of double-crossing gunslingers, there’s something vital and dangerous going on in the world, but our fun comes from the petty tragedies of three downtrodden rogues.

Myla’s former “Sword-mistress” Tasahre (mentioned several times) features in Deas’s 2011 novel The Warlock’s Shadow.