It used to be so much easier in the old days.
You could read a fantasy novel for the elusive sense of wonder, for the swashbuckling adventure, for the simple playacting of good guys v. bad guys. Fun for children of all ages. You weren't faced with the complications of sub-texts, hidden meanings, references to ancient history, deconstructionism, etc....
(Well, actually, you can still read fantasy novels without much fear of running into deconstructionism. I thought I'd throw that one in to see who was still awake.)
Nowadays there are at least two kinds of fantasy novel — the aforementioned "simple" flavour that sticks to the traditional formula, and a more sophisticated, realistic (can I say mainstream?) kind, where the good guys are not all good, the bad guys are not all bad, and war is hell.
David Gemmell clearly writes the second kind of fantasy. He does, however, seem to write to a separate formula of his own. Here are a few elements of that formula:
That's definitely part of the Gemmell formula, at least for both of the Gemmell books I'm discussing here.
The Avatars in "Echoes of the Great Song" used to be a great and powerful people before a sudden change in the Earth's rotation swept away their flourishing civilization (and most of the Vagars, the underpeople they ruled). And now a dreadful new challenge faces the survivors of the catastrophe....
The Drenai soldiers in "Winter Warriors" used to be young and powerful, before their eyesight faded, their joints began to ache, and they lost their teeth. They're being forced to retire now, and things are beginning to look particularly dicey in the new Drenai empire....
Gemmell also bases his fantasy cultures on our own real past. The Avatars bear a striking resemblance to ancient Egyptians, from the pyramids that were their source of power before the great cataclysm, to their arch-enemies, the "Mud People" (Mesopotamians). The Drenai are ancient Greeks who are set to conquer the world under the leadership of Skanda (Alexander the Great).
Who just happens to be the best swordsman going around at the moment.
In "Echoes of the Great Song" the loony is Viruk. In an old western movie he'd be the gun-happy maverick, always spoiling for a fight. In fact, this character almost single-handedly spoiled "Echoes" for me: a one-dimensional murderer and sociopath whose only redeeming feature is that he loves his garden.
Antikas Karios, Viruk's equivalent in "Winter Warriors" isn't so much crazy as totally convinced of his own invulnerability, and acts that way.
In both books, this character is earmarked to endure most of the nastiness that the plot has to offer. Maybe Gemmell is telling us (sub-text?) that it's never worth rocking the boat.
Neither the treacherous Ventrians in "Winter Warriors" nor the Mud People in "Echoes of the Great Song" end up being our heroes' true nemesis (nemeses?).
So, are the books worth reading?
I have to admit that I'm a bit of a sucker for the old-style swashbuckling kind of fantasy. I want the action up front, without too much introspection and other waffle. I'm the kind of person who grinds his teeth when badly-written episodes of Star Trek bring out trite little homilies about the benefits of cooperation and tolerance. "Get on with it!" I say. "Arm the torpedoes! Fire phasers! Wipe out those irritating aliens with walnuts for foreheads!"
So you'll have keep that in mind when you consider my judgement, which is that I wouldn't have bought either book for myself. They're just not my style.
But having started reading them, I found it easy to continue doing so. Neither book is outstanding (or particularly original), but both are written well enough to keep you interested in what's going to happen next. The characters are neither cardboard cut-outs nor fully realized, but are drawn well enough to carry the story they tell. Gemmell does not write in the high-fantasy style, nor does he (usually) overdo the cliched social commentary that often irritates me about "realistic" fantasy.
Of the two books, the one I preferred would have been "Echoes of the Great Song", had it not been for a piece of characterization that nearly made me put the book down. That's the despicable character of Viruk (as I've mentioned before), whom the author draws — with sneaking admiration — as some kind of eccentric hero. What Gemmell though he was doing when he was creating the character escapes me, but its effect on at least one reader was definitely not as intended.