The Blacktongue Thief

I haven’t met a Buehlman story yet that I didn't like. This one switches things up nicely because the other two I tried from him were horror/vampire stories. I honestly wouldn’t have looked at this one twice but for the writer. I was curious about what he would do in a genre (High Fantasy) that I’m not often in the mood for.

Buehlman is a great storyteller. All the major elements of Blacktongue Thief are on target: the characters, the world-building, an exciting plot, and the added bonus of a sense of humor.

Narrator/protagonist Kinch is the title character, a thief who starts the book already in trouble because he’s indebted to his own guild. He’s living in a bleak world, nations/species always at war and a survival-of-the-quickest mentality everywhere.

The cast of characters is about 90% female, and at first I thought, well this is some serious overcompensating for the lack of prominent female characters in older books of this genre. But no, the reason for this is logical: multiple wars with the Goblin nations killed most of the young male population and the young women who in turn became soldiers didn’t have much time for making sons (or daughters).

Kinch is a complex character, both jocular and dark. Much of his character journey focuses on the nature of bravery and his perceived lack of it. He is one of the few young men that dodged the above mentioned wars, and he faces his own guilt and judgment from others. Through the adventures in the book, he looks for the courage to prove something to himself as well as his traveling companions.

Kinch gets into a series conflicts with shades of gray, not good and evil, and no sense that the overall goal of the characters has the greater moral value or purpose at least among the humans. Everyone is out for themselves and writing the wrongs that they perceive. But among the humanoid character types (Goblins, Giants) there are more extreme and interesting dangers for the main characters and give the story “bad guys” to root against in favor of Kinch and his companions.