Book Review: Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword (Алмазный Меч, Деревянный Меч)

my copy of books 1 & 2

Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword is a two-book introduction to The Chronicles of the Rift, a sort of underground classic of modern Russian fantasy. First published in 1998, these two books marked the beginning of an epic series which traces its roots to none other than Tolkien himself: Perumov’s writing started with The Ring of Darkness, a series directly drawing from the Lord of the Rings lore (fanfiction, as we kids say these days), and continues in a few following series, finally reaching The Chronicles of the Rift. 

I picked up these books because I come from a proud Russian family of nerds and bookworms. Both my parents have been nagging me about this

series since I was twelve, and I even picked up the first book back then – but I’m getting ahead of myself. We’re gonna get to that part of my personal history later.

Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword is a classically epic fantasy story told through multiple perspectives from all around the secondary world. It starts with Agatha, one of the last – maybe the only one! – surviving Danu, an ancient race of people that was eradicated in the latest war between humans and the rest of the world. Danu is one of the two races that, to my knowledge, Perumov adds to the lore of LOTR in his own stories: they resemble Elves and humans, though look distinctly like themselves. In this world, Danu are despised by all and thought to be extinct, if not – held as slaves. Agatha finds herself in the latter position: with a collar around her neck, she belongs to the travelling circus and does their dirty work for them. Through her the story of the Wooden Sword is explored: Danu are notably the people of the woods, the woods that were similarly almost completely destroyed, and Danu's blood grants them safe passage and uncovers the many secrets of the forest. Wooden Sword, an important magical artifact of this world, is recovered with Agatha’s help (and against her will) by the director of the travelling circus, who, of course, turns out to be not at all that dumb and ordinary.

Next is the Emperor, a human with no name for he is just that – the Emperor. Through him, the world of human magic is explored, and it becomes apparent why humans succeeded in the war. Seven Orders of the Rainbow, the Rainbow League for short, are the seven powerful schools of mages that practically have the lands under control. Think state + religion, except the gods have died or abandoned this dimension, and non-material magic took over. In these books, the Emperor fights a new war of his own – against the mages.

Another perspective is divided between three (and then just two) travellers on their way to retreat the Diamond Sword – a relic of the Gnome nation, just like the Diamond Sword is that of Danu. Sydri the gnome is tasked with the quest and is given two guards: Tavy the mage, and Khan-Torog the warrior – both of the Free race, which lives secluded on the Northeast of the continent and basically plays Switzerland for eternity. Neither of the guards is aware of the true nature of this quest, and only when Khan-Torog tragically dies deep underground in the old caves of the gnomes does Tavy realize that the gnomes never meant to pay them back, or even let them survive the endeavour, for that matter. Sydri was supposed to retreat the Sword with their help, but in secret. Tavy survives, and from there their perspectives split: Sydri travels back to the gnomes to finish what was started with the Sword, and Tavy tries to ward off the mages from the Rainbow League (she’s an unregistered mage, using certain kinds of magic attracts attention and she was detected).

The last – and most exciting – perspective is that of Fess, a mage from the Valley, a place from another dimension of mages that do belong to the Rainbow League, but serve a special purpose of specifically guarding the realms of all things inter-dimensional; border guards of sorts, if you will. The Valley is peaceful and orderly, happy as Heaven itself, and Fess left it precisely because he is a daredevil and an idiot, and marrying a nice girl from his auntie’s friend’s household is simply not what he wants in this life. Besides, he already declined the offer of the mage university despite being one of the most powerful mages in his generation. Instead, he did what most rogues like him do: he joined the Grey League, an order that is, this time, the Switzerland of magic. Outside of the Rainbow League, the Greys are spies that track the workings of the League mages and regulate social and political life through their secret endeavours. It’s complicated but masterfully woven into the narrative; after a few interesting twists of the story, Fess ends up working for the Emperor, our dearly beloved friend.

Here’s a bonus perspective for you: the mysterious elder monk who turns out to be the very narrator of this very story you are reading about, the monk that was confined to his room deep beneath some church in the capital centuries ago, the monk that is… going to tie all these perspectives together. But I won’t talk much about him: his story is revealed later on in the books, and the pieces fit in precisely because so much of the story is revealed. 

Agatha truly is the chosen one of her nation: she eventually reclaims the Wooden Sword, agrees to work for the Rainbow League but escapes them with the Sword in tow, encounters the remaining Danu and starts a march against humans – which ends in her encountering said humans lead by the Emperor. Sydri, having delivered the Diamond Sword, is also there with an army; the goal is to actually fight it out between the Gnomes and the Danu, but because the humans are also there, it takes them a while to decide who to fight first. In a somewhat convoluted series of events, Agatha and the Emperor

have a few sweet moments of sweet loving, the Swords are almost near destroying the looming threat of otherworldly creatures invading this dimension, but then two characters which I haven't even mentioned before come from the left field (not really; we do follow them for a bit, and they are there for most of the story) and stop the inevitable destruction of, like, all peoples and dimensions.

the next books about Fess's journey

Agatha and the Emperor live happily ever after, I presume, and Fess gets lost in-between dimensions because the Valley has relocated from its usual coordinates for safety reasons. But that's for now: fess has a log way ahead of him.

Also, a guy appears in the very end, who is heavily hinted at being Jesus himself. Remember how I said the gods have abandoned this dimension? Well. Humans sure did bring in their religion with that long-ago war after all.

The End.

So that’s that on the story! Fess is the real main character of these books and the series overall; I did not know that going in, I assumed it was Agatha, but the story structure makes it somehow clear that Fess is the one to watch most closely. The perspectives are balanced and it’s never boring: I didn’t mention even a quarter of the characters that show up on the page, not even half of those whose perspectives are given. The world is incredibly richly imagined: the clear distinction between material and non-material magic is explored through Tavy and the mysterious monk, the relationships between the races are constantly portrayed in their daily interactions, and though the lore is given in info-dumpy chunks, it is infinitely better than making some characters say it out loud. A word must be said about the structure of the story (maybe even a few dozen words, if you please): holy shit. I was truly on the edge of my seat most of the way through, constantly putting the pieces together and deducing what comes next. Here’s one example for you, for I want you to delight in its incredibleness.

First comes right after Tavy performs a necromantic ritual – a practice forbidden for the registered mages of the League, let alone a rogue girl-mage of the Free race; this happens before Sydri’s betrayal is revealed. The perspective switches – first it’s unclear where we’re dumped at, but it is for sure the capital of the Empire, Meliyn. We witness a typical public execution: very medieval in spirit, it consists of death through torture of a young girl, allegedly an undocumented mage. The Emperor (my guy!) shows up, and he’s told that the girl used a forbidden ritual. The Emperor couldn’t intervene even if he wanted to: these laws are the League’s domain, so is the execution. The Emperor watches, absently, a gnome at the front of the crowd in front of him: eventually, when the girl is going through the worst of the torture, the gnome flashes a dart right to her heart, relieving her of her misery.

I may be just very gullible, but my first guess was that Tavy and Sydri were caught, the former tortured and the latter coming to her aid to the best of his abilities; of course, of c o u r s e it is revealed that this is not the case, and the gnome at the execution was working for the Grey League and carrying out a special task. But this parallelism adds a spicy intrigue to the story. All your heroes can die here, for sure.

There are a few others, one specifically involving Fess and his similarly apparent execution, which turns out, again, to be not at all what it seems, but a logically explained employment of shape-shifting magic by the Grey League’s enemies to trick and defeat Fess’s superiors. It fails, of course, but for a few pages there I really thought that it is Fess’s superiors that turned against him and he is gonna pay for his ungodly love for adventure and refusal to be a good kid and get into university. So Thrilling! So Fun! 

With all that said, I still gave the two books 3.75 stars. The writing is casual, filled with jargon, which keeps momentum in the rare scenes of war where it seems to drag on forever, but still takes a certain level of expectation. It’s not your sophisticated high fantasy, nor is it pure comedy – something in-between, for sure, but it also brings in that fresh (or annoying, for some, I’m sure) breeze of experimental writing. The high mage of Ark, the most powerful Order in the League, talks exactly the same as Fess, a twenty-something mage brat. There’s also sometimes a feeling of too much but never enough: the world is amazing, but from all the characters I think only Fess and Agatha are somewhat fleshed out and truly alive. All of them are good characters from a technical perspective, with drives and goals and faults and feelings and stuff, but there’s just. something. that is. not always exactly there. 

I now understand why I was recommended this book back when I was a week short of twelve years old. See, the very reason my parents deemed it okay was because I suddenly demanded for the complete Sword of Truth series to be my sole birthday gift that year, and if you have no idea what that is, you might wanna look at this review of mine (and check out the progress updates); I reread it last year. My wish was granted exactly a week later, and I put Perumov’s book down. Now I can say with confidence that if you want to get closer to understanding this book, you should definitely check out Sword of Truth; it is worse, for fucking sure, like, Perumov > Goodkind any day, but that’s one of the best things I can offer.

Another recommendation form me is The Witcher series, which was also a huge hit among Russian fantasy lovers (read: my dad) and is definitely translated into English. Both these series have a similar feel of classic epic fantasy of the 90’s, and The Witcher even gives you that Slavic humour and folklore. 

In conclusion, I just want to say that Perumov now lives in the USA and he does have at least one series, Godsdoom, translated into English. Check it out if this review made you go, huh, I wonder what these fantasy-writing Russians are up to these days.

Thanks for reading! :)

See you on my Instagram and Goodreads.

xxx