The Blacktongue Thief is a classic fantasy adventure that is equal parts fun, fresh, and familiar. Christopher Buehlman’s writing is what makes this story special. He has an impressive imagination and his world-building is masterful. He doesn’t waste efforts on making everything incomprehensibly otherworldly. Nor does he create entirely new universes with crazy rules of their own (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Instead, he takes the conventions that we expect from fantasy: thieves, warriors, assassins, giants, goblins, witches, and fills them in with interesting details: how the thieves’ guild operates, what kind of magical spells can be written into a tattoo, what the goblins are like up close. He also doesn’t skimp on inventive ideas either: a witch who lives in a downward pointing tower, always looking for new legs to replace her dead ones; wizards who create giant corvids for use in battle; and a mangy blind cat who may be something more (or is he?).  Every character is textured and unique, from the incidental barkeeps and merchants, to the main character thief obliged to pay off his “student loans” to the guild where he was trained by putting himself deep into harm’s way.

My descriptions here don’t do them justice, because it’s the language of Buehlman’s writing that is the secret sauce. Kinch is the title character and narrator. He has a slightly hapless, slightly roguish tone that feels like it absolutely belongs on this type of character. Kinch’s voice adds a wonderful flavour to the narration. He has numerous, colourful, sarcastic asides and his self-deprecating ramblings are cynical yet hilarious and precocious. While the characters speak in a very street-level vernacular, full of medieval slang (some of which I’d needed to research to determine if it’s made up by Buehlman himself), it easily flows into quotes that are poetic, profound, and beautiful. None of which is to say that Buehlman’s style is in any way highfalutin. This world, and especially Kinch himself, is very jocular, wry and witty. The writing is paradoxically dense and breezy. The humour is as often coarse as it is clever, but it’s so much of both!

In this story, Kinch is sent by his guild on the task of accompanying Galva, a fighter from another nation who is on an undisclosed mission to a particular city. Along the way, they pick up a small, ragtag band of characters who together face a wide variety of encounters, challenges, and sticky situations that are so fun (there’s that word again!) to watch them make it through. On top of the story and the delicious prose, the audiobook narration also added a lot of distinctiveness to the experience (though maybe a bit too much for me). Buehlman himself gives an audible voice to Kinch, with an Irish-sounding accent filled with modest charm. Without doubt, that increased the immersiveness of the audiobook and took me even further into Kinch’s mind than the writing already did, but alas it also raised the level of difficulty for my ears. There were already unfamiliar medieval words (that we with little Renaissance faire experience were not well-versed), and layer on that additional new words Buehlman made up just for his own creations, and it’s quite a challenge for the untrained ear alone. I tried using ebook sample chapters to help me along at first, but eventually I borrowed the physical book from the library and went old-school “reading with my eyes” for most of the book. That was a godsend because even though the story moves briskly, with short chapters and exciting plot developments, I still found that I had to refer back to previous pages in order to remind myself where we last left our band of heroes. Maybe it was because of the rambling and meandering of Kinch’s narration or that each paragraph was so full of details that are easy to miss, but the story just didn’t stick easily in my brain as I read. (However now that I’ve finished, there are many scenes that I can readily revisualize in my memory.) 

I don’t want to say that Buehlman’s storytelling chops are not up to his top-notch world-building or character styling, but something just didn’t sync with me. Otherwise, I think this book might have been perfect. Regardless, it’s an excellent fantasy adventure tale done right, with great characters, a world I just want to dig deeper into (and I will, since I’m starting the Galva-featuring prequel, The Daughters’ War) and a smooth and witty prose style with so much to savour that (I’ve been told) thoroughly rewards re-reading. (I actually look forward to getting back to that before too long!) This is a high recommendation from me.

4.5 stars

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