Review: Death’s Heretic

I’ve stayed away from Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales line of releases until recently and – for better or worse – there’s been a fortunate mix-up when I ordered my first such book (Master of Devils) from Paizo: they accidentally shipped the wrong book and I unpacked Death’s Heretic instead. To Paizo’s credit they didn’t hesitate to gift it to me on-the-house and have included the book I actually ordered in the very next shipment. I’ve thus received my very own personal Christmas gift from Paizo! Huzzah!

The cover in all its glory

In return, I decided, the least I could do was write-up a review of Death’s Heretic:

Salim, the protagonist, is a very unusual man. He is Rahadoumi and shares the atheist views of his people – but he also serves the goddess of death, Pharasma. Nominally he hunts the lesser and greater undead in Pharasmas name, but in Death’s Heretic Salim is called to an unusual task. He must uncover a mystery in which a soul has been stolen from the Boneyard of the death goddess herself. He is accompanied by the aristocratic daughter of the victim and their search takes them from the deserts of Thuvia across the multiverse through a variety of strange locations.

The author, James L. Sutter, is obviously intimately acquainted with the setting that Paizo have created for themselves, and it is a joy to explore the exotic locales that James paints. I was particularly enamored with the descriptions of the city of Axis and the First World, both of which carve a vivid image in the reader’s mind. Where the story does come short is in its omissions, some chapters introduce vibrantly crafted characters – such as the Jackal and the Harlot – only to let them fade to obscurity once they have served their primary function. Perhaps weaving them into the continuing story would have required prohibitive page real-estate, given how the story marches onward through diverse planes and locations, but a curt nod would have been appreciated.

The narrative flows smoothly and, given the many-planar premise of the story, it mercifully keeps to the protagonist Salim throughout its course. The questions that are raised in the course of the reading are answered in a manner that evolves naturally from the story. There is a refreshing lightness to the novel when compared to the far-reaching complexity of some other works, such as The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson; and I mean this in more than just the scope of pages. The universe around Golarion – the campaign setting Paizo has created – is centered on a certain degree of staticness – you will not find grand sweeping tales that change the face of the world, as the world is the semi-constant stage on which numerous tales get spun. Instead heroes are of the caliber that we expect from the Pathfinder RPG: powerful and yet human in both their potency and impotency.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Death’s Heretic, it’s easy to digest and sets the stage for a promising character, Salim Ghadafar, in future books. It does not, by itself, create the kind of literary legacy that is spoken about in hushed or emphatic tones, but perhaps it is a prologue to such a masterwork.