Review: The Incompetent Hero by Douglas L. Thomas

A parallel worlds fantasy that skillfully blends genres, The Incompetent Hero: Volume 1 by Douglas L. Thomas is a bold opening salvo for a high-octane series.

Summoned along with six other honored heroes to the Kingdom of Aschheim, Echo 1 – a living weapon of war – wakes to find himself with a jewel-encrusted shield stubbornly attached to his arm, and an epic destiny to fulfill. In the face of obliteration by a legion of demons, the First Princess of Aschheim has called on heroes of legend to lead their desperate cause, with the promise of fame and fortune should they be successful. Pulled from different versions of Earth, these low-level warriors must rise to the challenge and become legendary defenders of this iteration of humanity.

Echo 1’s version of Earth has been at war for the entirety of its recorded history, but his legendary exploits on those battlefields relied on integrated AI and tech mods, and both stopped working upon his arrival. Echo 1 is quickly forced to discover new battle tactics and find fresh depths of his own humanity as he trains and grows within this newly forged fellowship of heroes. Navigating the social and psychological implications of their quest leads to a range of tense relationship dynamics and exciting sequences, from hunting down boarbeasts to battling with ferocious spidernauts, in this action-packed combination of sci-fi and high fantasy.

The premise is original, and the author immediately jumps into the action and thorough character development, which makes for a strong start to the novel and series. The focus on stats and specializations gives the book a slightly gaming feel, as though the plot is an RPG come to literary life, which will immediately appeal to those who know their way around a D20, though it may come off as somewhat formulaic for classic fantasy readers. That said, the blurring of lines between magic and science is an interesting thematic aspect throughout the story, one that doesn’t arise in most fantasy or sci-fi novels, with their firmly drawn parameters and magical rules.

From an editorial perspective, there is a bit too much telling, and not enough showing overall; the battles sometimes read like transcripts of tabletop combat sessions, and the procedural detail of these scenes can undercut the natural momentum of the prose. There are also certain cliché elements and sci-fi tropes that feel too familiar – a dragon coiled around a pile of gold, for example. There are also numerous instances of redundant word use, even in sequential sentences – the near-constant use of the word “heroes,” can be a bit tiresome after the first dozen chapters or so. An aggressive copy editor should have smoothed out the awkward passages and syntactical stumbles, along with naturalizing the storytelling style.

The core elements of a sword-and-sorcery adventure with compelling characters and a unique hook are all here, and with some tweaks to execution, this could be a memorable saga. Despite the leading nature of the prose in this first installment, a creative and immersive stage has been set for the rest of the series.