As I noted a while back, I bought Chris Evans’ A Darkness Forged in Fire (first in the Iron Elves) series because of an enthusiastic blurb by Karen Traviss. I have to say that the book has the worst opening chapter that I have read in a long time, but thankfully it soon settles down and turns out not to be a pompous and portentous piece of high fantasy, but rather a fun romp about misfit soldiers – the Iron Elves of the series title. Supposedly they are elves who have forsaken communing with nature and taken up technology such as muskets to fight alongside the humans, but there are very few elves left and most of the regiment is made up of humans and the obligatory comedy dwarf.

The book also tries to have something to say about the current state of our world, but I’m always nervous of attempts to address politics in fantasy. The current US elections are a graphic reminder of what happens when both sides in a political dispute regard the other, not just as the opposition, but as Ultimate Evil Incarnate. The world would be much better off keeping fantasy memes out of politics.