The Silver Skull

There are times when you read a book that's so amazing to you that you feel the author had you personally in mind when they wrote it, that's exactly how I feel about Mark Chadbourn's The Silver Skull.

The story is set in Elizabethan England and in this world the real enemies are the Fae who have preyed upon humanity for eons. England also faces its human foes in the form of the Spanish who have reason to be discontent due to religious & conquestorial differences.
The story follows Will Swyfte - the greatest spy England has ever known. He's handsome, daring, smart, and dangerous. He's everything a great spy should be.
The core of the story is indeed a spy/adventure story. The Cold War between England and Spain appears ready to turn hot as show more Spain and its ally Faerie are posed to invade. The Unseelie Court is pulling strings behind the curtains. Will has been tasked with saving the whole of England from certain doom. However, the Queen's sorcerer Dr John Dee has brought back some balance between the adversaries. It is now up to the swashbuckling showman to prove he is the real deal with Dee providing him the latest in magical and mundane technology. Nasty, brutal, super intelligent - the fairies Mark Chadbourn creates are the ultimate super-villains. James Bond never had to deal with these guys!

Looking forward to the next instalment. show less

This was a really fun read on the whole. I liked the mix of fantasy (Unseelie Court) and history (Spain's attempt to invade England) and the non-stop action sword fighting action meant the pages were turned fast. I wish it was shorter, the endless sword fights are fun, but they are not enough to hold the weight of a 500 page book. All the characters were cliches, but the women were particularly annoying, and I hated the italicized flashbacks. A more sophisticated story would have integrated those bits of past history into the narrative.

James Bond versus the Fae in Elizabethan England. But I was really quite disappointed with the delivery. Our hero is sort of tedious, never really bogged down in his emotions, and often making phenomenally stupid decisions. There are long sequences of action that don't really carry emotive resonance (and they could, were Will Swyfte more deeply plumbed) and when he does wrestle with a moral dilemma he sort of comes across as weak. The writing is rather pedestrian, tending to clunky and repetitive sentences festooned with high-drama - and there were at least two glitches of the "nearly but not quite the word you were looking for" variety. (Ships founder, they don't flounder. Well, they might, but not the way you mean.)

It's entirely show more possible I only finished this because at the times when I really went, "...but I don't care!" I was either stuck on a train with half an hour between here and home, or I was within a hundred pages of the end. (Yes, I didn't care within a hundred pages of the end. That level of general disinterest.) And part of my irritation is that I feel that this really could have been a thoroughly entertaining book, but all of the elements were under-utilised. The ruthlessness and emotional trauma of the spies was in some ways over- and in some ways under-played (Swyfte's woe-is-me ruminations on the spy's lot were often trite). Some big plot comes out at the end when it would have been used throughout. And don't even get me started on the fact that all the Fae are unremittingly evil despite the mentions of "helper" or good faeries. Lack of ambiguity often makes me pull a face, but especially when you're dealing with folk who would probably be found pressed between the dictionary pages at the entry for "ambiguous".

In short: meh. show less

There were times that it lost my attention but overall I was very caught up with this story of Elizabethan England and some spies who weren't involved in the normal spying, but where involved with the things that go bumb in the night. Those things that could drive you mad, that peasant superstition would suggest some solutions but overall, it was Dee and Walsingham who held the tide back.

Will Swyfte is a national hero, a man known to fight England's enemies, what people don't know is that what he fights isn't just the obvious but the hidden and what he knows could drive you mad. He tries to keep his relationships superficial but people sometimes find their way in.

There were times when this flew though my fingers and then there were show more times that it lagged and it lost me. There were moments of whiplash when things happened so fast that I really didn't get a feeling of time, but overall I did enjoy it and look forward to the sequel. show less

An interesting variant on the Faerie Queen phenomenon. Spies, John Dee, Walshingham, the armada, lots of swashbuckling adventure. If you like Errol Flynn, James Bond, history and the fantastique then this is for you. The only thing is, it clearly will be one of a series so don't presume a self contained novel and it is slightly overlong. Overall though, good

Decent enough book. Chadbourn's strength is in his characters (particularly Wil Swyfte), and the alternate Elizabethan England. The plot itself was seriously lacking on cohesion as it jumped from place to place with very thin connecting threads. It felt very episodic--almost like a tv series or role playing game that was written down with some way to connect the sites. However, I enjoyed the characters and the world so much that I'm going to be reading the next book in the series and hope that he works on his plotting for the next book.

Better written than his other series - really enjoyed this one.