Book Review: Desa Kincaid: Bounty Hunter by R. S. Penney
Intriguing world and character driven plot weighed down by shoddy writing.
Book kindly provided by the author.
*Full Story Spoilers Ahead*
Bounty Hunter is a fast paced adventure-romance story set in a fantasy-western world featuring strong world building and a character driven plot. Readers would benefit from a strong imagination as the writing does not always do the world of Eradia justice.
Plot Summary
Desa Kincaid, bounty hunter and Field Binder of Aladar, estranged from her homeland and in pursuit of two men, Bendarian and Morley. Bendarian's deadly experiments left many dead and wounded. Desa has been pursuing him for a decade yet he somehow manages to always evade her. Morley is responsible for the death of Desa’s husband, Martin, a man she married but did not love romantically as she prefers the company of women.
We meet Desa approaching the village of Sorla where Morley was last seen. He is long gone but the Ether reveals he was there. She is attacked by a local brute who she later has to be beat up with the aid of her Field Binding; magic. She drags him to the sheriff’s office while he screams of witchcraft and evil. Desa lies to the sheriff and to the brute’s misfortune he is a known trouble maker who the sheriff is all too happy to lock up. In the jail house we meet our first two companions, Tommy and Sebastian, imprisoned for breaking the Almighty’s law that men do not sleep with other men. Tommy is destined for the hangman’s noose while his lover Sebastian chose slavery. Desa cannot help herself and demands they are freed as it is no crime in Aladar, a name that brings more trouble than it’s worth outside its walls. The sheriff and deputy disagree and another fight occurs. Desa beats the two men handedly, with help of magic, and frees Tommy and Sebastian, then fleeing south in pursuit of Morley.
They arrive in a Glad Meadows and come across a woman named Miri who teases Tommy but soon the group are followed by Lenny and others from Sorla. A fight with gravity magic, thanks to Desa, plays out and her and Tommy escape. Sebastian chooses to stay behind due to his distrust of the witch. He soon reappears along with Miri who followed Desa out of Glad Meadows and into the forest. The four travel, uncomfortably, together on the road to Ofalla; a large city. We are introduced to Marcus, a by the book Field Binder tasked with arresting Desa for her brazen acts that risk war between Aladar and the surrounding lands. A war that when last fought almost brought ruin to the Field Binders fabled city.
Close to Ofalla Desa and company discover a strange grey wasteland. A farmhouse stands, the grass is grown, but all is grey. She investigates the house, finds everything inside is grey from bullets to chairs to shoes, and leaves - taking the bullets. The family appear from behind the building, grey and ashen, unable to speak and behaving like beasts. Desa is attacked and finds that nothing effects the greymen save a bullet to the head. Sebastian pulls the trigger first and Desa is furious but that is unexplained and I assume it was some hope of saving the people from their malady. When Desa is about to slay the last of them it speaks with an unnatural voice that sounds like an amalgamation of many. Talking as if it not of the world it leaves and the last of the greymen collapse dead.
The party reaches Ofalla and Marcus confronts Desa and takes her to speak with the Synod, leaders of Aladar, via radio. Technology that is witchcraft to the ‘primitives.’ Desa is commanded to return. She refuses and has a short fight with Marcus as she flees the bank he stashed the radio in. Out in the street, however, she finds Morley wielding a seemingly unlimited supply of Ether. Marcus and Desa fight Morley as long as they can but he cannot die and instead they choose to flee leaving destruction in their wake. At the hotel they are staying at Desa discovers she cannot infuse the bullets she looted from the farmhouse, the Ether does not touch them. It is unclear what this means.
Adele, a mysterious aristocrat of Ofalla and Sensitive (someone who can see into the Ether with ease) comes to Desa with Bendarian’s address. Her uncle is the mayor and the two write to each other often. Sebastian, after arguing with Tommy, and finding Bendarian’s address betrays the group. Miri follows him and returns with the unfortunate news.
Desa and Marcus plan an assault on Bendarian’s house. Marcus lures Morley away while Desa goes inside. Desa kills Sebastian and a long fight breaks out with Bendarian. He reveals his and Morley’s endless power comes from the Nether, the antithesis of the Ether, chaotic energy that feeds on emotion and can rewrite the laws of nature. Something happens and this power ages Bendarian decades in seconds. Chaos cannot be controlled. A voice speaks to him from the beyond demanding to be freed. He teleports to escape Desa.
Desa and company track Bendarian using an infused knife that Desa impaled him with and he kept while Adele can pinpoint his location too. Desa keeps her knowledge secret and distrusts Adele finding her power too convenient. After days of travelling they reach the Gatharan Desert. Desa pursues Bendarian alone into the desert and reaches a mysterious ancient city with crystals that exude Ether. Bendarian is there, his form now taking on serpentine qualities, well on his way on ushering in whatever he found in the Nether. Morley is missing having been killed by Bendarian for his life force. Bendarian is ‘killed’ a number of times but the Nether sustains him. The two fight and are interrupted by Adele who shoots Bendarian and then attempts to destroy the crystal. She fails but succeeds in her own aim; to release the being of the Nether into herself. Bendarian is distraught, and powerless now his master is free, but still he cannot die as Adele will not allow it. She has vast control over reality. Desa attempts to kill her but Adele warns her not too and halts bullets in midair without any infused objects. She leaves to convert people to worship her. Desa finds the others and is dejected in her failure. In fact everything is worse.
Desa, Miri, Tommy, and Marcus travel to Dry Gulch, the town on the other side of the Gatharan Desert where Adele meets them. She isn’t really Adele anymore and refers to herself as the Weaver, sibling of Mercy and Vengeance, the goddess of creation Desa introduced early on as responsible for the Ether. The Weaver teleports Desa et al to Aladar where they are promptly arrested for high treason.
I have not mentioned the romance plots which are present for each of the main characters. These are forefront for parts of the book and fall away for other parts. For Tommy and Adele it is a major part of their chapters as it is for Miri later on. Desa tries her hardest to ignore her own romantic entanglements but fails spectacularly. Around 35-40% of the time the book reads like a romance first and fantasy-western second, though the romance is tied to the main plot in a couple of major ways.
Worldbuilding
Aladar, city of Field Binders, advanced technology, and closed off from the rest of the Eradian continent. An enclave of knowledgeable and snobbish people unwilling to share with the ‘primitives’ beyond their walls. A war was fought between the ‘primitives’ and the Aladri in which Aladar almost fell, hence the resentment. While revolvers and similar weaponry are common in Eradia, electricity is none existent and pack animals are still the primary means of transport. Conversely in Aladar there are radios, electricity, control over gravity and light, and much more thanks to Field Binding. A magic Desa and Marcus insist is merely technology but requires the use of Ether, a mysterious invisible energy force present in all things left over from creation by the goddesses Mercy and Vengeance, or so it is believed by the Aladri. The rest of the Eradian continent worship the Almighty, a god of strict laws and customs which the Aladri routinely ignore, break, and disrespect.
Field Binding is an odd magic system, well thought out and precise in its application similar to a Brandon Sanderson magic system, but its source and whether it is magic at all is contentious for the characters, and maybe for some readers who want clearer information. It begins as technology were infusing objects with different types of Ether generates an effect. A ring can be made to glow as a Light Source or create a bubble of darkness as Light Sink. A belt can be made to alter gravity’s pull as a Gravity Sink or Source to create the effect for the user of incredible leaps over buildings or faux-flight. There is control over heat and electricity too. This is all solidly written and makes for some excellent fight scenes and clever solutions to the problems faced. The source of the magic begins as technology, infusing objects with Ether, then shifts into a residue of creation - thus miracles or divine magic - and then into something else defined by its opposite, the Nether. A mysterious sort of divine power fuelled by emotion while the Ether is reached through meditation and serenity. This does add to the world and character building as we see even the Aladri are fallible and mistaken as to the nature of the world despite their advanced “technology.”
The Eradian continent is a vast landscape with various biomes. Desa starts her journey in small villages and forests but is soon in farmlands and the city of Ofalla where after a brief stay they head off into drylands crossing rivers to reach scrublands and finally the Gatharan Desert, a red and dusty place. The world is populated by a stiff and proper people, by farmers and aristocrats, by bankers and ruffians, by merchants and thieves. Yet as much as the world is believable and full at times it also feels empty and solely revolving around our heroes at others (and that’s before it is in fact empty in the desert). I enjoyed my time in Eradia as fantasy-western is an unusual combination that should be utilised by more authors but the depth of the world shown was too shallow and lacking richness. At times the characters observations seem either out of place, contrived, or so message laden as to break the immersion:
‘Desa resisted the urge to make a comment about men and their seemingly endless need to command respect through the construction of large, obtrusive monuments to their power. Only a money lender would choose to imbue a place of commerce with religious significance.’ (Chapter 10, p175 in my pdf copy with 500 pages.)
Yes it would be a bank that was made to look like a church, I agree Desa, only a money lender could be so crass but I am more interested in the sentence before. Does Desa honestly believe ornate, imposing buildings are merely ‘obtrusive’ and built only for men to show off? I don’t know, seems at odd view for someone from a grand and advanced city like Aladar. This may explain the lack of richness in the descriptions of the world; character doesn’t care so we don’t see it but that seems like a missed opportunity to world build for the reader. Yet there are multiple points of view of the world that read only a little differently. Many things are described as ‘grey’ even though that colour becomes important to the story later on. Other descriptions read more like a manual than a novel.
The fascinating and inviting world is there but if only it were shown in greater depth. More colour and grandiosity would go a long way to building the world of Eradia. What we are shown is necessary but not sufficient.
Throughout there are inconsistencies in names. An inn called ‘MacGregor’s’ on one page becomes ‘McGregor’s’ on the next and this sort of mistake repeats later when an inn referred to as ‘The Wagon Wheel’ becomes ‘Wheel and Wagon’ only later to revert to ‘The Wagon Wheel’ all within 20 pages. A third time is with the Molarin Mountains, far beyond the Gatharan Desert, or is it Molaran Mountains? I assume these are the same place but the inconsistency leaves me questioning. Not only that but I then wonder if I’ve missed others and whether R. S. Penney has done his due diligence in crafting his own world. Yes typos are inevitable, I’m sure I have some in this review that I haven’t caught, but ‘The Wagon Wheel’ to ‘Wheel and Wagon’ and back to ‘The Wagon Wheel’ is more than a typo, it suggests carelessness and I am sure that is not what Penney wants to show.
Characters
The characters are hard to like, or dislike for that matter. Which is fine, I don’t mind reading the exploits of arseholes. Hell pretty much every Red Rising character is an arsehole and I think that series has exceptional characters. In Bounty Hunter, however, there is something missing that makes them not quite arseholes but also not lovable. Exciting things are happening yet it can feel dull, an odd combination. Tommy is the most relatable, as he has no idea what’s going on most of the time like the reader, and Adele is the sweetest, until she isn’t and that’s a great ending for her, while Miri is inoffensive. The rest are fine, I guess. I have no strong feelings either way which isn’t a great result.
Desa enters the story a foreigner in a strange land. The land is the village of Sorla, an Almighty-fearing village with a dislike for witches and queer folk. Understandable, a warlock, by the name of Morley, recently passed through and by McGregor of McGregor’s account he was most unpleasant. Now a bounty hunter passes through wielding magic and faking her accent. I can see why the town is fearful and wants her to move on. She runs into Ducane, the town bully, and makes a mockery of his bravado by beating him senseless with magic. Doing what a good citizen would do she drags him off to the sheriff. All well and good. Ducane accuses her of witchcraft to which Desa lies that she isn’t a witch. A prudent measure that she renegades on moments later.
Desa sees Tommy and Sebastian in a cell and Sebastian has a slave brand on his cheek, his choice instead of the gallows that Tommy has chosen. The pair were caught sleeping with one another, a crime punishable by death. Extreme but that’s their law. Desa then orders Lenny and the sheriff to release them ‘On the authority of Desa nin Leean, Prime Field Binder of Aladar,’ and offers to take them away to Aladar, a place she hasn’t been for 11 years, to live in peace. What exactly did she expect to happen? Does she have authority outside of Aladar? No. It is well established Aladar is sealed shut and few venture out and those who do must blend in and live secretly. Okay then it’s a threat, not an order. Yet all that accomplishes is revealing she’s a witch, a fact she was trying to keep secret a few sentences ago. This is not the last time a Field Binder announces themselves as if the title carries weight. Desa does it and Marcus does it later on much further away from Aladar too. Sure it’s a “cool” line, or cringe depending on your tastes, but it is incredibly stupid to attract such unwanted attention when they know the folk don’t like witches and that Aladar was almost destroyed in a war with these ‘primitives’; a word Marcus and Desa use to describe the less technological showing their disdain for them.
Back to the jail house. We learn Tommy is Lenny’s brother and while Lenny doesn’t want to see his brother die the law’s the law and it comes from the Almighty. In another act that questions her wandering the lands for 11 years without attracting a mob the size of an army she says ‘Not everyone believes in your Almighty, sirs.’ Is she trying to be inconspicuous or not? When in Rome do as the Romans is a lesson Desa never learned and at this point I’m left wondering if she has spent the last 11 years freeing criminals and attempting to convert the populace of these small villages rather than live her life amongst them as a bounty hunter. Her threat and declaration predictably brings the sheriff’s wrath rather than obedience. Witchcraft is also a crime. A small fight ensues and Desa beats them up and forces Lenny to free Tommy and his lover, Sebastian. At first neither follows her and she worries about the enemies she has made all ‘to save a pair of primitive boys who were so inculcated with this backward little culture.’ I’m not sure why I should be enamoured by our would-be hero. Is it because I should take real life with me into this fictional world? That’s not how I read fiction. A fictional world operates separately from our own and it and its characters should be judged accordingly. Desa is close to villainous. She has taken pains not to kill anyone but she has lied, threatened, and attacked frightened and innocent people doing their jobs and enforcing their own laws. From the point of view of Lenny, a stand-up deputy sorrowful his brother broke the law, she is a villain.
Desa could be fighting evil in this encounter, and given the penalty for their crime of sleeping together is death or slavery, it is possible. The punishment is extreme even within the world of Eradia and Desa attacking these people is necessary to prevent that. By doing so, however, she is risking war between the ‘primitives’ and Aladar as well as ignoring the authority of the Synod, the leadership of Aladar. Desa is a self-righteous character and written like a power fantasy for the reader. Smiting bad guys and enforcing her truth on them. This sentiment extends to her own allies too, especially Marcus. If that appeals, then you will enjoy the book. I found that this first major scene where I, as the reader, were expected to carry a real world judgement into a fictional world jarring and soured me to Desa and the book in general. But even excluding that Desa does not follow her own advice. Later on she criticises Marcus for wanting to fight through a town, Fool’s Edge, that is rallying against them, to the point of shooting at our heroes, saying ‘You think we should attack frightened people? If we did that would we be any better than Bendarian.’ Now I would like to think this is character development but I’m sceptical. She attacks frightened people in Sorla and in the next village Glad Meadows (most of whom are unarmed in Glad Meadows) so she can escape. We learn from the people of Fool’s Edge that Bendarian killed three and threatened to kill more unless they refused Desa and her gang passage. Desa is right, to attack Fool’s Edge as Marcus suggests would be villainous and make them no better than Bendarian. If that is the case how does she square that with attacking Sheriff Cromwell and Deputy Lenny in Sorla and the townspeople of Glad Meadows? She didn’t kill anyone, true, but she did injure, in her fleeing from the law. We don’t know how Fool’s Edge approached Bendarian but given he looked more demonic than human we can gather it was poorly and Bendarian reacted in kind. Penney goes to pains to make Desa beating up Ducane reasonable and then again with Cromwell and Lenny only I’m not convinced by the second one. She insults their god, disrespects their laws, threatens them, and attacks them. Even discounting why she threatens and attacks them she is an unpleasant woman and given her position likely to cause more problems than she’s solving. It seems there is an undercurrent of “might makes right” to Desa’s actions but the world of Eradia does not agree, nor even her own home of Aladar as she is arrested for high treason at the end of the book.
But perhaps I look too deep into a story that isn’t intended for such interrogation. It is possible and all the questions of what is heroic action and what is a hero are for an essay all of its own. After all in stories of man vs. man each is the hero in their own eyes and the other the villain. Desa is certainly the heroine when compared to Bendarian.
Oh, Bendarian. The man who is first described as having ‘killed 6 people and injured several others,’ in chapter 1, due to his experiments and escaping Aladar but is later made doubly evil by being described as having killed 13 in Chapter 7 via the same experiments. More inconsistency that makes me question the care and effort taken with the story. Anyway, Bendarian begins life as this shadowy evil scientist figure attempting to infuse Ether into people, an impossible and deadly aim. He kills 6, or 13 people, via his experiments and then flees when the authorities of Aladar attempt to arrest him. He does not cease experimentation in the 11 years that follow and is responsible for far more deaths by the end of the story. At some point he discovers the Nether, a power of emotion and chaos that allows the alteration of the laws of nature. Unlike the Ether which is a power of serenity working within the bounds of the laws of nature. Desa finds Bendarian in Ofalla and we are treated to a description of fine man reminiscent of Setzer from Final Fantasy VI unfortunately his image diminishes from there and what we get is an over-explainer with excessive hubris sort of villain who thinks himself far smarter than he is. But I do enjoy the evil scientist trope, or in this case evil warlock, as it demonstrates that knowledge itself is neither good nor bad and that it’s use and interpretation makes it one or the other. While it is a tired trope, and in this case overly exaggerated for my taste, Bendarian is an okay villain.
Bendarian is also cursed by writing inconsistency, at one point he is ‘Benwoth’ and another ‘Benwrth.’ I assume, dangerous I know, that his name changed between drafts from Benwroth to Bendarian and these two typos weren’t found with the find function.
Tommy, Sebastian, and Miri’s character arcs are mostly centred on their love triangle. I don’t typically read romance and have little to comment on how well it was executed or not. I found it be believable and Sebastian’s struggle with trusting Desa is well explored. Tommy can come across as self-pitying and pathetic at times but he does surprise the reader on occasion with a sudden burst of confidence. His curiosity of Field Binding and of Desa in general also makes him easy for the reader to root for. Miri is a Ka’adri, an Aladri spy of sorts, tracking Desa with her brother Marcus, a Field Binder, and her role starts as Desa’s stalker, then annoying companion, followed by Tommy’s love interest.
Marcus is a by the book servant of Aladar convinced of Desa’s cause only after he witnesses the devastation Morley imparts on Ofalla. Stubborn, with a will of iron, and a keen sense of justice taking duty far more seriously than any of the others. He is a knight in a world of thieves. Though he is quick to anger having spent much time out of Aladar, amongst the ‘primitives’ and longs to be home.
Adele, the niece of the Mayor of Ofalla, is an aristocrat and Sensitive and hopelessly in love with Desa who she has been stalking through the Ether. Being a Sensitive allows her to locate anyone and anything in the world with a quick and simple meditation. Something Desa is adept at yet takes her minutes and her range is merely a few hundred feet. She provides the address of Bendarian and is irreverent when the group do not trust. Her and Desa become intimate yet she is still not truly trusted until she locates Bendarian, after he has fled — again. Her ditzy, desperate to be a part of something character is enjoyable to read as is her naive optimism within a group of pessimists. Convincingly written as a hapless romantic until she pulls the rug and betrays Desa and reveals her plan to bring in the being of the Nether all along. Her arc was by far my favourite.
Writing
Ahh the part of the review that digs into the bones of the book. The mechanics. How well the ideas are portrayed, which words are repeated oft too much, and which sentences caused me to cringe, cry, or cheer. Oh, dear reader, I once thought that a great idea could overcome bad writing. I now understand I was wrong and defer to Jim Butcher who told it best when explaining how he came up with the idea for the Codex Alera series. Butcher claimed what mattered was the craft of storytelling and not the idea. Some random internet forum poster decided to challenge Jim Butcher with, what he thought were, two bad ideas, lost Roman legion and Pokemon. Now these, I would say are good ideas. Roman legions lost in the world - brilliant. Endless ideas about where they go, how they get there, are they even on Earth? Etc. Pokemon, also excellent, a magical form of cock fighting becomes the normal way of settling disagreements and the entire world revolves around it. Sign me up. Combined, astounding and many fascinating results could be created from the combination. Jim Butcher’s contribution was a success and, while the merits of that particular series can be argued, his overarching point was correct. Craft is superior to ideas.
Which brings us to R. S. Penney’s prose. Is it the worst? No. Is it the best? Not even close. It is profoundly mediocre and at some times poor. For instance at the end of chapter 19 he writes from Bendarian’s point of view, ‘He drew upon the Nether and ripped his way through the fabric of reality. And rip it did!’ I had flashbacks of Chuck Wendig’s ‘It’s going to blow. And blow, it does.’ From Star Wars Aftermath, and yes Chuck wrote in present tense. This repetition of telling adds nothing and he proceeds to show us what the rip is like, ‘A crack stretched across the sky from horizon to horizon. The world seemed to blur and split apart like an eggshell, leaving a new world in its place.’ Lead with that next time. Far superior imagery and writing than ‘And rip it did!’ This is not the only case of showing followed by telling, or vice versa. Later on we have:
‘Her last shot hit the wall, shattering one of the glowing stones. Its fragments fell to the floor, but they still gave off faint orange light. An Infused object was still Infused even if you bludgeoned it into a hundred pieces. The Infusion was woven into every molecule.’ (Chapter 25 p428 in my pdf copy with 500 pages.)
Penney shows the glowstone retains the illumination after shattering and then proceeds to tell us. It is unnecessary and breaks the flow and pace of the fight taking place. The information is later repeated, at the end of Chapter 26, as if the reader couldn’t get it the first time. This is meant to be a story, not a manual.
What makes the writing most annoying are the glimpses of decent prose within the mediocrity, such as, ‘…his face alight with devilish glee,’ and ‘A crack stretched across the sky from horizon to horizon. The world seemed to split apart like an eggshell, leaving a new world in its place.’ Are these the best lines in fiction, no, but they are much better than ‘nimble as a cat. Desa…’ or ‘Movement on her left.’ Or the 57 uses of ‘almost…’ e.g. ‘His surprised grimace was almost enough to soothe Desa’s annoyance.’ Or ‘…she could practically feel the air stirring on the back of her neck.’ Could she feel it, or not? Commit. Or ‘Normally, she would leave him to sulk, but Desa actually felt pity for the lad.’ Commit. Change the sentence so it reads something like, Desa would normally leave the lad to sulk but a worm of pity writhed in her heart. Kill those adverbs. Kill them all.
The poor outweighs the good and it is unfortunate because underneath the stilted writing, the uneven pacing, and the annoying “cool” dialogue in fights that I haven’t even mentioned is an inviting world in a rare genre that as the potential to be excellent but fails in the execution.
Jim Butcher’s right. It doesn’t matter how good your idea is if the writing is poor then the reader will have a poor time. High quality writing must come first.
2.5/5
Intriguing world and character driven plot weighed down by shoddy writing.