Brigands & Breadknives, by Travis Baldree
by
Stuart Holland
I’m once again impressed with Travis Baldree. Turning down the stakes in a fantasy setting was a great way to write something quite different with the original Legends & Lattes. And in the prequel Bookshops & Bonedust, he managed to keep to that lower stakes story conceit despite being earlier in Viv’s life, where she was a more classical adventurer fantasy protagonist. And here again in Brigands & Breadknives, he’s done something different again, but still kept to that core appeal of the story.
Brigands & Breadknives is absolutely the highest stakes story of the three. Not that it’s save-the-world level adventure, but it is an adventure, with mortal peril, fights to the death, monsters in the dark, and long treks through the wilderness. And despite the increased stakes, the focus of the story is still on the personal side. And I think that’s actually the magic behind the Legends & Lattes series. It’s more anbout how the characters feel, about who they are, than what they do.
Viv not being the protagonist anymore is also a big step. But Fern, returning from the prequel, does a fine job as leading ratkin. The new supporting cast are fantastic, and the progression of Fern’s and even the connection to . does a great job of caricaturing a traditional fantasy severity, but in the presence of the other characters, he ends up as more comic relief than dramatic narrator.
You can see in the acknowledgements that Baldree himself wondered if this story format was going to work. If Legends & Lattes was about “high fantasy, low stakes”, would people enjoy a comparatively higher stakes one? The answer is yes. It still has the essential heart that makes this series what it is.
