Reading for Pleasure (The Four Legendary Kingdoms)

I haven’t done any “just-for-the-fun-of-it” reading in quite a while, so two weeks ago I finished a fun action thriller book. The book was called The Four Legendary Kingdoms by Matthew Reilly and it was a fun read. It was about an ex (?) military guy kidnapped to compete in a “to the death” series of competition in order to save the world.

Why am I writing about this book here? Well, while reading the book, it kind of gave me an impression that while it was a fun concept to read, underneath the story was a jab at the powerful and wealthy people. Some of the people, not all, doing the fighting were those corralled into the competition without their say. Let’s call them the commoners. Others were super wealthy descendants who had trained for these competitions, possibly since their youths. Both the commoners and the wealthy descendants formed teams that included maybe two or three other members. And lastly, the spectators were the powerful and wealthy who had sponsored the teams of contestants.

And the spectators acted grotesquely: they cheered upon the deaths of contestants, declaring the contests were jolly good fun, even though the purpose was ostensibly to save the world. I know, I know, you would have thought that they would have been worried about the end of the world but it seems like it was just another day at the park for them. Meanwhile, the wealthy contestants used trickery that basically gave up their team members to save themselves. All in all, the book’s author made the wealthy people, both the spectators and the contestants, pretty despicable.

The part that made me feel like the author was making a comment was when the main character, Jack, saved one of the competing contestant that was a commoner, or really, from reading between the lines of the book, from a caste supposedly worse than a commoner. I don’t want to give away the details about this “commoner” so I will leave it as that but just know that this person wouldn’t have been saved by a wealthy contestant. Later on in the story, this “commoner” and his people helps out Jack in some fashion.

The other part of this story that felt like a comment was Jack’s effort to use the skills of all members of his team, even if you would not think they have anything to contribute. He also did not “throw” away any team members in order to save his life: it was everybody gets out together. I probably was reading too much into this part but it felt like a comment on how some wealthy folks in today’s society just “throws” away certain kinds of people because they are either too poor, or don’t have the right skills, or don’t have the right background, or whatever. Corporations have been throwing out workers for decades, all in the name of shareholder value and their ever expanding need to grow the bottom line (and line their pockets). Each person has a skill or a set of skills and companies are just throwing them away.

So I was left with the impression that the author was making some kind of comment about the wealthy of society, but then I thought, “Nah, I'm reading too much into the story.” The author is known for writing fun thrillers, and I have read a few of his books, so this book was just a fun read.

Then I read the interview with the author:

“…Maybe it comes from the profound dissatisfaction I feel when I look at politicians these days. I rarely get political and I won’t do so here; it’s just that I find politicians and political parties don’t seem to care about representing people anymore: they’re just in it for themselves and the pursuit of temporary power.” The Four Legendary Kingdoms, interview with Matthew Reilly, p. 448, softcover book.

So maybe I wasn’t reading too much into his story.