Shadow Card Guardian, by Kacey Ezell

A Deck-building LitRPG

I am not big into the “LitRPG” field. I’m told it’s heavily male-dominated, with few women writing in the field, or appearing in the books.

This is news to me, because I’ve only ever read HP (Heather) Holo’s Monster Hunter novels, and now Shadow Card Guardian, by Kacey Ezell—women authors writing books centered on women protagonists. Clearly, I’m out of the loop.

This series is based off of a card-building world of John Stovall, so if that helps, great. I didn’t know Shami Stovall’s husband wrote books until five minutes after I finished this novel, so clearly, you don’t need to read those books to enjoy this book.

The Story

Drop night is when “gods” drop magical cards on a world ready for them. When Dania “Dani Ellis’ orphaned nephew, Jake has a deck fall into his lap, it isn’t long before their apartment door is busted in by an assassin who wants the cards. But Dani is a combat veteran and an ER nurse, and the deck-bearing assassin didn’t expect someone without magic cards to slice his throat open with a pocket knife—because do not f*** with the babysitter. It’s clear that Jake is being hunted for his cards, and they have to go on the run … and now that Dani has killed a deck-bearer, she has cards of her own.

And that’s just the first 14 pages. Kacey Ezell clearly doesn’t believe in slow openings.

Shadow Card Guardian is, for the most part, an urban fantasy thriller, told from Dani’s first person POV.

I like the writing style and all the little touches. Describing their town as “a city with more murders than the entire true crime section at the local Barnes and Noble” is a nice touch. The set up for the characters, the world and the plot are all efficiently done in a few pages.

Then we get to “the magical cards are handed out by the gods” and anyone who knows anything about polytheistic mythologies should start to worry.

But this is mostly a fast-pace thriller, with some odd touches of character development along the way that the average reader may not see coming. I know I didn’t.

I will admit, there are some elements here that can be a stumbling block to reading. The narrative will literally stop so Dani and Jake can read the card stats and abilities, and they all look like excerpted Magic The Gathering cards. There are literally several chapters of grinding for levels, which were far less tedious to read than any actual grinding in any video game I ever played. There’s even a card-playing arena match that is necessary for the plot to happen. While reading them, I enjoyed them well enough, but by the end of the book, you wonder if the books could have been a few pages shorter. I am told these are staples of the genre, so you can’t go by me.

Overall, this was a well-written, entertaining thriller.

The Characters

As I said, the writing is solid. Establishing Dani’s character by listing her CV as “a deployment to Afghanistan left Dania with a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and recurring nightmares” was very efficient.

Frankly, everyone has a well-established character, no matter how late they’re brought into the story. This even includes our villain, brought into the last fifty pages or so … but it helps that’s he’s insane.

Things get a little weird around the supernatural allies. Jake has a card that turns into a companion character. Then Dani befriends the monster under the bed, who just needed a hug…

It’s fun. But weird.

The World

The world-building is okay. Most of it centers around the world of card-building and card-fighting.

But if I try to wrap my brain around an open world urban fantasy, set in what looks like our world, but polytheistic, and yet the United States has still been fighting in the sandbox… How? Why? Are the Jihadis worshipping Hecate? Ba’al? Moloch? Why does my head hurt?

In short, Shadow Card Guardian isn’t Tolkien. It covers aspects of the world it needs to cover in order for the plot to keep going. If you can turn your brain off and enjoy the ride, you should be fine. If you can’t … your mileage may vary.

Politics

I’m not even certain how politics would work in this world.

Content Warning

Eh. I’m not even sure the violence here is worth giving a warning for. And there may be more of a language warning for reading my notes than the book.

I’m not sure if it’s really a content warning, but I’m sticking it here because I don’t know where else to stick it. At several points along the way, Dani uses the expression “gods above and below!” I’m not sure why, but it feels so unnatural a phrase that I get a sensation of someone running an ice scraper along my brain. Who even talks like that?

(According to my wife, who was pagan before becoming Catholic, “who talks like that” includes Wiccans, for ceremonial occasions. Still not sure that makes it feel anymore natural.)

Who is it for?

You would think that this would be for Yu-Gi-Oh! fans and nothing more. But no, this is a fairly straightforward urban fantasy, so if you’re into the genre, it should scratch that itch.

Is it as good as The Dresden Files or Daniel Humphreys’ Paxton Locke? No. But this is better than Iron Druid ever got.

Why buy it?

This is a solid entry in the Urban Fantasy genre, action-packed, and barely slows down to take a breath. If you’re looking for a solid, entertaining read, I can recommend this.