Reviews

Heirs of the Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky

hallucigenia's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

nraptor's review

medium-paced

3.0

ariaslibrary's review

4.0

‘They can be spoken with, and bound to service even, and they can haunt others, or objects, places. Broken things, they are, most often, but still recognizable as who they once were. Even the smaller fragments may contain some ounce of self, some emotion – a hate, a love.’

“Heirs of the Blade” is the seventh instalment in the Shadows of the Apt series. And if I’m right, it is also the final book in the second arc of the series. The further I read into the series, the shorter the reviews will be. As a result this will be quick and short.

Picking up from the end of Scarab Path, Che and Thalric leave Khanaphes, heeding the warning from the mythical Masters that Tynisa is in grave danger. Che is struggling, haunted by the old magic. She’s seeing things she can’t explain, people in different places in the Lowlands but the most concerning is Empress Seda, who has grown wild with power. She’s connected to Seda, she can feel it and Thalric, while sceptical, can’t explain what’s happening to either Che or the Empress.

There was only one other person that Thalric could name who had suffered the same reversal, and the fact that she had done so was a closely guarded secret. Seda, Empress of the Wasps, was likewise become Inapt, and on nights like these, when sleep kept its distance from him, he was forced to confront that curious web of interdependence: Che and the dead man Achaeos, Seda and the dead man Tisamon. Why do I feel they are linked? Why? There could be no connection, and yet some part of him remained sure of it, beyond any rational argument.

Occurring simultaneously with The Sea Watch, Praeda and Amnon hear news of the Empire taking over Khanaphes, leave Collegium to try and aid Amnon’s people.

The main star of this book was Tynisa. Tynisa having suffered loss of Salma and Tisamon and struggling with the guilt of killing Achaeos, rushes to Salma’s home to assuage her guilt. If only she can find her purpose, if she could have her Mantis death then she would be free from the suffocating pain. There she meets Prince-Minor Salme Alain of Elas Mar Province, Salma’s brother. Meeting him is her chance to finally be with Salma, if only as a substitute. But nothing is as it seems and the dragonflies, like the spiders, have their own games.

She remembered how it felt to lose Salma, first to the wiles of the Butterfly-kinden girl, and then to hear the news of his death, abandoned and alone in the midst of the enemy. She remembered seeing her father hacked to death before her eyes. But of her murder of Achaeos, of the bite of her blade into his unsuspecting flesh, the wound that had sapped him and ruined him until he died, she remembered nothing, she felt nothing. In such a vacuum, how could she possibly atone?

As seen in the previous two books, this addition expanded the world. We learned of the Inapt Beetles of Khanaphes in book five, the mythical sea kinden in Sea Watch and here we delve deeper into the Dragonfly lands, their kinden, history and culture. This book definitely solidified the Dragonfly kinden as my favourite. Aside from that, the conclusion!! Empress Seda is a crazy psychopath and I can’t wait to see what else she will do for power. That last page had me excited for what’s to come.

‘They share one, but it’s not a dead man’s. You can be haunted by the living in a strange sort of way, as you yourself have cause to know. They’d rather be elsewhere, maybe even not in each other’s company, but I can see the same hand rests on each of them. Loyalty to a living friend can haunt you as much as the ghost of a dead one.’

titusfortner's review

3.0

The third "standalone" book of the series focused on Tynisa and her journey to the Commonwheel. The characters and plotlines here are much more interesting, and it is motivating me to continue with the series.

wertraut's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

weemadando's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

chrstn's review

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

One of the more boring installments in the series. 

led's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

patremagne's review against another edition

4.0

Damn good ending. How Tchaikovsky can keep up this kind of pace for so many books is nothing short of astounding. I'd give it a 4.49, as I did take a rather long break before continuing the book (though who's to know whether it was me or the book).

Almost certainly jumping into The Air War within my next few books.

books_with_benghis_kahn's review

4.0

Yet another extremely solid entry in the Shadows of the Apt! 4.5 stars rounded down to put it on par with the previous one.

It's a quieter book than all the others 'til now with less complex plotting and less action, but it was very impactful on a character and theme level along with moving some very important series-level plot arcs into place. The exploration of the fallout of war and the moral complexities of a noble/peasant society was always present in the background of this one, as was the duality in this world of the apt/inapt or those who believe in magic/materialism.

I've really enjoyed how each of the last three books has focused around a single different location and just a few of the main characters -- the shift in storytelling style from the first arc has felt like a real level up in Tchaikovsky's character work, as everyone feels deeper now and more vital to the narrative than in his debut books.

This is shaping up to easily be one of my all-time favorite series, and the consistency in quality from book to book is just incredible.