Review: Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia
Reviews / October 21, 2015

Larry Correia is an author best known for his guns-and-monsters, no-holds barred, testosterone-soaked urban fantasy sagas, Monster Hunter International and the Grimnoir Chronicles. For those who were curious as to how he’d make the transition from guns to swords, Son of the Black Sword is pretty much everything you’d expect, with his macho sense of almost superhuman bravado slipping well into a pulpy heroic fantasy world. It’s not great literature, and lacks a certain polish in the narrative, but it’s an engaging bit of fantasy fiction. The world building and mythology encompass a very South Asian flavored world, which is a nice change of pace from mostly European fantasy, but there’s an important twist – instead of the seas providing prosperity and purpose, they are something to be feared, dotting the coasts and the beaches with the cobbled together hovels of the lowest of non-people. You see, due to an age old supernatural pact, man commands the land, demons command the seas . . . and the Law states that any who trespass must die. Lok is a bland, bureaucratic world, full of rigid caste systems, where faith and superstition are forbidden. It’s so deliberately constructed that if you don’t see the threat of rebellion coming in the first few chapters, and don’t anticipate the rise of a…