A Dance of Cloaks

This is just painfully ordinary. A plethora of characters unremarkable in their remarkableness (the epic ruthless thief-guild-leader; the beautiful dagger-wielding sneak thief; varieties of idiotic and obnoxious lords and merchants and plotters; mysterious and esoteric priest-types). Annoyingly obvious plot-point progression, completely vague long-term direction.

Plus all the women who matter are beautiful (that's how you can tell they matter?) and not a single character surprised me by being anything other than what they obviously were. Not that any one character could really achieve any depth when it's a fast-moving buffet of character viewpoints, meaning no one has any meaningful motivation except the big powers (who are all hateful) show more and I didn't care two straws about anyone.

Abandoned at page 196. I probably wouldn't have made it that far, but it was a weekend away and I didn't bring anything else to read. As it was, I still got to the point where I just couldn't handle any more regardless. show less

  A Dance of Cloaks (Shadowdance #1)
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Synopsis:
A city torn by 3 factions: a self-proclaimed King of Thieves, the 3 Merchant Princes and the effete, corrupt and useless "real" King.
Thiefman wants the Merchant Princes gone, for some reason or other and is waging all out underworld war on them. To further his aim, he is training his son to be the ultimate emotionless killer and he's doing a great job of that.
The son show more decides that he doesn't want to follow his father's plans and tries to strike out on his own. But he's only 13.
The Merchant Princes want the Thiefman gone, as he is strangling their businesses. They too are waging war, but lesser merchants are nibbling at their borders, intriguing to bring them down and become the next set of Merchant Princes.
Finally, the King. Playing all sides against the other for fear of losing his throne, his crown and ultimately his head.

My Thoughts:
This reminded me a lot of Brent Weeks' Night Angel trilogy, with everything kind of happening in one city but spreading out a little.
Sadly, only Aaron, the son of the Thiefman, is halfway likeable. There were 1 or 2 minor characters who weren't bad either [and they both die], but other than that, everyone was a backstabbing, traitorous, greedy and vicious son of a gun.

It was all about grabbing power but with no one of good character to cheer for. I am opposed to this type of writing on so many levels that it is really hard to enjoy it. Dalglish has another series, the Half Orc series, that I'm going to try. If it is less gloomy I'll probably return to this series and continue on. But if it is in the same vein, then I'll be done.

Life is tough enough and heroes few and far between for me to immerse myself in the hopeless, abject despair of fallen humanity.

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Author: David Dalglish " show less

The opening of A Dance of Cloaks, immediately engaged me, and I thought wow! I'm in for a terrific story. I began to have doubts, however, after what to me was a confusing sequence of events shortly thereafter, but I pressed on, determined to at least get to the middle before deciding whether to quit reading or finish it. I'm glad I did. More and more I was re-captivated by the story and Aaron's plight as a boy wanting to be more than a lethal weapon of his ruthless father. One of my favorite parts was where Aaron meets Pelarak. That scene was so good, so beautifully done, I reread it just for the pleasure of it. In fact, the entire book is immensely readable, but it's not without flaws. There were a few instances where I was challenged show more to suspend disbelief (such as a scene where an elderly woman and 11-year-old girl snuck up on Aaron, a trained thief and killer who was trying to avoid being discovered, and another in which a guy was kicked from behind and tried to stab his attacker with a sword behind him). Fortunately, those sorts of issues were infrequent and didn't ruin my ability to enjoy the story, but I did feel they dragged what might have been a 5-star story down to 4 stars. Still, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend A Dance of Cloaks to any (non-squeamish) fantasy fan. show less

Thren Felhorn is the head of the Spider Guild and the most powerful and most dangerous man in the city of Valderen. For years, he has been attempting to unite the thief guilds to bring down the Trifect, a group of very wealthy merchants who rule the city.

His son, Aaron is being raised to be Thren’s heir. Aaron made his first kill at eight, his own brother. Now he is almost as skilled as his father. However, Aaron is not just a loyal soldier in his father’s army. He has learned love from Kayla, another thief and he has learned religion from Robert Haern, his mentor. Unfortunately, these are the two things Thren has forbidden him and now Aaron is chafing at his father’s control.

Along with these two, there are dozens of other show more characters and the story switches POV at the drop of a cloak. As well, there are two religions representing dark and light and which seem to represent the main magic users in the novel. There is a group of women who are masked and hire themselves out as assassins. There are the members of the Trifect and their families. And there is a good priest and his young daughter who become targets of Thren’s guild and who will have a profound effect on Aaron.

In other words, there are some fairly stock characters in a rather generic tale. Even the title seems an homage to GRR Martin. Yet, somehow it all works and rather well I might add. There is no hidden agenda here; it is just a tale meant to pay homage to the best of grimdark fantasy and to entertain the reader and it does both with great gusto and without letup.

And there, I think, lies the success of A Dance of Cloaks, in its pacing. It opens with a bang and never lets up until the heart-pounding, bloodsoaked battle at the end. For fans of the more gritty realist fantasy, this is definitely one for you. And best of all, you don’t have to wait years for the next in the series. show less

Thren Felhorn is the master of the Spider Guild, the supreme collective under which Thren has united all the thieves’ guilds in the city of Veldaren. In the prologue of A Dance of Cloaks, author David Dalglish has given Thren two sons, Randith and Aaron, and placed the guilds on the brink of war with the Trifect, three wealthy families that wield most of the political power in a land where the king is young, foolish and easily manipulated. By the end of the prologue, though, only Aaron can claim his father’s favor, which he gains by one clearly filial act and one shocking act that is the act of a son only because his father ordered it. The brutal flavor of this book is thus established quickly and efficiently, and the reader knows show more that she is in for a story of ruthless people.

Five years have passed since the events of the prologue when the body of the book opens. Aaron is in training with Robert Haern, whose techniques are eccentric; but he was once the tutor of the king, before the king refused his corrections, and Thren wants the best for his heir. Haern’s initial lessons for Aaron allow Dalglish to give us the history of the land and the reasons for the war between the thieves and the Trifect, as well as the religious and political background necessary to understand the rest of the novel, but the conversation feels natural and unforced; it is an infodump handled with care.

The action picks up quickly thereafter, however, as new characters from both the thieves’ world and the world of the Trifect are introduced. Kayla, who sells information to any willing buyer and ultimately becomes allied with Thren, and Robert do their part to shape the young Aaron, not always in a manner his father would approve. To the contrary, they attempt to make him a better man, less ruthless, someone with a conscience.
That struggle is only one of many in this complex book. There is a struggle between the adherents of two different gods, both of which seem to be real and present in this world, allowing their clergy to wield magic. There is a struggle between the daughter of one of the Trifect and her father, and between her and an upstart family that seeks its own position of power. There is a struggle between the three members of the Trifect as to the proper way to win the war with Thren’s thieves. There is a struggle between the various guilds that are allied under Thren’s leadership. And there is Aaron’s own internal struggle, between the vicious killer his father wants to sculpt him into and the more compassionate, loving, and strong man he seems to want to be.

Indeed, there are so many struggles that it is at first difficult to keep all the plotlines straight in one’s mind, and so many characters that it is hard to remember who is who. Dalglish does not sufficiently distinguish some of his characters well, especially those who are female. And Dalglish occasionally becomes so caught up in the complications he creates for his characters that he forgets to include any motivation for some of their desires or actions (why is Kayla interested in humanizing Aaron, for instance? And why does Thren not want to be the founding member of a dynasty rather than see his descendants end with Aaron?). But Dalglish makes up for these drawbacks by refusing to rescue intriguing characters in which he’s invested many pages when the plot calls for them to die, and by refusing to kill off those characters we’d like to see roasted over hot coals. The plotting is the strongest of Dalglish’s writing skills, and he remains true to it when the reader might wish to see things go differently.

A Dance of Cloaks is the first of the SHADOWDANCE series. The first three books and a related novella are currently available. Originally self-published, the books were picked up and reissued by Orbit after substantial editing. Two additional books in the series are scheduled to be published in 2014. I was sufficiently captivated by this book that I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to Aaron in the next book, A Dance of Blades. More than that, I’m interested in seeing what Dalglish does next.

Originally published at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/a-dance-of-cloaks/ show less

I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up this book, other than it was getting a lot of attention on a few discussion boards I’m a part of. I’m SO glad I purchased this novel, my first of what will be a large collection by David Dalglish.

David captured my attention from the first page and held it to the very last. The characters were enthralling, the action fast and furious (and a bit bloody) and the plot a fascinating conflict between father and son, father and the Trifect, father and most other people in the book. The book is well constructed and brilliantly written.

If this one isn’t as well written as the Half-Orc series, then sign me up now. I LOVED this book and can’t wait to sink my teeth and claws into additional show more works. Thanks David! show less

Review: http://tenaciousreader.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/742/


Dance of Cloaks by David Dalglish is dark and bloody delve into the world of assassins. If you are one to enjoy the grimdark path that a book like this will take then definitely give it a shot. Personally, I really enjoyed it. It’s a book that sucked me in and kept me turning pages. I love unpredictability; I love books where any characters safety is not a sure thing. In this, Dance of Cloaks succeeds extraordinarily well. It is not as complex as Martin’s ASoIaF, nor are the characters quite as memorable. But let’s face it, for fans of Martin, that is a very high bar for a book to achieve. I would say this is on par with Brent Week’s Night Angel trilogy and would show more recommend it to anyone who enjoyed that series.

I first read this when it was self-published, and I was still fairly new to the genre. I have seen others complain that there is nothing new in this, that it is unoriginal. Well, I didn’t have that complaint. Maybe because everything in the genre was still fresh for me, maybe because the grimdark scene lines up better with my horror roots, I don’t really know (or care).

I enjoyed the characters, the city, the politics and the magic. I may not have felt quite as attached to some of the characters as would be ideal, but overall, I enjoyed it enough to not care.

If you are squeamish, you probably shouldn’t read this book. If you are tired of assassins or thieves, don’t read this book. As for me, I’m not squeamish, I don’t like characters to be safe, and I am not tired of thieves or assassins even now, two years after I first read this book.

*disclaimer – I never use grimdark as a deragotory term. I quite enjoy all of the most predominant books that have been given this label show less