“The Maleficent Seven” is a kind of A. Lee Martinez / Larry Correia type popcorn dark fantasy novel. Based on the title, it’s intended as a play on the Magnificent Seven, bad guys who are enlisted against their will to do good against unsurmountable odds. The structure of “getting the gang back together” is the kind of set-up that should, in theory, sell itself, as it provides an easy to understand structure in popular media, it offers backstory possibilities for the reader to piece together, while providing forward momentum. The “bad guys do good things” trope is also one that should allow for lots of anti-hero asides and antics for the writer to dream up. This book, in other words, should be an easy lay-up provided the writer has a good imagination and sets up some stakes, given that the path is well trodden by many others in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, not to mention other forms of media.
The book trips on a few issues which prevents it from being more than genre work. For one, the main characters, the demonologist, the vampire, the witch, etc, are all overpowered on their own, which renders the stakes so low as to be procedural. They also feel a bit like they’ve emerged from, if not Central Casting, then the cast of the Netflix show Arcane. It feels like these characters were developed in isolation, equipment was selected, and then deployed into a series of chapters that they mulch through. This is not unlike the “Avengers: Endgame” problem–wherein Thor, Hulk, and others are de-powered in order to create narrative progress. In the case of “The Maleficent Seven,” the author ends up having to create inter-personal conflicts, diversions, and deus ex machina which are not very convincing, in order to slow the inexorable progress of the battering plot ram that are the Seven. To that end, there are few creative surprises in plot or character behaviour, to keep the pace feeling brisk. A few do come to mind, the exploding pigs, the vampire antics, but the rest of the combat read not unlike the later Dresden novels, as one readers, one imagines the scenes accompanied by “bam” and “boom” sound effects by a 9-year-old recounting Saturday morning cartoons. Lastly, the writing is at times overwrought – cliches like “the words flowing out unbidden” appear every few pages, and the characters exude the fake cheer and bonhomie of a Renaissance Festival LARPing session, which, depending on your taste, may not be a bad thing.
In the end, this book reads like it’s aiming to be a crowd pleaser, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But just like a mid-tier Marvel movie, one leaves with the feeling of having consumed empty calories or being pandered to. It’s not a great feeling, and the characters do not stay in one’s mind very long. If a fantasy-team-of-antiheroes genre workout is what one is looking for, this is in fair company, not unlike a few others of this category–King of The Wyld, as others have noted, comes to mind. The Blackhawks is another, and may be slightly more developed in character and plotting.
File under: Your mileage may vary
416p
If On a Winter's Night, a Traveler... 