A fantastic connected indie fantasy short-story collection from Dewi Hargreaves.

The Shield Road was my final read of 2022. I blasted through it during that nebulous span of days between Christmas and New Year where time has no meaning and the human body subsists on the excess snacky bits we over-bought before the festive season. I’ve seen snippets of Dewi’s work before on Twitter, and - seeing the sheer quality of his prose - I knew I would have to pick up The Shield Road as soon as possible. I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that Dewi is an awesome supporter and service provider in the writing community - just have a look at his marvellous hand-drawn maps! Anyway, back to The Shield Road…

Blurb

A dream played on his mind. A dream full of fire and screams, which echoed long after waking.

A thief. A princess. A warrior. A Bladekin.

They wander the world alone, encountering fire and shadow wraiths, moss barons and secret royal agents. They each have their own problems, their own missions. They walk the shield road. But the discovery of a certain artifact sets things in motion which will bring them together, to prevent the return of an evil long thought defeated.

Review

I loved this book, I’ll get that out of the way first. It was really fantastic and gripped my attention throughout. It’s marketed as a collection of short stories which take place chronologically in the same world, and it absolutely is that… but if I were to describe it, I’d say it leans more heavily on the connectedness of the stories than I perhaps expected, and the way they come together at the end is reminiscent of subplots converging in a novella. For me, then, this sort of straddles that line between being a novella and a collection - almost like the stories could have been serialised in the way Asimov’s Foundation was, then brought together in this volume. It’s not a bad thing by any means - in fact it works really well - it’s just my perception of it after having read the book.

Dewi’s writing style is thoroughly evocative and immersive, and carries a beautiful sense of gravitas regarding the world without being self indulgent. It was honestly a joy to read. There’s a depth of worldbuilding that defies the book’s length, and I’d be veeeery interested in reading more stories set in this world. The plot is tight and engaging, with each story moving things forward often through the use of references and Easter-eggs - this is particularly the case with the story The Silent Stones, which was the least directly connected one of the set - and sometimes convergence with characters from previous stories. In fact, the character of the Witch acts as a sort of through-line in between the stories as she moves from place to place. The character of Talfrin quickly becomes the centre-point of the book, a Bladekin magic-hunter and monster killer with strong Witcher vibes, whom the other characters all gravitate to. All the characters in their individual stories are really well fleshed out, from the thief to the Moonblade Princess. Talfrin was really awesome though - when I say “strong Witcher vibes”, I mean I literally pictured him as Henry Cavill!

Overall, an excellent read, and it comes highly recommended from me. Go pick this one up!