The Merchant Adventurer by Patrick E. McLean
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’m quickly becoming a big fan of Patrick McLean’s writing. I tore through the How to Succeed in Evil series, really enjoying the concept of an “evil efficiency consultant” very much as he turns the superhero genre on its head, letting the bad guy take the wheel.
His latest, The Merchant Adventurer, similarly reverses the roles in another genre, that of fantasy adventuring. Anyone who has seen Lord of the Rings will be familiar enough with the genre, but those who have read fantasy novels or rolled the dice in a role-playing game (RPG), electronic or board, will really enjoy this most. In fact, the author based the protagonist on a computer-played RPG character from the game Wizardry.
Boltac is a shopkeeper; the guy who kits you out when you go out on your quest for fortune and glory. He theoretically is also the guy you sell your loot to if you ever return from your adventure (doubtful). He’s seen them all come and go – bold young heroes off to defeat the dread so and so and rid the land of this and that and recover the lost treasure of whatever. He nods politely, sells them the gear for exactly what it’s worth and never expects to see any of them ever again. He is Rick Blaine in Casablanca; he sticks his neck out for nobody.
But when the local wizard gets a little too ambitious and kidnaps the innkeeper of Boltac’s dreams, he feels compelled to act; not to be the hero, but to use his own strengths to get her back. And save the town, if possible. And not to be killed by either the cut-throat guide or the idiot kid hero who tags along.
The novel is a great satire. It helps if you are fluent in the genre, but really you don’t have to have read any of those books with characters with too many consonants in their names to enjoy the story. Boltac is a fun character to follow and if the end destination of the story isn’t really in doubt, the many paths and stops on the way are entirely unexpected and great.