Back in the 1980s I was reading most any fantasy book I could get my hands on. There were epic fantasies like the Lord of the Rings, more pulpy fare like Gary Gygax's books centered on Gord the Rogue and others. Somewhere in that mix, my dad and I read The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans. The Misenchanted Sword was something different from the other fare of the time and has become one of my favorite books.
The Misenchanted Sword is a standalone novel and first in what would become the Legends of Ethshar series. This is the story of Valder, a scout, in the middle of a Great War that has been going on for generations who finds himself lost behind enemy lines. He finds a hut to shelter in, but some of his enemies come and burn the place down. He survives and runs into the owner of the hut, who is very angry to see his place ruined. The man who owns the hut turns out to be a wizard and enchants Valder's sword to help get Valder to leave. The rest of the book is about Valder and the sword and how his life is changed by the wizard's choice to help him.
What is different about the book is how quickly you become immersed in the world and the story. The book is not long, but you get a pretty meaty story about Valder and his challenges (I am trying to avoid spoiling anything). It also introduces you to a world that is fleshed out and vast, having started life as a role-playing campaign setting before becoming the backdrop for many novels. Lawrence Watt-Evans also has an easy style to his writing that blends humor and irony with nice twists, good for readers just getting started with fantasy.
Like the Discworld series, The Legends of Ethshar novels take readers to different parts of Ethshar and focus on different characters in almost every book. There are a couple that continue the story of one character or another for move than one book but in the early novels they are usually standalone. However, each peels back another layer in the overall world. There is war, magic, adventures, politics and more to be found in the stories. Overall, as of right now, there are 13 novels and one short story collection in the series. The most recent books having been written by the author as part of a reader-funded experiment on his website. He seems to be done with that experiment, but hopefully not done with writing in Ethshar.
Over the years, I have owned two copies of the book and loaned or gifted both away to try to share the story with other readers. It may be hard to find, but I think the Del Rey version has the best cover art, but any copy is good. If you like fun adventures with neat twists and imaginative world-building, you should give The Misenchanted Sword a try. Compared to the door stopper sized books in Fantasy today, you may find the shorter, but no less enjoyable, Legends of Ethshar books to be a breath of fresh air. Plus with as many of them as there are, people liking longer series will be covered as well. Here's hoping there are more Legends coming. The Misenchanted Sword gets 5 Mick Happies.
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