‘The Call of Kerberos’ – Jonathan Oliver (Abaddon Books)

Abaddon’s ‘Twilight of Kerberos’ books have been one those series that I find myself going back to although it doesn’t really work for me. It’s very much been a case of the books not really giving me anything that I haven’t read before; when it got to the point where ‘Crucible of the Dragon God’ pinched a villainous name from ‘Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator’ I found myself wondering if now was the time to jump ship...
I can’t help myself though. There’s something about being in there right at the start, watching a world slowly take shape, that really appeals to me. I may be indifferent to what I’ve seen so far but it’s the sense of potential that has me coming back. Anything could happen and I want to be there when it does!
When ‘The Call of Kerberos’ came through the door then... I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about picking it up (given the others I’d read) but I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to leave it alone for long. As it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised. Not massively surprised (more on that in a bit) but pleasantly surprised...

They’re coming from beneath the waves… Silus Morlader is a fisherman with a feel for the ocean that goes far beyond loving his job. When a fugitive from the Final Faith offers Silus a chance at the journey of a lifetime Silus will find out what that love really means, if he makes it back alive…
Forbidding oceans hide far greater dangers, two warring races fighting for nothing less than the fate of the world. Silus will discover his importance to both of these races and his decision alone will determine the future of his world. What will he choose?

One of the features that sets Abaddon books apart from the rest is the way that they get straight down to business with the story and leave the background to fill itself in. This can work well in a stand-alone tale but with something that’s meant to form part of a larger picture…? Well, it doesn’t work well at all and that’s part of the problem with ‘The Call of Kerberos’.

We’re four books into this series now and although ‘Call of Kerberos’ is fine on the story front (although not without it’s problems, more on that in a bit) I’m still not really getting a sense of the backdrop that this is all taking place against. You could argue that the creators are playing a long game and letting things build up slowly; this may be the case but surely they could fill in the gaps a little more in the meantime? You have an all-consuming religious crusade, some wizards and sea monsters but where’s everything else? Do you need anything else? I’d say yes, definitely. There’s no sense of history other than a war that happened a few years ago and the revelation of the Chadassa (the sea monsters) and what they did thousands of years ago. There’s nothing of any substance in the middle and no matter how good a story is you need something to hang it off. ‘The Call of Kerberos’ doesn’t have that backdrop.

This is a shame as the story itself isn’t bad at all. Oliver sets a fast pace and maintains it with plenty of action throughout. Pitched battles (above and below the water) and plenty of stormy weather is the way to go! Oliver uses this to good effect, keeping the tension tight and me reading. He also has an eye for some good characterisation as well. Although you can kind of guess the outcome to his tale, Silus Morlader is a conflicted character that is fun to spend time with. Although he is very much ‘the humble fisherman who discovers he has magic powers’, Oliver makes sure that he remains human and very susceptible to persuasion. The ending is sign posted but the intervening cliff-hangers are fun to read in the meantime.

Like I said though, Silus is very much the hero from a humble background and this not only meant that I could see things coming but I also found myself feeling that I’d read all this before in many other books. The sense of wonder that you really need to find in a fantasy world wasn’t here because I’d discovered it in another book that was exactly the same as ‘Call’ and one that I’d read years ago. This is partly due to tired tropes being used but also the fact that the story had nothing to parade against (like I said earlier). How can you discover a world on the page when there’s very little there?

‘The Call of Kerberos’ is an entertaining tale that is an improvement on the last couple of books I’ve read from this series. That’s certainly enough to have me reading the next book to see where things go next. However, where it does falter is in the fact that there isn’t a lot to mark it out from a very similar looking pack…

Seven out of Ten