In Time of Treason: David Keck

In a Time of Treason is David Keck's second book in the series started with In the Eye of Heaven. Here we follow Durand Col in his service to his liege Lamoric. All the while, Durand tries to find the right opportunity to leave Lamoric's service due to a guilty conscience brought about by banging out Lamoric's wife, Deorwen.

What had started as an annual celebration in Acconel has become a jousting contest between Lamoric and Radomor, whose nefarious plans were thwarted in the first book of the series. The joust becomes bloody combat, becomes bloody siege and eventually becomes bloody pursuit as Radomor flees to his home of Yrlac and Lamoric pursues...or is he being lead there? All the while, Durand searches for another way into Deorwen's skirts and a way out of Lamoric's life.

Now, I like my fantasy with brutal monsters eating people's heads and wicked evil sorcerers throwing hexes and all that old school Dungeons and Dragons feel. What few monsters show up in here do nothing but talk trash. The evil sorcerers perform little more than parlor tricks and the entire novel is written in such a way that I fell asleep every thirty or forty pages. And that's every thirty or forty pages; I kept at it in the hopes something would happen but, alas, nada. Although Keck has a very robust world imagined, the book has more of a feel of medieval historical novel than an epic fantasy series as Keene seems to prefer describing the lands and their people's doings than establishing the characters that populate the tale. When asked how the book was at one point, I blurted out "It's like reading the Bible backwards."

Keck does has a potential for brilliance as evidenced in some of his analogies and the kinetic energy some of the combat has, but those few pieces aren't enough to save the novel. Even zombies here and there didn't help. Plus the few poor attempts at humor (specifically, one involving a bell and dogs possessed by demons) made me roll my eyes so hard my contact slipped. Leave the funny to more appropriate places for its execution, Dave. Oh, and there seems to be a bunch of demons getting ready to throw down at the end of the novel and get crazy violent at the beginning of book three but at that point, who really cares?

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Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (February 19, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0765313219
ISBN-13: 978-0765313218