Zephyrus’s memories are gone—and once he is enslaved to fight and die as a gladiator, so are his friends. However, Prince Laeden sees his promise, and quickly enlists him to uncover plots against the crown. Little do they know that Queen Danella herself—Laeden’s stepmother—is the one planning a religious revolution that promises to spare no one.
Tim Facciola’s A VENGEFUL REALM (THE SCALES OF BALANCE, Book 1) is a strong debut fantasy action-thriller. The setup is simple and tight – the gladiator must survive in the ring; the prince must survive at court – allowing the text to maintain both balance and tension throughout its length. At the same time, the plot has enough twists to keep a reader intrigued; though the reader knows the queen is orchestrating events, the game of move and counter-move remains thrilling, especially as characters’ personalities and conflicting interests complicate their schemes. The Roman-medieval world can feel thin at times – it’s unclear how institutions like slavery and gladiatorial combat realistically integrate into the social and political structure, for instance – but overall, its comforting familiarity allows the reader to focus on the intricacies of the plot. THE SCALES OF BALANCE may struggle somewhat to stand out from the mass of fantasy fiction currently available, but it’s still a fair exemplar of the genre.
Tim Facciola’s A VENGEFUL REALM (THE SCALES OF BALANCE, Book 1) is a strong debut fantasy action-thriller. The setup is simple and tight—the gladiator must survive in the ring; the prince must survive at court—allowing the text to maintain both balance and tension throughout its length. At the same time, the plot has enough twists to intrigue. Though the reader knows the queen is orchestrating events, the game of move and counter-move remains thrilling, especially as characters’ personalities and conflicting interests complicate their schemes. The Roman-medieval world can feel thin at times—it’s unclear how institutions such as slavery and gladiatorial combat realistically integrate into the social and political structure, for instance—but, overall, its comforting familiarity allows the reader to focus on the intricacies of the plot. THE SCALES OF BALANCE may struggle somewhat to stand out from the mass of fantasy fiction currently available, but it’s still a fair addition to the genre.
In some ways, the novel’s typicality reflects failings of the genre, too. Though vivid and flexible, the prose can be overstuffed at times (“With the hallway of the Cassius villa still visible, black wisps of screaming souls floated like ghosts through the walls to swirl around her like a tempest”), tonally unsure (modern words like “okay” and “moxie” feel out of place), or simply weak (“underbelly of his forearm”). Lengthy portions of the book are given over to a Maguffin-based B plot that never reconnects with the main conflict, evidently important to future installments. Although the world is clearly well-imagined, it isn’t always well-communicated; and the particularities of how religious beliefs map onto specific nations or cultures remain somewhat opaque until fairly late, despite characters referring regularly to Celestics or Rheynians.
There’s also a questionable treatment of slavery and abolitionism, which, to be fair, is endemic to much fiction. Abolitionism is a very specific, relatively modern phenomenon that arose after the Enlightenment, and THE SCALES OF BALANCE makes no attempt to engage with deeper questions about the structure of a pre-modern slave society, or how individuals raised in slave societies become abolitionists. As the first entry into the series, the story has time to take a more thoughtful approach in expected future installments, but this novel as it stands badly misuses this issue. Nevertheless, for those who want whispered plots and dramatic set-pieces in a Roman-flavored sword-and-sorcery world, THE SCALES OF BALANCE delivers everything needed to keep the pages turning.
Tim Facciola’s A VENGEFUL REALM (THE SCALES OF BALANCE, Book 1) isn’t a revolutionary entry into an already-saturated genre market, but for readers who want a pulpy blend of palace intrigue and hack-and-slash combat, the book delivers.
~Dan Accardi for IndieReader