Heart of Granite

Fantasy readers will likely be familiar with Barclay’s engaging bunch of bickering heroes The Raven. Rightly praised by David Gemmell, The Raven novels brought a welcome humour to the idea of the hard-bitten group of adventurers and launched a bestselling career for Barclay. Think the pleasures of the interaction between groups like The Avengers and The Magnificent Seven and the sorts of heroic endeavours that Joe Abercrombie and Jen Williams excel at.

Now Barclay is bringing these qualities to a novel that is otherwise something of a departure for him. In the future we have discovered an organic alien technology. Being human we, of course, used that tech to create terrifying weapons and destroyed ourselves and did much to ruin the world. The remains of humanity are now engaged in a war across the remains of the world. Inhabiting vast alien-behemoths (think the monsters Loki unleashed at the end of Avengers Assemble) we trawl the deserts looking for resources. The behemoths are defended by squadrons of drakes “flown” by young pilots who are mentally bonded to their steeds. If this all sounds a little too far out bear with me. Barclay grounds this via excellent characters, sharp dialogue, thrilling action and the discovery, by our hero Max, of a chilling conspiracy. Think Top Gun with dragons and you’re there ~ Simon Spanton