Doomfarers of Coramonde
I’ve gushed here, if not precisely waxed eloquent, about books that I’ve enjoyed, especially a few that I’ve returned to after a number of years, decades even, and discovered that my fondness for them was not mere nostalgia.
Doomfarers of Coramonde is, however, a mixed bag.
Ok, to be fair, this wasn’t one that had held my imagination over the decades. That said, I recall enjoying Brian Daley’s books back in the 80’s, and some of the bad guys from A Tapestry of Magics had stuck, a monastic style order that didn’t believe in killing, or more accurately, directly killing. Perfectly happy to set traps though, or let the undead former brothers of the order kill, as they were no longer under vows. In general, the kind of people who shaved meanings very fine in order to screw you over as desired, or weasel out of responsibility.
But we’re here about Doomfarers. It is what is these days often called an “isekai” or other-world story, even if such existed well before the terms popularity. Think Stephen R Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, or even Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. In this case, one Gil McDonald, a soldier commanding an armored personall carrier in Vietnam, finds himself in another universe moments after another batterd APC, appears to save his vehicle and crew from an ambush. Turns out that another man from his/our Earth, the inventor Van Duyn, had already crossed over and hooked up with the Courtenays, sibling wizards who were holding off the illegitimate rule of another wizards puppet, and the wizards needed something that could take out a dragon, hence the summoning of McDonald and his crew. There is also Springbuck, legitimate pretender to the throne, escaping with his life to the outer provinces and meeting with the Courtenays to find some form of support.
Why is it a mixed bag?
The writing is…. OK. Stylistically it doesn’t entrance me, but neither does it get in the way. The standard power fantasy tropes of isekai where the modern earth man and his knowledge or granted abilities render him vastly superior are, if anything, underplayed. The application of guérilla tactics and judicious - because the resources are sharply limited - use of modern firepower tip the balance at times, but many of the locals are competent in their own right, and attention is paid to details like logistics enough to at least lampshade concerns like army and siege supply. The world itself seems thought out, with history and myth and naming conventions not obscured in a pseudo-elvish knockoff so that there is a feeling of time and place, and, well, history.
If anything, the most jarring is the conflict of the above and the fact that Gil McDonald feels more at home in this world as a warrior than back home, and some modernisms that completely crept in. On the one hand, the local nobility are strongly skeptical of the Democracy that Van Duyn has been peddling. On the other hand, every major female character is a strong independent woman tired of the expectations of men, or the most competent sorceress, or a co-ruler with an amazingly cosmopolitan king, and so on. Worse, nearly every major woman character has no issues with sleeping around, an understandable attitude perhaps for the single greatest sorceress, but I think the only female character that hadn’t changed romantic partners by the end of the book was the aforementioned Queen. This is more 70’s sexual revolution wish fulfillment than actual medieval attitudes where bloodlines and heredity matter, and birth control not common. And of course Gil, Springbuck, and Van Duyn receive a lot of favorable attention from women - a bit more realistic given their de facto social positions.
All in all these jarring inconsistencies didn’t throw me off enough to quit reading it, even as admittedly beach reading, but then I have a high tolerance for crap which is why it took me so long to swear off King, and some of the problems can be chalked up to being a “first book” both for the author and in a series that thankfully does come to a conclusion in two volumes. I am also admittedly now somewhat worried that a rereading of A Tapestry of Magics won’t live up to my nostalgic fondness for it.
So, yeah, liked the read, but not keeping it around, most likely, and cannot really recommend it.
As a teenager, I loved the scene where someone feeds a phosphorus grenade to Chaffinch. "But dragons have bellies like boilers...". There is also a sequel _The Starfollowers of Coramonde_. It has many of the same stylistic problems, but does explain the demonic backstory.