For anyone who knows even the basic outline of the story of King David from the books of Samuel, 1 Kings and 1 Chronicles, Mark Swirsky’s LIONSLAYER (Book One: The Shepherd King Saga) will be hauntingly familiar. Aside from renaming the characters- Gauderion for David, Shagall for Saul, Jonadab for Jonathan, Salome for Michal and Sophia for Abigail, etc. – and giving Gauderion a rather more adventurous and precocious childhood before he ends up as the adopted son of Jessup/Jesse the shepherd, LIONSLAYER stays pretty much true to the story in the Bible. Gauderion is a sympathetic and multifaceted main character, who like David has potential for greatness and great leadership mingled with a few damaging flaws. The other characters also come to life as three-dimensional people with their own backstories and motivations as well.
The story has quite as much action, romance, and adventure as the Biblical version, and Swirsky’s fictional retelling brings it to life in vivid detail and texture. Gauderion’s misfit childhood and determination to prove himself, Shagall’s chilling switches between kindly monarch and demon-possessed, jealous madman, Jonadab’s steadfast friendship, and the dramatic slaying of the giant Golgomoth/Goliath, among other things, are drawn in full life and color here. It may strike some readers as a bit odd that the author should bother to set the story on a foreign planet, though, given how little he actually does with the foreignness of Altaran. It’s a planet with familiar place names and people – Phrygia, for example, was a real ancient nation, Hashem is an obvious analogue for Israel/Judah, and Gauderion is anointed by Elsam/Samuel on Gerizim Hill, clearly our Mt. Gerizim – and familiar wildlife.
The animals and plants in the background are either fantasy analogues for horses and oxen, or else real Earth species, though many of them, such as corn, potatoes, squash, and red-tailed hawks, did not exist in the Middle East in the time of David, being strictly American species. It being a fantasy novel, though, that can be excused. The point here is clearly not the worldbuilding but the message, and that is conveyed clearly, as it was in the Bible, through the prophets who wander through the book (particularly Elsam) and through the conversations Gauderion has with Makir/YHWH. That message, of absolute obedience to God, will of course resonate more with those readers whose religious perspectives align with that of the book, but it does mesh well with the story in the Bible and the intended messages of the Biblical books’ authors.
A lively and thought-provoking book, Mark Swirsky’s LIONSLAYER (Book One: The Shepherd King Saga) encourages the reader to look at the story of King David with different eyes.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader