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A review by hawkeyegough
King's Justice by Maurice Broaddus
2.0
This author has excellent prose and descriptive abilities. It's just a shame he chose to shackle his plot decisions to the King Arthur myth, because in this case it really drags down the pacing and it causes a lot of things to not make sense in this updated setting. Another issue is that the main character really doesn't have much character at all. All the characters' loyalties seem to change from the 1st book to the 2nd without much explanation (Dred and Rellik, particularly), which is confusing and remains unexplained for the 3rd book in the trilogy to address.
Finally, the story is so dark there really should be some kind of redeeming aspect to it. Lots of awful things happen to everybody in the book (except King). This is OK for a book that's supposed to be dark and gritty (this one is), however it's clear that the ending is supposed to be a happy-ish one. I'm not feeling any sense of victory at the end, just more needless killing of some admittedly bad dudes. But there's an equal amount of killing of good dudes, so how is that a victory at all? If the purpose is to make us ask this question, it really needs to be fleshed out more and not feel like the conclusion was just a bunch of random petty grievances being avenged simply for the sake of it. The conclusion does not feel impactful or meaningful, partly because it's never clear why the bad guy needs to be taken out (more than any of the other folks who get murdered) and partly because the supporting villains have been recycled about 5 times by this point with no variation at all. For an urban fantasy novel, magic is also disappointingly rare and never explained. Broaddus has a lot of potential, I'd like to try some of his books that take place in a setting that is more in his wheelhouse and maybe that feel a little less proselytizing to the reader. Everybody who prayed in this book was instantly a white knight, regardless of their actions. Some lip service is paid to addressing their morally questionable actions, but this felt tacked-on and not very impactful.
Finally, the story is so dark there really should be some kind of redeeming aspect to it. Lots of awful things happen to everybody in the book (except King). This is OK for a book that's supposed to be dark and gritty (this one is), however it's clear that the ending is supposed to be a happy-ish one. I'm not feeling any sense of victory at the end, just more needless killing of some admittedly bad dudes. But there's an equal amount of killing of good dudes, so how is that a victory at all? If the purpose is to make us ask this question, it really needs to be fleshed out more and not feel like the conclusion was just a bunch of random petty grievances being avenged simply for the sake of it. The conclusion does not feel impactful or meaningful, partly because it's never clear why the bad guy needs to be taken out (more than any of the other folks who get murdered) and partly because the supporting villains have been recycled about 5 times by this point with no variation at all. For an urban fantasy novel, magic is also disappointingly rare and never explained. Broaddus has a lot of potential, I'd like to try some of his books that take place in a setting that is more in his wheelhouse and maybe that feel a little less proselytizing to the reader. Everybody who prayed in this book was instantly a white knight, regardless of their actions. Some lip service is paid to addressing their morally questionable actions, but this felt tacked-on and not very impactful.