To Ride a Rathron (2006, USA) is the fourth book in Hodgell’s, to date, ten book series, the Chronicles of Kencyrath. This is heartland fantasy, so heartland it reads like a dramatised supplement for a fantasy role-playing game. And while main character Jame flips between Goth Mary Sue and emo superhero, collecting power tokens as the narrative progresses, there’s still much to like here. The world-building, for one.

Robert E Howard does this thing in some of his Conan stories where he hints at much greater historical depth than his Hyperborea can realistically carry. I’m not convinced it’s deliberate, but it gives some of his stories an added dimension which offsets their illogical mash-ups of historical periods. Hodgell does something similar – the historical depth, that is, not the mash-up.

The Kencyrath have lived on many worlds since being forced from their home world by Perimal Darkling. Rathillien is just the latest. Jame is a Highborn, and the twin sister of Torisen, lord of the Knorth, one of the Kencyrath houses. Jame was introduced as a thief in the first book, discovered her brother and assisted him in a great battle in the second book, tried to discover her role in the third book, and now, in the fourth book in the series, she’s been made Torisen’s heir and enrolled at Tentir, which seems to be some sort of training school for elite soldiers. Jame is not expected to succeed, nor is her presence appreciated.

Despite this, she muddles through, and even manages to resolve a few issues, some relating specifically to her house, Knorth, and its history, and some related to Tentir’s own history. Such as the rathorn colt – a sort of horse with armour and horns. which has been hunting Jame and which she turns into a reluctant ally. The title To Ride a Rathorn is actually a pun – because the phrase means something like “to grab the tail of a tiger” but there’s also this rathorn which Jame might end up actually riding…

Jame’s specialness gets a bit wearying at times – being the centre of a narrative is one thing, having the entire world revolve around a Mary Sue is another. It also means there’s not much jeopardy – no matter what Hodgell throws at Jame, she’s going to win through. There are, after all, seven more books to go. But the details are fun, the world-building is interesting, and the plot rolls forward with the relentlessness of a, er, charging rathorn.

I’m not a big fan of epic fantasy, or sword & sorcery, or whatever this sort of commercial fantasy is currently called. It’s mostly badly-written, derivative and lacking in originality. The basic template may have moved away from mediaeval Europe in recent years, but that hasn’t made it any more original. Hodgell’s Chronicles of the Kencyrath are no less derivative than a fantasy role-playing game from the industry’s heyday back in the 1970s, but I still think there’s enough of a sideways spin in these books to make them stand out from the rest.

Judged against the whole genre of science fiction and fantasy, they’re perhaps not much. But within the specific space they occupy, commercial European-inspired fantasy, they’re actually not bad, and worth reading.