July 2026: Fantasy

"“Weapons!”
...I drew my dagger, feeling I’d do just as well to wave my manhood at it, had that not already shrunk itself as far in my body as it could go."

So what did we think???

this bad boy was devisive!! If you play video games, enjoy comedy, and have an imagination, you will love this book. Critics of this book admitted they "aren't into fantasy", and pointed out that the journey of the quest felt like endless, pointless sidequests. Those that loved this book celebrated the style, were totally compelled by Norrigal and enjoyed the slow, but very intentional way that Buehlman opens the world to the reader. As an aside, I obviously really liked this book, and as evidence of that this has been my most highlighted book club pic to date -- I highlighted 68 separate passages as I was reading! On the whole we had a nice discussion about this novel and the nature of fantasy. We thus give this book 3.97 black licorice allsorts.

A little bit about the book:

"This analogy might feel like a stretch, but bear with me: Christopher Buehlman’s The Blacktongue Thief is the printed version of a song a bard would perform in a rustic tavern long ago. Yes, it has the rhythm of music deep in its bones because Buehlman’s prose skips richly through the English language. But what really makes it feel like bard song is its way of continuously drawing you back in by continually upping the peril the hero finds himself in, so that you buy the singer another beer in order to find out what happens next. When it looks like the audience might wander off, the bard tosses in a kraken, giant, or brawl to pull the crowd back in.

That spirit makes a certain amount of sense. Buehlman is a reasonably well-known renaissance fair performer, and in that space, a performer who can’t keep an audience engaged will soon starve. While The Blacktongue Thief is his first fantasy work, his novel-length horror (The Suicide Motor Club, The Lesser Dead) proves he knows his way around a plot.

And what a plot it is. Kinch Na Shannack, a black-tongued Galt, teams with Galva, a woman on a quest. Kinch belongs to the Takers’ Guild, which is a school of sorts for those who have a talent for thievery. Problem is, Kinch owes the guild some money and they’ve marked him with a face tattoo. In any bar across the land, those who see it can give him a free punch and earn a free beer. Kinch, as you’d expect, would like to retire this particular debt. The Guild makes him an offer and, well, events gallop rapidly out of his control (not that they ever were in his control the first place).

The Blacktongue Thief is as much fun as watching a talented performer who has built his skills to a profitable level work a room. Given that this title is setting up a series, it’ll be interesting to see if there’s more in Buehlman’s brain still to come. My bet is on yes."

--Adrienne Martini's Review in Locus

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