No Game for Knights

Edited by

Larry Correia and Kacey Ezell

(Baen Books, September 2022, hc, 368 pp.)

“1957” by Robert Buettner

“Faint Hearts” by Griffin Barber and Kacey Ezell

“The Lady in the Pit” by D. J. Butler

“All in the Family” by Nicole Givens Kurtz

“Sammy Oakley and the Jewel of Amureki” by Laurell K. Hamilton

“Utopia’s Sheep” by Craig Martelle

“Pandemonium” by Sharon Shinn

“Pagan” by S. A. Bailey

“The Hound of the Bastard’s Villa” by G. Scott Huggins

“Midnight Ride” by Chris Kennedy

“The Incomparable Treasure” by Rob Howell

“Storm Surge” by Michael F. Haspil

“Gutter Ballet” by Christopher Ruocchio

“Allegation of an Honorable Man” by Larry Correia

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

Inspired by Raymond Chandler’s famous description of the hero of detective fiction in his essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” the editors present new stories of fantasy and science fiction with protagonists who are literally detectives, or who play similar roles.

“1957” by Robert Buettner takes place in the year mentioned in its title, but in a world where the United States stayed out of World War Two, leading to an Axis victory. The protagonist is a former American pilot, now the owner of a nightclub in Berlin. He also secretly works to smuggle so-called undesirables out of the Nazi empire. An American woman shows up, in order to work with filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. She is actually a spy, sent to enlist the man’s help in evacuating a particularly important group of escapees.

The author creates a convincing alternate version of history. The setting and the story’s combination of espionage and romance is reminiscent of the classic film Casablanca, although the plot is completely original. The bittersweet ending is especially effective. As a bonus, aviation buffs will enjoy the detailed descriptions of historic aircraft.

The narrator of “Faint Hearts” by Griffin Barber and co-editor Kacey Ezell is a bouncer in a nightclub on a station in interstellar space. He becomes involved in the disappearance of the consort of an important alien. His investigation leads him into an underworld of rival crime gangs, ending in violent battle.

This is a grim and gruesome tale, with plenty of bloodletting. A scene of torture is particularly disturbing. The most notable aspects of the story are the presence of imaginatively conceived aliens and a touch of irony at the end.

“The Lady in the Pit” by D. J. Butler is a sword-and-sorcery story in which an acolyte of a secret cult hires a trio of adventurers to retrieve a sacred object. Their quest takes them deep into the forbidden temple of the cult, where they find out that the situation is not what they thought.

In most ways, this is a typical fantasy adventure. The one thing that distinguishes it from others of the same kind is a touch of wit. Although not a comedy, the narrative contains bits of humor, such as the fact that the three heroes call their organization the Protagonists.

A detective deals with the body of a murdered man dropped off in front of his office in “All in the Family” by Nicole Givens Kurtz. Hired by the victim’s sister to solve the case, he finds himself in a tangled web of multiple murders and deception.

If this sounds more like straight crime fiction than science fiction, that’s because the futuristic elements in the story, although frequent, are of minimal importance to the basic plot. The author captures the mood of film noir, complete with femme fatale and cops who are both threatening and helpful, but readers may wish for more of a genuine SF story.

The characters in “Sammy Oakley and the Jewel of Amureki” by Laurell K. Hamilton are all animals, given the power of speech and other anthropomorphic characteristics by human wizards. A chipmunk hires a squirrel, who secretly has forbidden magical powers of his own, to locate a magic object before it falls into the wrong hands.

Obviously, this is a lighthearted work, with the combination of clichés from detective fiction and animal fantasy providing a comic effect. Some may find it too silly, although it offers a welcome bit of whimsy in an anthology full of dark, serious stories.

“Utopia’s Sheep” by Craig Martelle takes place at a future time when artificial intelligences rule over humanity, providing them with a bland society in which all their needs are fulfilled, but they have no real freedom. A robot engages the services of a bitter old man, formerly a police detective, to track down another of its kind that has disappeared.

The author provides a realistic portrait of a subtle dystopia, without crime or poverty, but one in which people lack purpose. The protagonist is a memorable character, deeply resenting his AI masters but willing to work with one of the robots he despises.

The narrator of “Pandemonium” by Sharon Shinn is a shapeshifter, spending most of his time as a dog or wolf, and only occasionally as a man. While in human form, he rescues a woman from a violent man. She learns his true nature, and together they deal with the attacker, who has kidnapped her baby in order to force her to turn over stolen money she took from him.

For the most part, this is a suspense story with psychological depth, something like the work of John D. McDonald. Although the narrator’s ability to change himself into a wolf allows him to face a dangerous enemy, it is not absolutely necessary to the plot.

In “Pagan” by S. A. Bailey, a cyborg is forced out of a self-induced coma in order to locate the adult grandchild of a billionaire, who has joined a cult responsible for violent attacks on the grandfather’s space colonies. His search takes him through a dark future world of augmented humans and androids.

From beginning to end, the narrative has an overwhelming mood of anger and despair. The nihilistic protagonist sees nothing good in the world, although he has a certain moral code of his own. The thematic heart of the story, although not related to the plot, involves a human/chimpanzee hybrid bred only to be tormented for the amusement of decadent onlookers. Readers are likely to be disappointed by an ending that seems incomplete.

The punning title of “The Hound of the Bastard’s Villa” by G. Scott Huggins indicates that this isn’t the most serious story in the book. The main character is a veterinarian living in a fantasy world ruled by a tyrannical lord. At an affair attended by vampires, ogres, and other monsters, he gets mixed up in the poisoning of the host’s werewolf servant. He has a limited amount of time to solve the crime before the lord’s robot-like representative will simply execute them all for treason and incompetence.

In addition to comedy, the story has the convoluted plot of a traditional murder mystery, with multiple attempted poisonings and numerous suspects. Some of the humor is groan-worthy, as when the protagonist makes a distinction among a wherewolf [sic], a whatwolf, and a whowolf, leading to a conversation reminiscent of the old Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on First?”

In “Midnight Ride” by Chris Kennedy, an old lover shows up at the office of an investigator on a station in interstellar space. It seems she smuggled in an item she intends to sell to aliens, but a crime gang attacked her spaceship and killed her crew. The hero reluctantly helps her retrieve the object, leading to a four-way battle with rival crime gangs and the aliens.

The protagonist seems like something of a fool to help the woman he loves, because the item is supposedly something that will give the aliens a strong advantage over the humans they prey upon. (It turns out to be something else entirely in the story’s twist ending, but he has no reason to suspect this.) If readers can accept the notion that he would risk his life, and the survival of the human race, for an old flame, they may enjoy this fast-paced space opera.

“The Incomparable Treasure” by Rob Howell is a fantasy adventure in which the narrator is hired to find an unusual knife stolen from a gambling den. In the traditional style of a detective yarn, others try to use force to get him to drop the case, as the investigation leads to encounters with mysterious characters, a figure from his past, and murder.

The author manages to fit the plot of a hardboiled crime story into a sword-and-sorcery setting without making it seem out of place. The knife serves as a classic MacGuffin, in the manner of the Maltese Falcon. Fans of either fantasy or mystery are likely to enjoy this blending of the genres, even if it adds little that is new to either of them.

“Storm Surge” by Michael F. Haspil takes place in a version of the modern world in which vampires are known to exist, and even try to repair their reputation by setting up a charitable organization. The protagonist appears to be an ordinary man, but in fact is an ancient Egyptian with the ability to project his soul into the astral plane. As a police officer, he takes a mother and daughter to a secure location in order to protect them from vampire assassins. Like the main character, the girl has the ability to perceive the spirits of the restless dead, but she turns out to be much more powerful than that.

As can be seen, this story has a great deal of fantasy content. So much so, in fact, that the plot may be difficult to follow. (I was never quite clear as to why the vampires are so intent on killing the girl, although I suppose her special powers have something to do with it.) The story’s climax is an extended battle scene, which should appeal to readers of war stories.

In “Gutter Ballet” by Christopher Ruocchio, one of a group of clones asks a private investigator to locate another who is missing. The detective is certain that she has been killed as a source of transplanted organs. (The clones are genetic duplicates of the woman who owns them as slaves.) Advising the clone to escape before she faces the same fate, he infiltrates the woman’s theater, where the clones perform as ballerinas. An encounter with the woman and her physician leads to the story’s grim conclusion.

There are no surprises in the plot, as the detective and the reader know exactly what happened to the missing clone from the very start. It is also obvious what will happen when he meets her owner. The story is most notable for a protagonist who tries to do the right thing in a corrupt world.

“Allegation of an Honorable Man” by co-editor Larry Correia takes place in Los Angeles in 1949. The narrator is a monstrous being disguised as the archetypical femme fatale of detective fiction. She hires a private eye to retrieve a stolen item, because the rules of the supernatural realm prevent her from taking revenge on the thief until she learns the name of the criminal from a mortal. She intends to kill the detective if he learns too much while solving the case, but he is cleverer than she suspects.

The author successfully creates a fantasy pastiche of Chandleresque hardboiled fiction. The restriction on the narrator’s actions, although necessary for the plot, seems artificial. The story has a connection to the writer’s Monster Hunter universe, which should please fans of that series.

Victoria Silverwolf has read a lot of Raymond Chandler.