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Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.
Simon R. Green writes tight, fast paced, carefully plotted fiction that treats both its readers and characters as three dimensional human beings. The Adventures of Hawk and Fisher as written in Guards of Haven and Swords of Haven are actually a total of six wonderful novella length noirs set in a fantasy universe.
Each story starts with a detailed account of how miserable a city Haven is, especially the Northend, where Captains Hawk and Fisher of the city Guard patrol. Green carefully describes each character, with Hawk a tall, wiry man in his early thirties beginning to ‘build a belly’, and Fisher a tall, handsome woman in her late twenties with a long braid weighted by a ball hanging to her waist. He points out that they are husband and wife. And then he turns them loose on a situation that is never what it appears to be.
is just as well crafted as its predecessor, the characters as well drawn, the action just as tight and interesting. One thing I admire in James Hetley’s writing (and want to emulate) is his ability to completely combat stereotypes all the way through his books. There is nothing rote or ordinary about his books. He takes old fantasy tropes and makes them his own, and utterly different from anything I have ever read.
