The Malevolent Seven by Sebastien De Castell

(Jo Fletcher Books, 2023)

Reviewed by John Dodd

Always liked the Magnificent Seven, and with that, always liked plays on the nature of that particular story, especially when they take a turn in a direction that wasn’t expected.

Enter Cade Ombra, stage right, as a mercenary mage, a wonderist, with powers far beyond those of mortal creatures, who has no interest in working for the greater good or saving those who cannot save themselves. If anything, he’s likely to be the one on the other side that the peasants need saving from.

This starts at a fast pace, Cade working with other wonderists to take down those his employer has taken against. There’s the suggestion that Cade may be more than just a casual villain, as he refuses to partake of all the rewards that he could, particularly when it comes to the use and misuse of slaves and casual cruelty. Which in turn brings him to the attention of the other wonderists he was working with, and things change, as he finds himself cast out from them, with only his friend Corrigan (also a man of no redeeming characteristics) to accompany him into exile.

And here we find that Cade was once far more than he has fallen to be, there was a time that he worked on the side of the angels rather than the diabolics, and now the question becomes whether or not he’ll work on the side of the angels again. Or if not the angels, at least not the diabolists. So begins the next part of his life, stopping those who would do the very thing that he’d been paid to do before, whether because he wants to or because he just doesn’t want them to reap the reward isn’t clear till much later in the story.

The magic in this world isn’t your basic point and click sort of magery; it’s clear from the way in which it’s presented that there’s been a lot of work gone into it, and that leaps off the page. There’s a glossary of the different types of Wonderist, from Auroralists to Pandoralists, each with a particular discipline and nature, and that so much thought has gone into it makes every new spell a joy to behold. Cade isn’t a gleeful villain but a repentant one, played in such a way that you’re never sure if he’s really doing something he doesn’t want to do or if he’s actually doing it because he wants to and is just trying to convince himself otherwise. The plot slows in the middle, but from a fast start and an explosive (literally) ending, it’s not enough to stop the book from being enjoyable.

What we have here is a glorious spectacle of magic, mayhem, and murders. There are no good, good people, only shades of darkness, everyone is willing to do whatever they need to in order to get the power they want. The consequences of their actions are paid for at a later time, and they’re fine with that. Which is part of the problem, when you don’t consider the price you pay for what you have, you can’t complain when that price comes due.

And so they don’t, because feeling sorry for yourself isn’t complaining, it’s just lamenting that you got caught, and that’s always clear in this book.

What makes this story different for me is that it doesn’t feel like the author played a few RPGs and made a book out of the campaign that they’d played in, which is something that happens a lot and often causes the book to make more sense to those who’ve played RPG’s but more difficult for those who didn’t. This didn’t feel like that though, it’s very much one person’s story with others who happened to be along for the ride, and while it’s self-contained, there is potential for the story to continue and that would be something I’d read.

Review from BSFA Review 21 - Download your copy here.