Adrienne Martini Reviews The Warden by Daniel M. Ford
The Warden, Daniel M. Ford (Tor 978-125081-565-1, $27.99, 320pp, hc) April 2023.
Does Daniel M. Ford’s The Warden break new ground and expand what we think a fantasy adventure can be? It does not. But does it produce everything a reader would expect in a fantasy adventure and some fresh takes in just the right proportions to make it feel both familiar and new? Yes, it most definitely does. If such a category as a ‘‘cozy mystery’’ exists, then The Warden should be placed on the ‘‘cozy fantasy’’ shelf that must be nearby.
Protagonist Aelis is a graduate of the Lyceum, a big city school for those with magical talent. Her first assignment is as the warden of Lone Pine, a middle-of-nowhere town with nothing much to distinguish it. A warden acts as a town’s doctor, sheriff, and judge, which means that Aelis will always be in the place but not really of it.
Which isn’t all that much different from her life up to this point. Aelis grew up with vast sums of inherited wealth and family power in the big city. Given that privileged childhood, she isn’t sure why she’s been assigned to a place so outside her experience. When it turns out that the town’s inhabitants are lukewarm (at best) about her presence, she wonders if the powers that be made a huge mistake. Then, of course, things start to happen. Aelis is too busy keeping her charges unmolested to spend time pining for her old haunts.
What makes The Warden work is the same thing that could doom a book less cleverly written: Aelis is very, very good at what she does. While she faces challenges, the reader knows that she’ll work it out before too long because that’s what she does. Her solutions aren’t predictable so much as inevitable.
Ford manages to pull this trick off by creating characters with some heft to them and by being highly aware of all of the fantasy tropes this world is steeped in. He’s like a DM who takes great joy in making a familiar setting and structure more than you’d expect it to be. Plus, he’s aware that we’re aware: ‘‘‘A dwarf, an elfling, a girl, and a wizard walk out of a bar,’ Maurenia said as they stepped outside. ‘That seems like the beginning of a joke.’’’
The Warden isn’t a joke, mind, but it is just the first part of a two-part tale. When the second book is released, I plan to save it for a week when real life is hectic and I’m craving a fresh-yet-familiar world to sink into. Aelis will figure it all out.
Adrienne Martini has been reading or writing about science fiction for decades and has had two non-fiction, non-genre books published by Simon and Schuster. She lives in Upstate New York with one husband, two kids, and one corgi. She also runs a lot.
This review and more like it in the August 2023 issue of Locus.
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