"Rise of the Red Hand," the gripping prequel novella to Jason Lancour's gripping Storm Cloud fantasy series, is a battle epic of Shakespearean proportions - gruesome wars, tense politics, and a female warrior that stands out from the crowd even as she fights alongside them. The novella sets the tone with Lancour's masterful handle of the fantasy genre and prepares readers for his first full-length novel, "Storm Cloud Rising" (Wandering Bear Creative). "Storm Cloud Rising" is a fantasy adventure story centered around a dangerous mission, where loyalty is called into question, magic and sword fighting are abundant, and threads of the plot are woven with expertise.
We are introduced to a colorful cast of characters as they each receive a proposition for an open mercenary job, which they are all tempted to take for their own reasons - money, information, or something to pass the time. Their mission, assigned by Duke Pendor and his security advisor Kudakaan, is to recover a golden disk that has been stolen from the Duke in a magically sealed box. Gathered around a table while Duke Pendor lays out the parameters of this assignment, we get to know each player in the story.
Corelan, a man with debts, an alcohol problem and a habit of getting into bar fights, just needs some extra cash. Daelyn, a woman who would rather be with than against the dangerous Master of the Underground, needs to collect intel on the nature of the mission. Jack and Uglor are a pair who always work together - Uglor is a strong, silent fighter, and Jack is skilled at sleight-of-hand and at being skeptical of others. Tim, a member of the Psychic League, and Qaz, a mage, contribute magical abilities to a well-equipped team. Murzahd, an Ialu warrior, is a gentle giant who seems like he should be indestructible. And lastly, Lena, the beloved and powerful blade-for-hire that readers will recognize from Rise of the Red Hand, returns in this story as a crucial addition to the team.
But as the band sets off on their quest, suspicions grow that they're being purposely left in the dark about this top-secret mission, and not everything is adding up as it should. Through the journey, they face obstacles - whether human or Troll - and question one another's loyalty as each character secretly pursues their own goals. Throughout "Storm Cloud Rising," the group slips into some semblance of friendship. For some, this is against their better judgment; they know betrayal is near and can't predict from whom it might arise.
Can they truly trust the people around them, the contract they've signed onto, and their leader who only shares details of their journey on a need-to-know basis? Or is there something larger at hand than their band of hired mercenaries and a mission to retrieve the golden disk? And what happens if their loyalty to each other starts to outweigh their loyalty to the job?
After reading Lancour's "Rise of the Red Hand," packed to the brim with well-executed fight scenes, I knew what I was signing up for by diving into "Storm Cloud Rising." And I was certainly not disappointed. From suspenseful treks across dangerous terrain where ambushes by bandits are more frequent than not, to more intense battle scenes where readers pray for the heroes to make it out alive, Lancour has the power of raising any reader's blood pressure.
Throughout these scenes, Lancour's expertise as a writer and his experience in the film industry shines through. He knows where each of his characters are at all times, their physical and emotional state, their motivations and battle tactics, and what condition they'll be in by the end of the fight. The entire book plays out like an adventure movie or a combat-heavy Shakespeare, and readers and writers alike will be blown away by the attention paid to even a single page of fight choreography.
"Storm Cloud Rising" has been carefully crafted by Lancour for over two decades - and this magnificent effort shows. From the precision with which his characters have been crafted, to the intricacies of the fight scenes, to the lore of this fictional world and its many inhabitants, Lancour knows how to put together an epic story. It is well-written and grand - despite coming in at only 250 pages - reminding readers of epic quests like the Odyssey and stories of Arthurian legend. And Lancour certainly knows how to leave a story on a cliffhanger, with the reader waiting in anticipation of its continuation. Up next is book two of the Storm Cloud series, "Storm Clouds Break," and I certainly can't wait to see how the next installment unfolds.
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