Sweet & Salty Reviews - Desa Kincaid: Bounty Hunter by R.S. Penney

Beware of the spoilers!

The Dish
Desa Kincaid: Bounty Hunter is part-Western, part-fantasy novel. It isn’t set in the United States (or even on Earth) but it mirrors a Victorian-era level of technological sophistication and period dress. People ride on horseback, have revolvers and Stetsons, and say things like “y’all”, “missy” and “I reckon”. One of the characters is even a Southern belle but, then, lots of planets have a south, don’t they?

There’s also magic, or field-binding as it’s locally known. Characters skilled in field-binding can imbue mundane items with special abilities, usually related to existing natural forces, e.g. heat, gravity, force, etc.

The Sauce
The novel’s ‘magic’ system is by far it’s finest point. Myth holds that the world was created by two goddesses, Mercy and Vengeance. Mercy gives and Vengeance takes away. Along the same lines, all field-binding involves enchanting items to either give or take away certain types of energy. Example, a heat source creates heat, while a heat sink drains heat away.

The result is a limitless supply of enchanted weapons with a potentially inexhaustible combination of abilities. A bullet with a gravity source will drag objects towards it (it might even make someone implode when shot with it). A glove with a gravity source could be used to steal things from a distance. Penney has created a perfectly-balanced, simple, elegant magic system and has a lot of fun exploiting all the various ways it can be used throughout the novel.

The Sweet
Aside from the magic system, which again I adore, the characters are all well-realised and likeable. The eponymous Desa Kincaid is a classic Western gunslinger but, by whit of being female, lends an element of elegance to the usual macho shenanigans. She’s rough, tough, likes the ladies and has a good heart. She tries her hardest but isn’t right all the time and that, I think, is one of her greatest charms as a protagonist.

The supporting cast all have their part to play. Tommy provides an unenlightened eye to view Desa’s world through, Marcus is a testosteronal mansplainer who’ll never be the hero the way he wants to be, Miri is by turns a comic and a cold-blooded assassin. All of them are nice in their own way and I think the good guys should always be nice deep down.

The villains scale up from small-town ruffians to world-ending loons gradually through the story. Desa’s focus on her quarry drives the action nicely from start to finish, and the primary antagonist’s motive is not only interesting but downright achievable considering what he’s learned about the world. Everything builds to the finale where the focus changes, presumably setting up the next book. The twist is well-delivered and paced right up until the moment it drops. While not necessarily surprising, the actual details of it aren’t what you’d expect, which earns this story an extra point.

The Salty
Unfortunately, this story can be hard-reading at times. The prose lacks a certain polish and the writing can get bogged down in physical details. Characters are always folding and unfolding their arms, sitting down and standing up, or looking down at the floor and then up at the sky and then back down at the floor again, which distracts from the conversation or the action as it develops.

The writing is, at its heart, utilitarian. It’s not trying to be pretty. It’s trying to tell a story. When the fighting starts, it’s borderline cinematic. But it focuses too much on the visual and there’s more to a novel than action. Language can be beautiful through more than just the images it conveys.

I suppose I also have to dock a point because, of the three relationships that develop during the story, the only one that survives is the heterosexual one. The homosexual ones lead not only to break-ups but to outright betrayal. It would have been nice to see a gay couple hook up and stay together.

There was also the small matter of the story’s denouement. After the climax, the story should have wrapped at a fair clip. Instead, it continued on for a couple more chapters, introduced a new character and then wrapped. A slightly tighter ending would have been more satisfying.

The Aftertaste
This is a perfectly readable bit of fiction. It’s like an action movie you can play in your mind, absorbing all the fist- and gunfights blow-by-blow. It has its philosophical moments but, on the whole, it is a simple pleasure. If you’re a fan of classic fantasy and Westerns, and think you might like to sit for a while at the middle of that Venn diagram, I would recommend Desa Kincaid: Bounty Hunter to you.

Also, thanks go to Henry Roi for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book here at the Basement.