Summary
Review
I’m not generally a fan of sidewise type stories – where an ordinary guy suddenly finds himself in another time or dimension. There have been good ones – Narnia, “Sidewise in Time”, Barsoom, “A Connecticut Yankee”, Thomas Covenant, Amber – but generally I lack interest. I am, on the other hand, a fan of Dave Duncan, and The Seventh Sword is a series I haven’t previously read. Based on this first book, he succeeds with the concept – partially.
Duncan doesn’t waste a lot of time on the setup, and none at all on the preliminaries. Wallie Smith is dead, then he’s in Shonsu, then Shonsu is effectively out. Smith accepts his new status fairly readily, and that’s that. Fine by me; we all know pretty well how these things work, by now. To his credit, Duncan focuses much more on the moral and philosophical aspect of it. Smith avoids violence; Shonsu’s world accepts it. Smith abhors slavery; in Shonsu’s world, it’s a fact of life. Smith tries to follow his original ideals, and in his new world, that’s not always the right choice. Duncan returns to this idea throughout the book. Smith makes choices that trouble him, and he stays troubled, even as he begins to see things in part by local standards.
That makes slavery a difficult issue. Smith meets a sex slave, and makes an effort to do what he thinks is right. Sometimes. Early on, Smith has sex with his new slave, and I found his acceptance of the situation both uncomfortable, and not credible for his character. That discomfort continues, but it’s also true that Smith himself is uncomfortable. It’s not the one-off rationalization I feared, but a continuing examination of what to do with a slave in a world where slaves cannot be freed.
I wish that Duncan had made some different choices for his character, and it’s true that the author stays well within his accustomed light fantasy lane. But I give him credit for at least considering how to handle slavery and for having that worry be a continuing theme throughout the book. On the upside, “How do you know when your slave is happy?” is a multifaceted question. On the other hand, the key slaves are all women, and their role is largely sex and decoration oriented. I’m hopeful that will change in later books.
All in all, an interesting and surprisingly thoughtful swords-and-muscles fantasy, but one that presents some moral obstacles to enjoyment.
One thought on “The Reluctant Swordsman – Dave Duncan”
That’s true about the slavery, but having also read the book, I thought that Duncan handled the moral issue credibly, for a late 20th Century, educated chemical engineer ending up in a world where slavery is still practiced. Remember that he bought that slave with the full intention to free her, and his thinking was that, if she were to be with him, it would have to be *her* choice. This was because, with slavery in the Americas, a slave could be freed. It was only after he’d bought her that he learned, to his horror and anger, that slaves cannot be freed in this new-to-him World, not even by a swordsman of the Seventh, and he was furious at this. He also had to be mindful of the god’s warning, “do not question the justice of the gods!” and avoid trying to effectively tell the Goddess how to run her world. All this was a turmoil in his mind, and he finally resigned himself–very reluctantly–to the fact that slavery existed in this world, he could not change that, even the highest-ranking swordsman could not become Spartacus, and he’d better learn to accept that fact, however grudgingly, however disgusted he was by it. He treats this slave of his like an actual person, like he’d treat anybody else. Nnanji, his swordsman protege, notices this and begins to adjust his own mindset about slavery to match his mentor’s. Wallie’s hatred of slavery continues throughout all three books, and in the fourth book, as vice-emperor, he actually gets rid of “hereditary” slavery, which is a major step forward for that world.