[polishgenius]

I just finished this one. I muchly enjoyed Buchanan's debut, Farlander, last year; an entertaining yarn of deadly assassins and political plays against the background of a decadent empire enroaching on the free world. Familiar ingredients, but very well presented and put together.

This sequel is as good if not better; it picks up where the last one left off, but the events take a turn that gives the book a much tighter focus in terms of the plot. Interestingly, while the drama there was quite wide-ranging and, as I say, political in nature, that becomes backdrop here to what is essentially a military fantasy. It's a clever shift and allows Buchanan to show off not just his battle-writing skills, which are just as impressive as his assassin-action chops, but also an ability to build tension before the fights. It's good stuff.

As with the first one, though, the really impressive thing is character- the book isn't long, but Buchanan really knows how to make his characters feel alive in that time, and even the ones who are clearly The Bad Guys are endowed with humanity, avoiding caricature. It does however have much more space for character than many similar-sized fantasies, because Buchanan's deliberate approach to building his series is even more on show here than it was in the first; in terms of the wider play the events covered here would have covered maybe a hundred pages even in series generally considered slow-burn, like aSoIaF. It's to Buchanan's credit that it never feels slow- there's always something interesting going on, even when it's low scale. And the end opens up a lot of new possibilities for the direction of it; I'd like to know how long he plans this series to be, because I'm very curious to see how it pans out.

Fans of a definite beginning, middle and end, though, should note that this is very much a series book and while it leaves it at a comfortable resting point, you won't see resolution to many of the threads begun.



All in all, this is a book and series very much up my alley and I'm already looking forward to the next one. Perhaps my favourite of the new fantasy series of the last two or three years (alongside The Dragon's Path, which I came pre-sold on), and one which I'm surprised by the lack of hype for. So, is anyone else following it?

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 27 July 2011 - 07:52 PM

[Abyss]

polishgenius, on 26 July 2011 - 08:28 PM, said:

...So, is anyone else following it?

No but after your review i think i will.

[polishgenius]

You totally should.

Reading back through my review, I realised I totally failed to mention one thing I probably should: despite a few of the trappings resembling high-magic fantasies like Malazan, Brent Weeks' stuff and Mistborn- cloak-and-dagger assassins, nefarious rulers of decadent empires, - and the presence of flying boats and a few other details, this series has so far got perhaps the lowest magic quota of any of the recent fantasies that I've read. Which I'm aware some people won't much like, so word of warning there.