Dr. John A. King reviews David Gemmell's Waylander, a hard-to-find fantasy noir novel about a broken warrior retrieving legendary bronze armor through shadow-haunted lands. Gemmell excels at morally ambiguous characters and redemption arcs, crafting protagonists with real depth across genres.
Hey, as you can see, I am a great David Gemmell fan. Got all his books except for one, which is very hard to get, and I'm still scouring around. It was written under another name, but this is the start of it all. Uh, David Gemmell, Waylander. If you like fantasy, um, writing, dark characters, I would call it fantasy noir in some ways. Tremendous world building. But dark characters. Here we go. Stalked by men who act like beasts and beasts that walk like men, the warrior Waylander must journey into the shadow-haunted lands of the Nadark to find the legendary armor of bronze. Dun dun dun. Love it. He's classic. David passed, but his legacy of writing lives on. Probably one of the best dark characters. And I'm going to mention another one in another book review. That is one of my favorite all-time dark, um, protagonists. But Waylander is a tremendous book. His whole series of books around this character, dark, broken man, broken past, overcoming odds. It's a whole hero arc thing. But the way that Gemmell deals with his characters and the nuances of his characters are applicable across all genres. So if you love a dark character, if you love a good story and great world building, then give Waylander a go.
