A THIEF IN THE DYING EARTH
In an age of wizards and walled cities, Raffalon is a journeyman member of the Ancient and Honorable Guild of Purloiners and Purveyors. In other words, a thief.
His skills allow him to scale walls, tickle locks, defeat magical wards. He lifts treasures and trinkets, and spends the proceeds on ale and sausages in taverns where a wise thief sits with his back to the wall. But somehow things often go the way they shouldn’t and then Raffalon has to rely upon his wits and a well calibrated sense of daring.
Here are nine tales that take our enterprising thief into the Underworld and Overworld, and pit him against prideful thaumaturges, grasping magnates, crooked guild masters, ghosts, spies, ogres, and a talented amateur assassin.
Includes “Inn of the Seven Blessings,” from the bestselling anthology, ROGUES, and “Sternutative Sortilege,” which appears only in this collection.
9 Tales of Raffalon by Matthew Hughes
REVIEWED BY DEBBIEAt first I found the old world names hard to remember and I had a tough time keeping the wizards and thief characters straight. With each new story (each chapter is a story) I found myself more curious about these characters though. By the final tale, I was fully vested and was sad it was done. Raffalon is kind of hard to care about but by the end I was rooting for him.
I read this with Audible so I have to say that the narration was great at setting the tone of the characters. The very old English accent went far to bring to me the picture of muddy streets filled with beggars, thieves and homeless urchins.
Even though the book cover does not beg reading, for me, after finishing this book, it feels just right for the kind of stories “9 Tales of Raffalon” are about.
I think that people who like stories along the lines of A Tale Of Two Cities would find this read very entertaining.
All in all, I enjoyed this book and would be pleased to read another story of Raffalon just to see what he’s up to next!