{"id":268,"date":"2006-06-09T15:08:40","date_gmt":"2006-06-09T22:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=268"},"modified":"2021-05-30T21:34:07","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T01:34:07","slug":"sir-stalwart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/268","title":{"rendered":"Sir Stalwart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sir Stalwart<\/em> Book One of the Kings Daggers (1999) Dave Duncan<\/p>\n

\"Sir<\/a><\/p>\n

Candidate Stalwart has been training since he was thirteen to become one of the King’s Blades–the elite group of guards whose lives are sworn and bound to the king. Emerald had just been sworn as a White Sister, when a magical attack leads one of her young charges to harm. Meanwhile, repeated attempts have been made on the King’s life, and a group of retired blades are seeking to find the mages responsible.<\/p>\n

Well, if nothing else the story is cute. Quick and cute. And there are far worse things to say about a book than that.
\nHowever, this story is nothing spectacular. Coming in at a very short 229 pages, the story is fast paced, and quickly read. <\/p>\n

With that in mind, I am wondering is this was written more as a young adult book rather than a traditional fantasy. Both of the main characters are teenagers. Both are almost unbearably brave, and there isn’t a hint of sex or coarse language to be found–unless you consider calling the King, “Fat Man” a form of coarse language. All the horrors are muted, as is the injury and dying. So the story is perfectly acceptably for any age.<\/p>\n

What the book does have going for it is a fast pace and action right from the start, and a story arc barely 200 pages long–almost unheard of in fantasy. A nice break and reprieve.<\/p>\n

There’s nothing particularly wrong with this book, it’s just that there’s nothing particularly right about it either. It’s just unremarkable average. But it did only take about two hours to read, so it’s a nice break. A light snack if you will.
\nRating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sir Stalwart Book One of the Kings Daggers (1999) Dave Duncan Candidate Stalwart has been training since he was thirteen to become one of the King’s Blades–the elite group of guards whose lives are sworn and bound to the king. Emerald had just been sworn as a White Sister, when a magical attack leads one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-paper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-4k","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":269,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/269","url_meta":{"origin":268,"position":0},"title":"The Crooked House","author":"Michelle","date":"June 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Crooked House Book Two of the King's Daggers (2000) Dave Duncan The further adventures of Sir Stalwart and Sister Emerald. In summary: Pride goeth before the fall. Pretty much the same as the first book. Teenage characters. Acting pretty much as you'd expect teenager heroes to act. I liked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Crooked House","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.klishis.com\/Books\/images\/crooked_house.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1936,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1936","url_meta":{"origin":268,"position":1},"title":"Blameless","author":"Michelle","date":"September 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Blameless (2010) Gail Carriger I loved Soulless, the first book in this series. I thought Changeless was good with the exclusion of the ending, which I despised, so I had mixed feelings about starting Blameless. Alexia is pregnant, and Lord Maccon--who is a werewolf and an immortal--has thrown her out,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/blameless.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2374,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2374","url_meta":{"origin":268,"position":2},"title":"The Thief","author":"Michelle","date":"May 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The Thief (1996) Megan Whalen Turner My friend Natalie has been pushing me for quite awhile to read this book. However, I haven't been in the mood to read much in the way of fantasy, so although I bought the books months ago, it sat unread on my shelf, until\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "9\/10"","block_context":{"text":"9\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/9-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Thief.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6038,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/6038","url_meta":{"origin":268,"position":3},"title":"The King’s Bishop","author":"Michelle","date":"September 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The King's Bishop (1996) Candace Robb Set in England in 1367 Sir William of Wyndesore\u2019s page is found in the icy moat of Windsor Castle, and although the death doesn't look natural, the page is hurriedly buried, even though many blame Ned Townley, Lancaster's spy, who fought with him the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"The-Kings-Bishop","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/The-Kings-Bishop.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25788,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/25788","url_meta":{"origin":268,"position":4},"title":"Stormsong","author":"Michelle","date":"February 2, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Stormsong (2020) C.L. Polk (The Kingston Cycle) Grace has escaped with her brother after the destruction of the aethernet, but when she senses a terrible storm coming she knows she has to return to Aeland to protect her people. A storm spread out miles wide, spinning away from the Cauldron\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Stormsong","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Stormsong-187x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":60,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/60","url_meta":{"origin":268,"position":5},"title":"The King’s Peace & The King’s Name","author":"Michelle","date":"March 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The King's Peace (2000) and The King's Name (2001) by Jo Walton In actuality, there are really three books in two. The first book, The King's Peace is actually two books, \"The King's Peace\" and \"The Kings Law\" which are just a little shorter than the second book, The King's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/03\/Kings-Peace.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}