The Malevolent Seven – Sebastien de Castell

Irreverent, foul-mouthed fun is the order of the day with Sebastien de Castell’s The Malevolent Seven, an action-packed fantasy romp in which a mismatched group of mercenary wonderists (i.e. dangerous, largely unhinged wizards) find themselves in the unlikely position of having to save their world. And not even getting paid! After their last mission goes spectacularly, messily wrong, sort-of-friends Cade Ombra and Corrigan Blight take on a new job that they hope will keep them out of trouble for a little while. Recruiting a handful of fellow war mages (and a dog…ok, a jackal) along the way, little do they know that they’re actually going to be facing up against appalling odds, bargaining with angels and demons, and generally getting caught up in the machinations of the powerful beings that battle eternally over the mortal realm.

Right from the opening page, which invites the reader to picture a typical wizard then proceeds to make it very clear that this book is absolutely not about that sort of wizard (these ones are a lot more psychopathic…and sweary), two things are pretty obvious. Firstly that this isn’t your standard magic-heavy fantasy novel, and secondly that while these characters are all going to be pretty awful people, they’re going to be a lot of fun to spend time with. And so it proves, with Cade providing a knowing, brutally honest first-person narration as he and his equally villainous companions bludgeon their way into and out of all manner of sticky situations. Cade is determined to see the worst in himself (and others) and entirely honest about the terrible things he does for money, but at the same time he’s unwilling to stoop as low as he sees others do around him. This unlikely contradiction gets him in plenty of trouble, but also gradually starts to make sense as more of his backstory is revealed.

Cade’s companions, while all entertaining, don’t have quite as much depth beyond their surface details, but what they do offer is a broad view on the magic system at play here. The general gist is that wizards draw their power by tearing holes into other realms, allowing those realms’ rules to bleed through in the shape of spells, the varying natures of those realms affecting the type of magic. It’s a clever way of introducing all manner of cool effects, from the expected – bolts of lightning and the summoning of demons – to the unconventional – like reckless abandons and poetic injustices – that offer up plenty of opportunities for magical, and often destructive, entertainment. To say too much about the different characters and their powers risks spoiling things, but suffice it to say the rat mage is a lot of fun, and while Cade claims to be a Fortunal (i.e. probability-based) mage, he might not be entirely telling the truth about that.

For all the talk of fun, the gallows humour and the irreverent tone, this doesn’t shy away from darkness: in the world itself, in characters’ backstories, and the pretty nasty journey they have to go on. This is absolutely a story about antiheroes verging on actual villains – Cade and co. are very open about how awful they are, and they definitely do some pretty grim things. It’s often genuinely funny though, and it’s clear that de Castell was enjoying writing about these (somehow) endearingly awful characters and gleefully messing with all manner of classic fantasy tropes. There are some deeper themes layered throughout, exploring questions of free will, greed and the lengths people go for power, but that’s not really what you read a book like this for. It’s pacy, violent, sometimes filthy, often funny, and while it’s not the most original of stories it isn’t really trying to be. So if you’re after some very readable, villainous fantasy fun then this might just be the book for you.

Review copy provided by the publisher

See also: Sebastien de Castell Talks The Malevolent Seven

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