ELFSONG is the second of Elaine Cunningham’s fantastic SONGS AND SWORDS series that was also part of the Harpers series (confused yet?). They’re a set of books which follow Harper Assassin (as in a Harper who is an Assassin not an assassin of Harpers, though she was accused of that too), Arilyn Moonblade, and Danilo Than who is a Wizard/Fighter who pretends to be a Bard but is also a Harper. Okay, now I’ve confused myself. The first book, Elfshadow, was fantastic and really deserved a much longer series. Thankfully, Elaine Cunningham managed to write five books in the series even if I’m sorry to say she never released the completed sixth one.
The premise for Elfsong is that the main pair are split up after the events of the first book. Danilo Thann has been recalled back to Waterdeep and is once more working for his “uncle”, Khelben the Blackstaff. A disgruntled bard named Garnet has decided to strike back at the Harpers for, essentially, making the “Spoony Bard” trope into an in-game reality. She points out the grand historical tradition of bards, their important role in politics, and their grand heritage as preservers of history when written lore was unavailable. Garnet points out that bards have been reduced to being a bunch of immature wananbe superheroes in the Harpers and involved more in “fighting evil” than their historical role.
I 100% agree with Garnet and note that Elaine Cunningham is using her knowledge of history to make the argument of the villain all the more effective. Elaine Cunningham is also one of the D&D writers who does extensive research on the game before she does her books so this one is littered with material from THE COMPLETE BOOK OF BARDS, one of the two best of that series alongside THE COMPLETE BOOK OF ELVES (without said book’s ridiculous elf-touting). There’s Dwarvish Jesters, Riddlemasters, and Elf spellsingers. Danillo also decides to Multiclass as Bard, which is probably as redundant a choice in class as has ever been made.
In any case, Garnet’s revenge is a somewhat backhanded way of redeeming the honor of bards as she starts ruining their ancient songs and turning them into hit pieces on the Lords of Waterdeep and Khelben specifically. This is a pretty common thing for “sympathetic” villains as you have them make a perfectly valid point and then blow up a schoolbus of children to show they’re bad AKA the “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” effect. Mind you, this isn’t a bad storytelling device as if they weren’t doing villainous things then the hero wouldn’t be fighting them. Still, you have to wonder what benefit to bards there will be when she’s allying with the Devil-worshiping Knights of the Shield.
The bulk of the book is the frenemy relationship between Danilo and Elaith Craulnobler the Serpent. An elvish crime lord, Elaith despises Danilo because he’s a human, he’s a Waterdeep nobleman, he’s courting Arilyn, and he’s a Harper. Not necessarily in that order. Elaith is very similar to Jaime Lannister in some respects in that he’s a naturally honorable person who, having lost his honor, decides to live down to everyone’s worst fears.
In conclusion, Elfsong is fantastic and while I sympathized with Garnet’s cause, this is not where the book’s moral ambiguity lies. It is much more a character piece of Danilo versus Elaith over what constitutes morality. Elaine Cunningham has a very tense relationship regarding elvish and human relationships that I don’t recall existing anywhere else in the Realms. I also appreciated the handling of the behind the scenes of the Lords of Waterdeep, which we normally don’t get in the Forgotten Realms novels.
One small issue to bring up is that Elfsong, unique among the Swords and Song books, seems unavailable on Kindle. It seems fine on Barnes and Noble’s Nook and other formats but is not available from Amazon. I have no idea what this is about but has been the case for months as of the time of this review.
by CT_Phipps