As with any great fantasy, the world of Birdking is littered with relics of a horrible, forgotten past. An endless war is being waged, fueled not only by the lives of its soldiers but also by ancient rivalries. Armies are bolstered by supernatural forces, powers being directed by generals with no understanding of what they toy with.
Like all great fantasies, Birdking is about a journey of discovery, in which a fated youth sets forth to new lands and, in doing so, exposes the reader to the world bit by bit, relic by relic, land by land. The journey is the vehicle by which the reader learns the lore of a place, its rules, its peoples.
That journey began last year, in the first volume of the book, as our fated youth – POV character Bianca – began her flight from the North and, in doing so, discovered one of the relics of that forgotten past in the form of the Wraith of Feather Hill (the titular Birdking). It’s in the second volume, out this week, that the journey finds hits momentum; it’s also in this volume where the book comes dangerously close to duplicating the plot of The Lord of the Rings.
It’s not exactly a one-to-one translation by any means, but what markers are there are almost hilariously on the nose. There is a gathering of a sort of fellowship, a shortcut under a mountain and through the ruins of a lost civilization. There is the sudden, terrifying introduction of a Balrog-like monster, and the sacrifice of a Gandalf-like figure to stall that monster and allow the fellowship’s escape from beneath the earth.
That’s not to say that the world and narrative of Birdking isn’t wholly itself, but that self is a sort of larger synthesis of aesthetics and storytelling. Such synthesis is the DNA of all great genre fiction; it’s by no means a crime to ape bits and pieces of other works. Birdking just happens to ape a lot of pieces.
The Mines of Moria moment comprises the full middle third of the book, the climax of the volume, leaving barely any air for other narrative beats. Bianca and her (human) cohorts walk the line of YA fiction: generally hyperactive and funny, bluffing their way through the adult world. There is more than a touch of Adventure Time at play, as artist Crom delightfully softens the horrific and supernatural with cute, cartoony edges.
But this volume also introduces a slew of new wraiths, dark reflections of the Wraith of Feather Hill, each of them swaddled in dark fantasy aesthetics and towering above Bianca like Soulsborne bosses. Our Balrog, a dark god, even has a simplified Elden Ring-style name: The Dirty God. Not quite Astel, Natural Born of the Void, but not far removed.
The book flirts with deeper lore, yet to be revealed to Bianca (and, therefore, the reader); what makes her different from her friends – she carries physical scars, magic in origin, and the implication of great purpose. The book’s primary novelty, the wraiths, has yet to be clearly explained – what are they, where did they come from, and what makes our Birdking oppose them?
All this compelling mystery creates a book that’s much more than the sum of its parts (no matter how closely it treads in their footsteps). It’s a book that will make you desperate to explore its world, hungry for more fantasy – it will make you want to play Dark Souls and dream of a darker Oz, if only to bide your time until Volume 3.
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