Originally posted as part of Queen’s Book Asylum’s SPFBO X reviews.

The trope of a would-be hero setting out on a quest to prove their mettle is given an entertaining twist in The Tenacious Tale of Tanna the Tendersword.

In the world of the story, the whole process of heroic quests has been structured, codified, and set out in The Questseeker’s Guidebook to Proper Questing for use by all prospective heroes and the Chroniclers assigned to record their adventures.

One such Chronicler-in-training is Gladifort Quillpen, who is less than impressed with his assignment to the naive and relentlessly cheerful Tanna. Despite her being the titular character, the novel is told exclusively from Gladifort’s perspective. Initially insistent about sticking to the Guidebook and frequently frustrated by Tanna’s apparent ability to believe the best of everyone they encounter, Gladifort does find himself gradually warming to the hero under his watch.

I think that if there is an issue with The Tenacious Tale of Tanna the Tendersword it’s that I’m the wrong audience for it. If I’d somehow had the opportunity to read this cough, cough years ago, I’m pretty sure I would have loved it. But while I could appreciate a lot about it, I mostly found the two leads annoying. Gladifort is grumpy, seemingly unsuited to life in the wild, and his continuous complaining can grate. Tanna, on the other hand, is written to be one of those people who are always upbeat and convinced that everything will work out for the best. The fact that it nearly always does makes a degree of sense when directed at readers in yet to hit their teens, but for a curmudgeon like me, it just smacks of convenience.

I don’t want to be overly negative here. It’s no fault of the book or its authors that I’m not the right audience and I think they should be congratulated for both the world they’ve built and making it into the SPFBO finals, especially since this type of younger-centric read has been almost unknown in previous years. I would have no hesitation in suggesting this to someone who was in the right demographic, although why they’d be asking me is a bit of a mystery.

While I am tempted to award bonus points for alliteration, and there’s a lot of it, I’m afraid I can’t rank it any higher than I have below.