Have Sword, Will Travel
Reviewed By Ian Banks December 16, 2017
Author Garth Nix and Sean Williams
Distributor: Allen and Unwin Childrens
ISBN: 9781742374024
Publisher: Allen and Unwin Childrens
Release Date: November 2017
Website: https://www.allenandunwin.com
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An absolute mad –cap romp through the world of fantasy fiction has been created by Nix and Williams, masters of the world of insane fantasy ,with this latest tale of derring- do and mayhem courtesy of a talking sword, along with a couple of courageous kids called Odo and Eleanor.
Of course the story is set in the world where there are dragons, magik, noble quests and all the very special ingredients that go to make up a really funny, almost believable , so ‘totally unfair’ tale or two or three.
Odo and Eleanor set off to go eeling in the faint hope that today they would be the lucky ones and come home with a catch, as the river was low. Instead of a haul of eels, they make a very unusual catch, that of a rather interesting sword; so interesting they discover that it is not only enchanted but can also talk.
It turns out the swords name is Biter and boy, is he bossy! Not only can he talk but he tells or rather commands Odo and Eleanor to go forth on a quest, to discover their true destiny. He decides Odo should be knighted but that Eleanor as a girl, she cannot be, which immediately displeases Eleanor! The other thing is, the more they get to know Biter the more they realise that while he appears to know a great deal, he is also very forgetful and gets things very muddled up!
As Biter considers everyone has to have a purpose, especially him, which is of course to right wrongs and a heap of other stuff, the pair, along with the sword, set out to discover a wrong, of which they do find many along the way, to right. Odo is none too sure about any of this but Eleanor is having the best time of her life, learning to be a warrior and righting small wrongs and sometimes even bigger wrongs.
But, and of course there has to be a but, they eventually come to the ‘lair of a powerful dragon’, – there is really only one way to describe where dragons live-– simply because there is; that is when the motto ‘Live by the sword, Die by the sword, may become all too real’, because the Dragon is not too pleased about being woken up. The Dragon demands they tell what they are doing and why, which makes for a very interesting conclusion, to what is probably going to be the first book in series that will be filled with hero’s, dragons, magik and other stuff.
When you add a talking sword, or two, both with attitude what can possibly go wrong, or a maybe even right!