SWASHBUCKLERS by Dan Hanks – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Swashbucklers by Dan Hanks
Published by Angry Robot on November 9 2021
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Science fiction
Pages: 400
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Dan Hanks blends 80s nostalgia, portal fantasy and parenthood in this fun romp/quest to save the world.

Swashbucklers was a lot of crazy fun, and I do mean crazy—think Ghostbusters meets Stranger Things. Dan Hanks does a good job of combining humor, action and nostalgia, and he even tugged on my heartstrings a couple of times with his commentary about parenting and leaving childhood behind. Yes, I had a few issues with the story, which I’ll elaborate on below, but overall I’m glad I had a chance to read what appears to be the first book in a series (although it isn’t listed on Goodreads as such).

Thirty-two years ago on Halloween, Cisco Collins and his best friends battled and triumphed over an evil, magical pirate named Deadman’s Grin. Despite the fact that everyone in town witnessed the impossible event, it was waved off as a “gas leak” which caused mass hallucinations. Now Cisco has returned with his eight-year-old son George in tow to revisit the town of his childhood. In the intervening years, Cisco’s memories of the terrible event have faded, but lately he’s been remembering things again, and when a bizarre murder occurs—a man killed by a child’s stuffed toy come to life—Cisco knows that the past has come back to haunt him.

Rallying his best friends from childhood—Jake, Doc and Michelle—Cisco convinces them that the evil has returned, and that they are being called upon to fight Deadman’s Grin once more. With the help of a magical talking fox named Tabitha, Cisco and his friends embark on a perilous and surreal journey, to find the source of the evil and stop it before it can destroy not just their world, but a multitude of universes that are connected by magic. But they aren’t children anymore, and the pressures and responsibilities of adulthood—not to mention all the aches and pains of growing old—are making this adventure much harder than the last.

If you love 80s nostalgia—the movies, the TV shows, the video games, etc—you’ll have a lot of fun with this too. Hanks does a great job of evoking Cisco’s love of his childhood days as he shares those memories with his friends. Even better, Doc’s father was a collector of 80s memorabilia, and his entire collection now rests in a secret room in Jake’s home, including the “weapons” that the four used to defeat the pirate many years ago, old 8-bit game consoles complete with toy blasters that magically work just when they need them most.

The story feels mostly like fantasy/horror, as toys come to life and try to kill Cisco and his friends. But there’s actually a nice genre mash-up of fantasy, mythology and sci-fi later in the story, as Hanks introduces a multiverse of sorts, where different worlds lie beyond magical doors. Some of my favorite parts in the book involved the characters moving between worlds, almost like changing scenes in a video game, and I thought it was creative and well done. There are some fun action scenes, and one in particular, involving a rampaging giant Father Christmas, evoked the famous Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters.

I really enjoyed the humor, especially when it’s at the expense of Cisco, who is “the wrong side of forty-five” and just doesn’t have the stamina he had as a kid. Hanks does dialog really well, and I liked the relationships among the main characters, who bicker a lot but also have that special fondness and love for each other that comes from deep childhood friendships. All four characters have children as well, so that’s another bond they share. 

I do have a few negatives, though. My biggest issue with Swashbucklers is that we are never really told what happened on Halloween all those years ago. The characters refer to the incident in vague terms, and we get a few clues about a portal opening in the school gym, but that’s about it. In order for the stakes to be higher, I would have liked to know the details of the 1989 event. Showing flashbacks in alternating chapters would have been a great way to make the plot more interesting, as well as give us more insight into the characters’ childhood lives. Without this information, the fight in the present day doesn’t really make sense. Why did Deadman’s Grin come back to life? Why now, after the kids have grown up and had children of their own? It was a missed opportunity, in my opinion, and would have made for a richer story.

And speaking of kids, I was a little baffled as to why Cisco’s son George and the other’s kids were even in the story, other than to show that life has moved on and now the characters are all grown up and (reluctantly) adulting. Cisco is clearly torn between his desire to relive his youth and vanquish the evil pirate and be a good father to George. Unfortunately for poor George, he ultimately dumps him on other people while he goes off on his adventures. Jake’s wife Natalie seemed to be in the story for the sole purpose of acting as babysitter to the kids, conveniently available anytime Cisco and the others needed to drop everything and go fight evil. I was also confused by George’s age. I believe he’s eight, but Cisco is constantly picking him up and carrying him around. It made George feel more like a two year old than a curious boy of eight who is, um, too old to be carried.

I’m assuming the story takes place in the present day, since the author mentions the “pandemic,” but honestly it was a little jarring to hear about Covid-19 in the middle of what is really a fantasy tale. Hanks also brings up current events like Brexit and the uneasy political landscape of U.S. politics, but I didn’t feel like any of this grandstanding was necessary. There’s a lot of fun to be had in Swashbucklers, and these serious, real life moments felt out of place.

The pace picks up in the last fifty pages or so, and the sequence of events become slightly scattered and over-the-top, but I loved the Epilogue, which gives readers a hint of more to come. It was a very clever way to end the story, and I’m so curious to see if there’s going to be a sequel. Despite some rough spots, I had a lot of fun with Swashbucklers, and I look forward to reading more from Dan Hanks.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.