Wild Isle Review:

WARNING! INEVITABLE SPOILERS BELOW!

The Black Saint by Timo Burnham is a superhero action novel telling a coming-of-age story in a fantastical western-far eastern blend inspired setting. The story’s protagonist is Theo Anamanth, the son of an apparently disgraced noble, who has recently arrived at the great city of Alanthos to live with his childhood friend and professional actor, Jayson. While at first Theo struggles to adjust to city life—especially with his special gift, the ability to physically sense the presence of living beings—he soon becomes personally invested in the fate of the city, staking his life on becoming the Black Saint so as to purge the corruption from Alanthos’s underbelly.

If you couldn’t tell by the summary, The Black Saint is a hero’s journey, through and through. Protagonist Theo Anamath is a young man with little life experience, but a strong sense of justice. He naturally opposes the tyranny of the big-bad antagonist Gage Mustane on their first encounter. Of course, Theo doesn’t stand a chance. But after his defeat, Theo is taken in by the old wise man, Gin, who trains him in the ways of stealth and martial prowess. Complications arise, the plot thickens, but as the journey goes, Gin dies just as Theo is ready to come into his own as the Black Saint. The pacing accelerates, and the reader is then thrown into a final battle back to Mustane’s mansion where Theo was first defeated by the big-bad’s henchmen. This time, however, Theo has transcended the mask and has become the hero he wasn’t previously. Thus, he is able to delve deeper into the maze of underground tunnels and stumble upon his divine ancestor (i.e. the “spirit of his father”). With help from the paternal spirit, as well as his friends and animal companion, Theo slays the evil Mustane and takes his place as watcher of the city.

Structurally, all the necessary components for a reliably good story are present. This is The Black Saint’s greatest strength. The time tested hero’s journey works because it naturally sets up a likeable hero with flaws he overcomes which then enables him to bring order and justice to an unfair or corrupt situation. By conforming very strictly to this plot structure, author Timo Burnham set a bedrock onto which his prose, setting, and characters could stand out. We’ll get to all three of those in a moment, but first, there are still a few comments left for the plot. Namely that, though it is sound, it is predictable. This is a consequence of just how strictly the hero’s journey was followed. It isn’t an exaggeration to call it formulaic. Is this a heavy criticism? No, not for such a fast-paced, action oriented story. The characters are the main attraction, not the plot; but a reader should keep this in mind when picking up this novel. If you like western superheroes (Burnham himself compares The Black Saint to Batman), then you’re in luck. If you want something with twists and subversion, you might find yourself a bit disappointed.

Moving on, like the plot structure, the quality and style of the prose is rather balanced, especially for the genre and target audience. The language employed is never clunky or overly simplified, nor is it overly poetic, purple, or pretentious. If anything, it is reminiscent of some urban fantasy novels. Perhaps it will read as too modern for some fans of the fantasy genre who prefer more formal prose (myself included; I’d like to have seen better use of figurative language, particularly fewer instances of spoiling a metaphor or simile with a discursive secondary description), but one can’t say that the writing is objectively bad or that it gets in the way of the story.

The setting also doesn’t get in the way, though it is a bit sparse. Again, similarities to some urban fantasy novels emerge. The world itself isn’t very thoroughly described, though that is fine, as the reader spends his or her whole time with Theo in Alanthos. What is the city like? We get relative locations of districts as well as landmarks, but the precise details about elements like architecture, building materials, etc. are left vague most of the time. To some, this won’t be an issue at all; it is sufficient that Alanthos is a city with technology rough akin to the late medieval period or the renaissance. To others, those who are fans of in-depth world building, the setting might comes across as a flat mish-mash of historical European and Asian elements.

(ASIDE: speaking of western / eastern influences, since I don’t have a better place to put these comments, let’s briefly discuss the action scenes, the fights specifically. The Black Saint favors action and excitement over realism in this regard. The characters suffer what should be lethal wounds repeatedly without permanent consequence, such as being stabbed a few inches in the torso—something that would lead to a collapsed lung, a punctured heart, pierced intestines or vital organs, etc. Even when the wounds aren’t lethal, the choice of weapons and the way they are described being used—such as switching to a reverse dagger grip to slash rather than stab—reminds me more of anime or D&D than a traditional hard sparring or a HEMA competition. To many readers, this point may be favorable to the novel. However, it is a personal bugbear of mine, and so I wanted to mention the lack of realism somewhere).

Returning to the analysis proper (and away from my tangent), the most important element to discuss is characterization. As previously mentioned, given the simplicity of the plot, most of the tension and thereby the reader interest is generated through the characters being sympathetic, likeable, interesting, or otherwise intriguing. We’ll examine five of the major characters shortly, each in his or her own paragraph:

1) Theo Anamanth. Our protagonist is young, brave, fool-hearty, and good natured—naturally, a likeable and sympathetic protagonist. Furthermore, his gift makes him interesting, and is actually cleverly designed to serve both as a talent and a weakness. Theo’s ability to sense the presence other living creatures serves to suspend some disbelief about his ability to become a super hero so quickly. More importantly, though, it functions as symbol for social anxiety. Multiple times throughout the story, his ability negatively affects his ability to function in public. This is a great and relatable obstacle for a protagonist to overcome. I only wish the impacts were more detrimental in the beginning-to-middle of the story, as Theo seems to adjust quickly and without any complications to his character development. Speaking of his development, Theo transitions from physically weak, whiny, and unconfident to a strong, less-whiny, and self-confident hero. Mostly, this change comes from his training with his old wise man, Gin, but mostly (and fortunately) much comes from his relationship with Annie and plot developments (his failure to protect certain people). While the former developments seem too quick, mostly occuring “off-screen,” the latter developments read as natural to the reader. This has something to do with the show-don’t-tell rule, but I’ve gone on long enough. Final comments on Theo: a great character, but Burnham leans too often on his chin-scar as a stand-out characteristic.

2) Jayson. There isn’t much to say about Theo’s best friend. Mostly, he serves as a foil to Theo. Jayson is taller, stronger, more handsome, more extroverted and therefore more popular. By comparing the two characters, the reader can see how Theo grows over the story. Personally, I was hoping for a complication or twist for Jayson’s character, perhaps a betrayal like we see with someone else later. However, Burnham plays Jayson straight, which makes him somewhat flat and static.

3) Gin. You know Gin’s whole character as soon as he appears on the page. He is the archetype of the old master who teaches the young man how to be a hero. He speaks punctually, is in physical condition beyond his years, and uses abusive training tactics to make our protagonist into the hero he needs to be. That being said, Gin does have some reveals later in the story, but they don’t make an impact on the plot in this book, so I won’t comment on them here.

4) Annie / Shaya. I’m going to discuss these two mostly as a pair, because that is how they function in regard to Theo for most of the story. They are the obvious love interests for a very apparent love triangle. Annie is the playful, verbose one and Shaya is the quiet, shy one. Like most of the side characters, they are both fairly flat and static, with an exception for Annie toward the very end. From their early interactions, it is clear that the love triangle will resolve this way: Theo will be with Annie until she betrays him somehow, and then he will realize that he has more in common with Shaya. And this is how the triangle in fact does resolve. However, Annie’s betrayal is executed strangely. Burnham sets up Annie as manipulative, but what would make the most sense, that Annie likes Jayson and is using Theo to make him jealous, doesn’t occur. Instead, it turns out that Annie is in love with Mustane the whole time (I don’t think this was telegraphed anywhere), and that she was using Theo to discover whether Jayson was the Black Saint or not (which opens up a plot hole, as she flirts with Theo before he first dons the mask). This development makes Annie a bit cartoonishly evil and flat where she could have been more relatable (especially if the betrayal-role was given to Jayson instead).

5) Mustane. Lastly in order is Gage Mustane, the rich vampire tyrant living off of the blood of an imprisoned god-man. His motivation seems to be naught but power and immortality, and like any such super villain, he seems arrogant to the point of foolishness (and sometimes just outright stupid). Mustane has several opportunities to kill Theo throughout the story, and given his wealth, power, and influence, certainly the means to discover his true identity. However, for some reason, this never happens. There even comes a point in which his henchman knock Theo unconscious, and rather than capture and torture him for information (which they are shown to be willing to do), they leave him with a note disclosing that they don’t know he is the Black Saint, but that they believe he knows who the Saint is. Needless to say, this is beyond believable levels of bad-guy incompetence, especially for someone who is supposed to have lived as long as Mustane. While the other characters aside from Theo could have been better developed, Mustane is just not a convincing villain.

But what about the book as a whole? It’s a fun, light read that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Superhero fans, as well as fans of Dungeons & Dragons or Shonen genre anime are sure to get some pleasure out of reading The Black Saint. On these grounds, giving that what I just described is how the book presents itself, I’d say it is a success. I certainly enjoyed it, and I’m curious what kind of Batman-esque villains terrorize Alanthos next.

If this sound up you alley, click the image up top to grab your copy of The Black Saint today.