Review -- The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan

The back cover blurb of Michael J. Sullivan's The Crown Conspiracy is what drew me in: "There is no ancient evil to defeat, no orphan destined for greatness, just two guys in the wrong place at the wrong time." That sounds awesome. How many times has an epic fantasy novel been weighed down by the same tropes and clichés? More than I can count. So it was refreshing to see a book that promised to do away with those things. Was the back cover lying to me? Did it completely live up to its promise? Read on after the break to find out.


Alright, right off the bat let me say that I thought The Crown Conspiracy was good--very good even. However, there were some issues that kept it from achieving pure excellence.


The novel begins right in the middle of the action, which is great. The reader is introduced to the two main characters: Royce Melborn--a master thief, and Hadrian Blackwater--the muscle. The reader is dropped right into the middle of a caper, and it serves as a good introduction to the two characters. What was strange was the fact that based on the back cover synopsis and the fact that Royce is the main thief, I expected more of the story to be told from his point of view. Instead Hadrian is the character that gets the most "screen time" so to speak. This isn't a complaint, and there will be more about Hadrian later.


After finishing that particular job, Hadrian lets his inner moral compass (and desire for an easy score) overcome his better judgement. In short the two thieves end up in the wrong place at the wrong time where they are framed for killing the king of Melengar. The rest of the novel follows the two of them as they (unwillingly at first) team up with Prince Alric in order to unravel the conspiracy behind the king's death. For a while I was left guessing as to who the real killer was: was it Alric's sister, Princess Arista, some hired mercenary, who?


So as you can see, the plot was great. Fun and light, capers and conspiracies. While it was a little light on the thieving aspects--nowhere near as convoluted or "Ocean's Eleven-esque" as Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora--I finished the novel satisfied with the plot.


Most of the minor issues come from the characters themselves. The back cover promises no ancient evils, but it doesn't quite live up to that promise. During the course of the adventure, Royce, Hadrian, and Alric meet the wizard Esrahaddon who had been imprisoned for over one thousand years for betraying the ruler of the empire that used to exist where all the small kingdoms are now. The wizard is in the story for a chapter then disappears with some cryptic words about how he basically has bigger fish to fry. That's kind of veering into the "prophecy/dark overlord to defeat" territory. But then he wasn't in the rest of the novel, so file him away under "characters that will show up later in the series."


Also Royce felt a little more like an archetype than a fully fleshed out character, and I believe this is because we spent so little time in his head. There are only two times that we get to see his point of view, and both times they are short scenes where he is talking to Gwen, the brothel owner and potential love interest. Both these scenes ventured into the realm of cliché and didn't do a whole lot to really give me a sense of who Royce is. Granted this is only the first novel in a series, so it could be that a lot of my concerns will be addressed in the later books. That's why I'm saying these are only minor concerns.


I'm a science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, whatever fiction junkie. If it's got worldbuilding in it, you bet I'm going to read it. But of course whenever an author creates a world from scratch, they have to walk the delicate fine line between giving the reader enough information to understand the world and bombarding them with long information dumps. Sadly there were a few portions in The Crown Conspiracy where the exposition--telling--overwhelmed the action--showing. One of the biggest offenders was when the trio meets Myron the monk. Since Myron has lived in an abbey his entire life and possesses an eidetic memory, he is able to give the party all sorts of knowledge about the history of the world, ancient religions, etc. Starting on page 121 and not ending until 124, Myron gives a very lengthy speech about the main religion in the world. While the information was necessary, I feel as if there could have been a more sophisticated way of weaving it into the narrative. There is a similar situation on 197 and 198 when Alric tells about the history of one noble family. Also there are a couple of phrases that felt like anachronisms for an epic fantasy tale like a princess thinking to herself "no kidding."


I hope I'm not coming across as overly negative. I'm not trying to rip the book to shreds, far from it. Despite these, and I say it again, minor issues I enjoyed the book a lot. I couldn't put it down at times. In fact, I ended up staying well past my self-imposed bedtime to finish it so I could write this review today instead of tomorrow. I'm going to read the next book in the series; there's no doubt about that. Savvy readers will also find little shout outs to other works of literature including: Lord of the Rings and Canterbury Tales -- strangely, I caught the Chaucer reference but missed the Tolkien one, probably because I've read Chaucer more recently. Sullivan himself pointed out the Tolkien one to me on Twitter.


If you're looking for a fantasy read that doesn't weigh itself down with ponderous prophecies about orphans or elves wondering if they should intervene in the problems of man, then pick up The Crown Conspiracy. You won't be disappointed.