Sword of the Four Winds Review: Sword and Sorcery in the East

 

Sword of the Four Winds Review

TL;DR?

Swords of the Four Winds is an anthology taking place in a world inspired East and Southeast Asia, where the stakes are personal, betrayal is common, and no one ever gets what they want. These stories advance at break-neck speeds, demanding the reader to keep up with what is going. In the return, you get a multitude of characters, each with their own stories from Orhan Timur, the Snow Leopard Prince schemes for power to Arios, a simple war veteran trying to survive and get back home to his wife and son.

As the time of writing, the anthology is $4.99 USD for the kindle version and $12.99 for the print version. Overall, I believe it is worth the price for a couple evenings of entertainment at a good price.

Full Review

There are not many contemporary Filipino writer’s that dabble in fantasy fiction, so finding Dariel Quiogue's Sword of the Four Winds anthology was an instant instant kindle buy[1].  Sword of the Four Winds is in the“sword-and-silk” sub-genre of sword and sorcery, taking inspiration from eastern and southeastern Asia with the protagonist of the stories being people against larger-than-life enemies and coming out on top, even if it means coming out on top just means living another day while your entire world burns around you. So if you come expecting Tolkien or G R.R. Martin, this is not it. Expect these stories to be more in the vein of Robert Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

As for the actual quality of the stories; there are typos. Not many, but they exist.. Considering it is the first published anthology by the author and English is not his native language, I can forgive the grammatical typos as they do not distract from the final product of the stories, which are great rides.

Orhan Timur, The Snow Leopard short stories are the longest series of this anthology and the main attraction more or less. It is a great introduction to wild, fantastical side of the setting with princely betrayal, seemingly mandatory evil shamans, and the female leads who end up dying heroically. At least as heroically as you can in the world he has crafted. Something I noticed when going through the Orhan's saga is that earlier stores are not as refined as later stories, with the former being more reliant on sword and sorcery tropes than the actual characters in the beginning with the latter half of the saga becoming less reliant upon the world.  It seems to me that the Snow Leopard Saga was written first before all the other stories in this anthology with Quiogue's writing style changing and growing as the stories continue.

As much  Orhan's saga is the mainstay of the anthology, the smaller series such as Arios' saga and Datu Buhawi's story are some of the high points of the anthology. Arios focus on being a soldier trying to survive and get home to his family in the crazy world that Orhan’s series explored, is something that any one person can sympathize with. His adventures more emotionally endearing to the reader than anyone else in this series from his simple quest and his struggles. A reader can feel for his failures, and smile at his successes. I just wish at the end of his series, we get a more resolute ending. Not telling you what happens but you will understand.

Datu Buhawi’s story, while not as relatable to most people, is very different from all the others and my favorite, taking inspiration from the Spanish conquest of the Philippines, with the foreign characters being named in distinctively European names armed with steel and iron chest plate armor, armed with arqubuses and crossbows, acting as mercenaries to local petty kings to change the tide of battles often betraying the king’s for just a little more gold. As a Filipino-American, it is nice to finally see someone actually use that setting for a story and in general shine a light of that time period.

In a typical fantasy setting, Datu Buhawi's story stands out as it relies very little on magical elements, leaning heavily on human treachery and tragedy, with failing of characters being cause of loss than magical objects. For me, I find this the apex of this anthology on the interpretation that sword and sorcery fantasy boils down a critique of human nature and power struggles, so to see a sword and sorcery story to 

Overall, I love this anthology and I am happy to discover an author with unique stories. I bought the kindle edition and I was able to complete the book within a couple evenings. For $4.99, I believe it is a great deal. For the printed edition, I am not so sure, with it being $12.99 on Amazon but if you like what I describe, I say think about it.

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[1] I was living in Estonia at the time of buying so finding something like this was great for me.