Review: The Saint of Steel Series
The Saint of Steel series by T. Kingfisher (the penname of Ursula Vernon) is a romance-fantasy series centering on broken paladins in a DnD-like fantasy world.
This series is set in the same world as her Clocktaur War books (which I read and didn’t like as much), and her standalone Swordheart novel which I haven’t read yet.
I’ve become a big fan of Ursula Vernon’s writing over the past couple of years and these books don’t disappoint. They combine her love of worldbuilding, lived-in settings, horror, and snappy dialogue in a wonderful way. And with a romance plotline to boot!
I highly recommend giving at least the first book in the series a try, that one and the fourth one are my favorites, so far! Though, if the fifth book has the PoV character I’m expecting, I think that could well end up being my new fav.
Anyway, without further ado, as inspired by Throne Of Salt’s reviews, here’s a disorganized collection of my thoughts about the series through Book 4.
I’ll hide any big plot spoilers behind a spoiler button, but there will be general setting spoilers all over the place. Readers beware!
If the Temple of the White Rat existed in real life, I would join in a heartbeat. I’m sure it still has the problems inherent to any large hierarchical organizations, but everything we see from them in the books is just so… inspiring. Solicitors Sancrosanct? Sign me up!
On the same subject, a God whose domain is “solving problems” is fantastic. And naturally leads to the kind of mutual aid/public defender/soup kitchen ethos the Temples have going on – if The Rat wants you to solve as many problems as possible, you make the most progress helping those in poverty.
Vernon does a great job of higlighting and normalizing some of the things that people without adequete healthcare, without housing, and with corrupt justice systems face. I don’t think many romance novels would devote two pages to helping a side-character with a post-partum fistula.
The gnoles are my favorite fantasy race since… forever. I would happily read a whole series of books about gnoles putting up with humans’ antics. Another author might have had gnoles be the cute wooblie mascot characters, but instead they’re so sick of the humans shit and I love it. Doesn’t stop me from wanting a Brindle plushy though. Humans can’t smell indeed.
The love interest of Paladin’s Grace is named Grace? Boooooooooo. :P
My girlfriend informs me that the whole schtick where the paladins are always worried about hurting their love interests is straight out of Twilight. I only read the first of those books, but I’ll believe her!
It does get tiring, especially in the third book, but its made up for by the love interests all being interesting and unique from one another.
It’s great that the female love interests are depicted as just normal women, not perfect super models (despite what the cover art above has you think).
I love Wren for this in particular. Despite the supernatural power to
go beserk and kill everyone in any given room, she’s still wracked by
insecurity about her looks and her ability to fit in with the
popular girls nobility.
Vernon misses the mark a little bit with the male Paladins, who are all described as handsome, muscular, strong, tall, etc. But still, I’ll take it!
About that one character in Paladin’s Faith (also spoilers for the Clocktaur books)
Until the end of Paladin’s Faith, demons have always been presented as objectively, unambiguously, capital-E Evil. So much so that it’s always capital-G Good to lay down your life, or that of your friends, to send them back to Hell.
Wisdom’s character, and the tease that some of the Gods might themselves be demons, helps break down this binary.
I love Wisdom’s statement that young demons are basically toddlers with far too much power. They have the ability to possess people (and animals), they haven’t learned morals, and they’re terrified of being sent back to Hell. Of course they’re going to do some harm.
But the fact that this harm, according to Wisdom, is born of ignorance and not innate malice means that it’s changeable. Just like with toddlers, the adults in the room need to prevent the harm being done, and teach the demon why it’s wrong.
Imagine a daycare for new demons where they’re given an animal (or ideally, some sort of mannequin) to host them, where they’re taught how to move and use their powers. Where they’re taught how to live in cooperation with the other demons and humans in the world.
The Dreaming God’s Temple for Demons Who Can’t Move Good And Who Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too.
I think it’s dangerous to present sentient beings or races as purely Evil in fictional works, be they demons, goblins, or orks. Anytime we do so, we perpetuate the idea that there are Evil races of humans in real life – which is the cornerstone of racist, genocidal, othering politics. So I’m glad that Vernon is bringing doubt to that idea in her novels.
Really excited to see how Wisdom and Judith’s collaboration goes in the next book!
The Wonderworkers are a cool way to add strange magical abilities to a setting where most supernatural power seems to come from divine gifts. It’s basically the same magic system as her A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking book, with (generally) less impactful tricks.
Piper’s idea that maybe everybody is a wonderworker, but they just haven’t been in the right conditions to express their gift, is a fun one.
What’s going on with the ancient civilization that’s left all these crazy (war?) machines around?
While I think it would be funny if most of the wonder-engines are just left-over pieces of industry and not designed to intentionally harm people. Just like a paper mill might seem a horrifying death trap out of context, maybe there’s some benign usage of most wonder-engines.
The murder maze in Paladin’s Hope does seem to have been intentionally designed for war though. Whether or not Piper’s theory that it was an obstacle course for refining drones is true or not, the drones themselves (and the clocktaurs) seem to have been designed for harm.
You don’t give a robot a wicked scorpion tail if it’s just for lifting boxes or whatever.
I expect we won’t learn much about the ancients. It’s been too long, the history too forgotten. We haven’t learned that much in the way of writing or art has been found.
Their relics are just there for contemporary people to stumble over and kill each other with. Though we do get that one lore drop (I think in the Clocktaur books) of a wonder-engine being used for waste management, so that’s nice.
Anyway, them’s my thoughts! I’ve really enjoyed these books and the world that Vernon creates in them. I’m so happy I’ve found Venon’s books and maybe one day I’ll finish all of them!
She also writes horror books, so if that’s more up your alley I highly recommend checking out A House with Good Bones.
Thanks for reading!