Review: Queenslayer by Sebastien de Castell

There is something mildly unsettling about a title like "Queenslayer". Probably it's the fact that I am a bit of a sexist when it comes to matters of violence: male characters dying or suffering don't usually bother me (EXCEPT Wash in Serenity. Damn Whedon!), but female characters getting killed, even if they are Lady f***ing De Winter in the Three Musketeers or Ma-Ma in Dredd, that usually feels quite wrong. (The Spellslinger series has not been particularly soft on its female characters: the author has killed off a few ladies by now...)

Imagine my reaction when we meet the queen in this story and she turns out to be an 11-year-old girl:


via GIPHY

Queenslayer is the fifth novel in the highly entertaining Spellslinger series of YA fantasy Westerns. As I said in my review of Soulbinder, the Spellslinger series is fun. It's made of fun. Our hero may be a self-deprecating young man, but his companion is a fierce and murderous squirrell-cat, and his adventures are fast, swashbuckling and exciting. At the same time, the books do have high drama, pathos, tension and enough peril to ensure that boredom is never an option.

Apparently, Queenslayer was the original draft, and the previous four novels were written as sort of prequels that led up to a rewrite of this novel for the author. I wouldn't have guessed - it feels like a natural continuation of the story arc so far. Kellen continues to make his way through the world as itinerant gambler, he continues to bluster and bluff and occasionally fight his way out of trouble, and Reichis is still the best business partner anyone might have.

In Queenslayer, Kellen and Reichis find themselves in trouble (aren't they always?) in the Daroman empire. After very nearly being executed for treason, Kellen enters the service of the young Queen. Cue intrigue, conspiracies, and murder most foul.

While we meet a bunch of new characters, this time there isn't much risk of Kellen forming friendships with any of them. Kellen can't trust anyone in this place, and seemingly everyone is either younger or older than him, so he is pretty much on his own. The Queen is a child who has to put on a grownup persona (and who does so far better than I found credible as a reader), and everyone else is grown up. Kellen is the only youth /not yet settled person around.
 
Queenslayer is a novel of Kellen and Reichis versus the world - and the world still has a few nasty surprises up its sleeves. I enjoyed it, but there was altogether too much violence against women in the story, and the wrong women at that. (I'd make an exception for Shalla: her death would be quite a welcome plot development by this point). So, altogether, a good book, but I keep hoping for the Spellslinger series to lose some of its grit and become a little happier...

Rating: 4/5