THE PARIAH

RELEASED OUT NOW! 566 pages | Hardback/ebook/ audiobook

Author Anthony Ryan

Publisher Orbit

There’s a real thrill at the midpoint of this picaresque fantasy tale, when the characters gather just as battle starts. The vivid scene places you amid the chaos beside our anti-hero, Alwyn Scribe, and his rag-tag companions, in the claustrophobic press of a company about to charge. Reluctant soldiers swear in fear, then cower as arrows slice into people around them. It’s like a medieval Saving Private Ryan.

The book’s told in the first person, as an older Alwyn recounts his memoirs, mostly resisting the temptation to address the reader directly. A band of not-very-merry outlaws suffer betrayals and wrong turns that transform our narrator from forest urchin to scholar. There’s something of Sergio Leone about The Pariah too – our villains seek vengeance and fortune, while failing to avoid a civil war. It feels fresh and unforced.

Ryan’s novel is occupied by powerful women who inspire Alwyn’s progress, either rescuing him, educating him or commanding him. It lags a little in places, especially those instances where we pause for characters’ exposition. As a scribe, and occasional convict, Alwyn’s instructed to listen as nobles talk politics or religion. But the prose is confident and moving, especially once we’ve left the woodland behind, and even minor characters are drawn with charismatic attention to detail. Dave Bradley