Authors, take note: This is how you write a great story about men that is feminist at the same time!

This book was what I needed when I needed it. For Corona reasons, I can't go larping this year and was craving some larp vibes. This book delivered. Oh, did this book deliver!

 “Watch this!” he said, and what happened next might have been extraordinarily funny were their lives not at stake. But they were, so it wasn’t.”

Kings of the Wyld is about a band of retired mercenaries/heroes who, because of reasons, get together for one last heroic adventure - although it does not start out heroic, because they have become old, cranky and unfit and the world has moved on without them. Nevertheless, they were the most feared and famous band out there once, and over time, they all start remembering it.

All the while, they are allowed to have feelings and stuff, while doing heroic things! And they don't even have to be sexist to be manly!
(I was actually weary while reading this, always expecting to encounter the disappointing sexism on the next page. This is what epic fantasy books have done to me!)

“For a while no one spoke, because in the roundabout course of thirty-some years they had said just about all there was to say to one another, until finally Clay could bear the silence no longer and cleared his throat. “I love you guys,” he said, and gods-be-damned if his voice didn’t sell him out at the end and crack like a boy of twelve summers.”

So, some short facts about this book.

- It's in turns funny, heartwarming, dramatic and full of action.
- Not all the jokes do it for me, but I don't mind, humour is super hard and I don't usually read funny books, so I'm not the best judge here.
- Really cool worldbuilding.
- No teenage protagonists anywhere around, but a band of retired adventurers/heroes and that was so refreshing.
- They are full of flaws and also good.
- There are bawdy jokes and the world is not quite feminist (although more so than most other classic fantasy worlds), but the story certainly is, even though it isn't centered on women.
- Well-paced story.
- Great action sequences.
- Mood and owlbears! <3
- Manpain, but in a good way.
- Quotable sentences. This book is full of them.
- The story is equal parts epic and grounded.
- A deava in black armour and with huge black wings who can fly and is accompanied by a small army of martial arts monks. I mean, come on!
- That scene where Clay realized for the first time

that he was the leader of Saga all along!

“As individuals they were each of them fallible, discordant as notes without harmony. But as a band they were something more, something perfect in its own intangible way.”

Very early on I had started to expect this book would make me cry before the end. But then I found the ending to actually be a bit disappointing.
Here's why:

The book, although it contains a lot of humour, presents the world of Saga as gritty and dark, even grimdark. There is a lot of dangerous stuff in this world, plus a huge conflict, we meet a lot of people (and other beings) who have experienced bad things in this world, our protagonists included. People constantly worry about each other's wellbeing. There are some pretty foreshadow-y scenes. And then ... nothing bad happens. They succeed in everything. I had expected at least one of them to die, probably Clay or Gabe just when he sees his daughter but before he can reach her. The stakes were so high and then we have this feelgood-fantasy ending and it just didn't fit the rest of the story for me.

“Where you stand, I stand.”