I thoroughly enjoyed the Rigante series. It has everything that I’ve come to love about David Gemmell’s books: scarred but good-hearted people struggling to do the right thing in the face of great hardship and evil, some of which lies within. Every chapter is compelling and filled with conflict, and while you know that most of the characters are going to die, none of them is beyond redemption.
There were a lot of things in particular that I liked about this book. One of them was the early-modern feel and aesthetic to the world-building. A lot of fantasy worlds are locked in a perpetual state of medieval technology, with very little growth or development. In Stormrider, however, Gemmell advances the world of the Rigante a couple of steps up the tech tree, to a tech-level more on par with the 30 years war.
It’s not just window dressing, either, because the introduction of things like gunpowder has a direct effect on things like battle tactics and duels for honor, which directly affect the story. And yet, there’s still the same undercurrent of magic that made the other books in the series so great. The Sidh may have left the world, but their influence remains, and their magic has not yet faded completely.
My one big issue with the book had to do with the climactic battle leading up to the ending. It wasn’t exactly a deus ex machina, but in some ways it felt very much like it came out of left field and wrapped things up in a way that was just a bit too neat and tidy. That said, it wasn’t nearly as unsatisfying on a character-based level—on the contrary, it brought several of the character arcs full circle in a way that I thoroughly enjoyed. It just wasn’t as good as some of Gemmell’s other endings.
For that reason, I’m only giving this book four stars. However, a 4-star Gemmell book is like a 5-star book from anyone else. Stormrider may fall just short of the standard that Gemmell sets with his other books, but it still clears the bar for truly a truly great fantasy novel.
