I'm often guilty of demanding too much from my literature. Not every story can be original, inventive and entertaining. Sometimes, a story is what it is and it's down to me to change my expectations; after all, demanding more than what a story has to offer is the quickest way to ruin its appeal. And look at Harry Potter. Some stories are just great at what they do. Black Blade Blues is exactly this sort of tale. It's balky, uneven and longwinded, yet, it knows what it is, fun and playful. So long as it is read this way, its inventive virtues will outweigh its hackneyed sins.
When we meet Sarah, our protagonist, she is a struggling blacksmith, living paycheck-to-paycheck in Seattle, Washington. She makes rent by working parttime as a crewmember on a local movie shoot which, being that it's a film about dragons and damsels, requires the presence of sword props which have a nasty tendency to break when flung about by oafish actors. Volunteering to mend the latest broken blade, Sarah re-forges the sword at her boss' workshop, not realizing that the blade she is working with is ancient, powerful and the product of Norse mythology. When wielded by a worthy hand, it is an object of strength and influence. And so it comes as something of a shock to Sarah when the sword decides she is its proper owner. Unsettled by this revelation, Sarah sticks stubbornly to skepticism despite her girlfriend's encouragement to embrace her destiny. But when trolls and dragons start appearing, determined to rest the sword from her through bribes or brute force, her belief in a rational, agnostic universe collapses in the face of the dark truth, that she has a destiny and that only through embracing that destiny can she attack the evil confronting her.
This first effort in a proposed series is plagued with problems. The prose is choppy, the celebration of SCA culture is geeky, and the story veers, at times, off on some truly unnecessary tangents, but its strengths earn it a charm I'm having a hard time shaking. Sarah is a wonderfully flawed character who is as conflicted about her destiny as she is about her sexuality. What's more, the Norse mythology is amusing, entertaining and definitely bloodthirsty, providing Sarah with opportunities to be incredulous, fearful, and heroic. And so the maturation of a confused girl into a kind of hero pleases more than the cartoonish villains annoy. Black Blade Blues is good at what it is, entertainment from which much oughtn't be asked. It's at its worst in the moments it tries and fails to be more. (3/5 Stars)
PS: It's very possible that I was simply charmed by the protagonist's struggle and, consequently, lost any capacity for objectivity. If so, feel free to scorch me.
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