Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools
by Philip Caveney
Illustrated by Bob Lea
Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools tells the story of a young jester, who has recently inherited his father's fool's cap and found it far from a good fit. Although he is determined to carry on his father's trade in order to support his aged mother, his inability to tell a joke hampers his efforts, and he is forced to make the perilous journey to faraway Keladon in the hope of finding employment, with nothing but his buffalope Max (a lugubrious talking buffalo) for company. This sets the scene for a series of encounters that are to change both Sebastian's fortunes and those of the kingdom of Keladon itself.
This novel is told with humour, and there are some exciting action scenes - particularly those involving Sebastian's friend Cornelius, a diminutive but deadly soldier of fortune. I certainly would not describe this as a badly-written book, and it will probably give pleasure to many. I nevertheless felt some disappointment that the author had been content to work so far within his own capacity and the potential of his chosen genre. I've seldom read a book as entirely predictable in its plot (which is of the "restoring the rightful princess from a wicked usurper with the help of a motley handful of companions" variety) and its characterization (the princess is spoilt and selfish, but turns out to be a trouper beneath her bratty exterior), nor one which reuses the cliches of genre fantasy with so little apparent attempt to breathe new life into them.
In Sebastian Darke, for example, every good character is handsome, while every evil one is ugly or (favourite word) 'brutish'. It's unreasonable to demand edginess or subversion in every book, but the wholesale acquiescence of Sebastian Darke in the topoi and values of traditional genre fantasy seems lazy in a writer who clearly has considerable technical skills at his command.
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