Raven's Banquet
by Clifford Beal
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Pub Date 13 May 2014 | Archive Date 6 Jun 2014
Rebellion | Solaris
Description
Germany 1626: A War, a Witch, a Reckoning….
Richard Treadwell is a young man who dreams of glory and honour on the battlefield—and the plunder and riches that would follow. With the help of his father, he journeys to Hamburg to seek his fortune as a mercenary in the Danish army when it intervenes in the vast war that rages in northern Germany between the Catholic Hapsburg empire and the Protestant princes of the north.
But he brings with him an old secret—and the potential seed of his own destruction—as he descends into a horrific maelstrom of conflict and slaughter that quickly destroys his illusions of adventure, of right and wrong, and of good and evil.
When his fate is foreshadowed by a young gypsy woman, he discovers that he cannot outrun what he left behind in England and he soon finds himself thrown headlong into a series of bloody skirmishes alongside the Danes that strip him of conscience and harden his heart. The opposing armies close for a battle that will be the turning point in the struggle for the kingdom—and in the war for his soul. But even as Treadwell steels himself for the final contest against the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor, an unseen enemy stalks him within his own camp.
Fleeing the battlefield, his life takes an even darker turn when he stumbles upon a coven of peasant women dwelling deep in the forest of the Harz Mountains, women that have their own terrible secrets to protect—and a burning hatred to avenge.
The hero of Gideon’s Angel returns to tell how his journey into the supernatural began.
“They are attracted to you as salt attracts the beast in the field….”
Advance Praise
Praise for Gideon’s Angel:
“…the plot never stops thickening and the galloping pace keeps it from clotting… All this plus sound historical settings, terrific supernatural set pieces and walk-on parts for D’Artagnan and John Milton. What’s not to like?”– The Daily Mail
“Our exiled but secretly returned Cavalier hero faces the hard choice: Cromwell or the devil? Swashbuckling excitement in grimy 1653.” – The Daily Telegraph
“…I took a look—and was hooked. Check it out. Fast-paced fantasy/historical adventure.” –Michael Moorcock
“The sheer panache with which Clifford Beal brings together the past and the supernatural results in a headlong alt-history hybrid more potent than either aspect of the entire would be without the other”—Tor.com
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Available Editions
| EDITION | Ebook |
| ISBN | 9781849977562 |
| PRICE | US$3.99 (USD) |
Average rating from 7 members
Featured Reviews
Annie S, Librarian
Raven's Banquet, by Clifford Beal
Richard Treadwell is always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because his chosen profession is that of a soldier, his bad luck is sure to be the death of him. Only the fact that Fortuna seems to have more in store for him keeps from being burnt as a witch, hanged, killed in battle, or poisoned. Clifford Beal's Raven's Banquet is a prequel to Gideon's Angel, which tells the story of Treadwell's service on the wrong side of the English Civil War. Raven's Banquet tells us what happened to Richard twenty years before he is captured by Parliamentarians.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Naseby in June of 1646, Colonel Richard Treadwell is waiting in custody for his leg to heal when he is unexpected arrested by another band of Parliamentarians. They're taking him to London for trial. The charge is treason. Treadwell wrote letters to the King of Denmark the behest of King Charles' advisers. Those letters, asking the Danish monarch to send troops to assist the Royalist cause, are now evidence against Treadwell. As the so-called trial against him proceeds, Beal takes us back twenty years to 1625-1626, when Treadwell served in the Danish army against the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Young Richard chafes at his life as the younger son of a local knight and decides to fight for the Protestant Cause (he uses capital letters) in Germany. Along with a local man pressed into service as dogsbody and manservant, Richard arrives in Hamburg and sets about trying to find the Danish army. He imagines that soldiering is his path to fortune and glory. These notions are swiftly disabused by his new commanding officers. Richard is told to earn his way up to a rank from common trooper. This galls him, but he follows orders.
Nothing is as Richard expected. The soldiers he serves with are coarse and rapacious. They spend more time foraging—meaning stealing any food and fodder that isn't nailed down to feed the army—than fighting or even gathering intelligence. His cohorts rape and rob and murder. His manservant turns on him. Then Richard finally sees real battle, but it's a rout. After another disastrous battle, Richard and his remaining comrades find refuge among a colony of strange women in the German forest.
When I read Raven's Banquet, I didn't know it was a prequel, so I genuinely feared for Richard. He ends up in so many impossible situations and his world is a violent one. But the book ends with one last, gigantic challenge for Treadwell. And it really could be his last challenge.
One of the problems writers of historical fiction have to solve concerned dialog. Do you use period dialog and risk your novel sounding hackneyed? Or do you modernize it have characters swearing like gangsters with Tourette's, à la Deadwood? Beal does an incredible job of finding a middle point between authenticity and readability. Raven's Banquet sounds right. This is a wonderful work of historical fiction.
I received a free copy of this ebook to review from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. It is, according to NetGalley, scheduled to be released 13 May 2014 but I can't find a listing for it on either Amazon or Amazon.co.uk. When I checked the publisher site, I only found a listing for Beal's previous Richard Treadwell book, Gideon's Angel.
