An in-progress review of "Firetale" by Dante E. Graves

 I’m only 9% of the way into the book, and so far, I’ve gotten to see this world from the point of view of three different men.  Each has his own set of rules to live by, which happen to be in contradiction to one another.

Lazarus seems to be led by a sense of preservation.  He wants to see that the “freaks” of the world are looked after and allowed to live relatively normal lives.  He doesn’t want anything to impede their lives – which means sometimes saving his people from themselves.  He sees Greg as a threat to their people.  If a circus performer becomes a murder suspect, they are all at risk of exposure.  He wants to control Greg’s darker urges for the good of the entire troupe.

Greg had a hard life and suddenly discovered his own strength – and that strength just happened to be miles beyond what anyone else was capable of.  Of course he would find ways to use it to help others, and by helping, he means destroying those that cause harm.  His actions, ironically, put his circus family at risk, but he doesn’t seem to care about that.  He’s convinced himself that so long as he only kills those who have caused great harm to others (only kills the bad guys) that he’s still a good guy.  And as long as he is convinced he’s a good guy, he’s not going to accept that he’s putting the circus (and Martha) in danger.

Mr. Berry knows he’s a bad guy.  He knows that what he does is not normal – even aberrant.  But he doesn’t care.  It gives him a thrill like nothing else in his life ever had.  He has carefully laid out rules that keep him convinced he will never have to face judgment for his actions, and so he feels free to continue doing as he pleases in whatever town he finds himself next.  Unfortunately for him, he didn’t take into account people like Greg when he made his rules.  Sure the rules help escape suspicion from the local townsfolk, and probably make it easier to lure the young girls into his clutches.  But they can’t stop a magically powered vigilante.

Though the language is a little stilted (it’s hard to avoid that when you have to shift between different perspectives while still sounding coherent), the subtle imagery is exciting.  Hints of discontinuity are dropped in frequently enough to give the characters depth.  They are not archetypes.  Lazarus is disappointed with the nothingness in the great beyond, yet he prefers to spend his time in the dark by the wyvern (a supposedly extinct or non-existent creature).  Greg is just cocky enough to not wonder how the black candles and crystal ball that allow him to track down killers came to be in his possession.  Mr. Berry is a controlled serial killer who doesn’t give into his primal urges without following his carefully laid out rules.  These three men are all monsters of a sort, but they are all very human as well.

So far, this is a very promising read.