After a series of wars, the age gap is even more glaring as it includes both men and women. After a war, you are short a large chunk of the population. During a war, you get the blood and the killing and the dying and conscription and the threat of the enemy butchering everyone, the threat of butchering being literal when the enemy are goblins but, this is not a novel of the front lines, it is a novel of the aftermath. That choice shaped his character and how others interact with him. His adult life began as a choice between two forms of servitude, either a forced conscription to the front lines of a goblin war or selling himself to the Taker’s Guild. Wars are difficult and awful things and are the basis of how Kinch’s world operates. Through Kinch’s eyes we are shown the details that build the story of how this world has come to be what it is. ‘The Blacktongue Thief’ is more concerned with recent history, perhaps several hundred years at most, and that history is of the common people rather than the mighty epics of a bygone age. Barely a meal goes by without the fellowship picnicking amid the ruins of ancient civilisations. ‘The Blacktongue Thief’ is a balm to my trope-loving soul because while the classic fantasy world tropes are front and centre, they are made nuanced by a great world and some excellent social history. I like ‘Dungeons And Dragons’ and ‘Pathfinder’, all those classic fantasy tropes of muddy hikes to find secretive mage towers, the saving of kingdoms from goblins and giants. Together, they make a good chunk of an adventuring party together with some others met along the way. She has a noble quest to save a princess from distress. Galva is a horseless knight, a fighter who is serious enough about it to worship the goddess of death. Kinch is our first person narrator and is a thief with just enough levels of bard just to get the spells and be entertaining around a campfire. ‘The Blacktongue Thief’ is an epic journey in the traditional fantasy style. One chance encounter pushes Kinch into the path of goblins, giants, magic and politics.

Just make friends with that fighter that you met while they were defeating your gang and go with her on her travels. One small task for the Guild and Kinch could be debt free.

It did, however, pay and the Guild charges for lessons and his bill has come due.

A fully trained member of the Taker’s Guild, Kinch has been taught thievery, spells and other useful skills and simply bashing travellers on the head and taking their stuff lacks elegance. Kinch’s career as a highwayman ends abruptly when a single foreign fighter defeats his whole band.

The blacktongue thief review