wpmoore's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
novelideea's review against another edition
It wasn't grabbing me and I want to enjoy it! Will pick it up again later
davidscrimshaw's review against another edition
4.0
I'm really enjoying this series. Especially like how economics matters.
snowbenton's review against another edition
4.0
A lot more exciting than the first one. I felt like I got through the weeds of world building and now things are chugging along.
mandas_life_in_books's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
patremagne's review against another edition
4.0
Another good but not quite outstanding entry.
Will go into detail with full review.
Will go into detail with full review.
2ndchance_chad's review against another edition
4.0
Re-read brought this up to s solid 4/5 for me.
I've always said I'm very much a mood reader and this was a perfect example. I wasn't connecting with this book the first time through a few months back. But I was really into it this second time around. On to book 3 of the series now!
Initial read 3.5/5 Officially
I'm still enjoying the overall story of this series. This one just didn't click with me just as much as the first book in the series did. I can't even put my finger on why. I'm of course still continuing on with the next book as I want to know what comes next for the characters.
I've always said I'm very much a mood reader and this was a perfect example. I wasn't connecting with this book the first time through a few months back. But I was really into it this second time around. On to book 3 of the series now!
Initial read 3.5/5 Officially
I'm still enjoying the overall story of this series. This one just didn't click with me just as much as the first book in the series did. I can't even put my finger on why. I'm of course still continuing on with the next book as I want to know what comes next for the characters.
krgangi's review against another edition
3.0
Following the first book in the series, The Dragon's Path, we see another adventure with our characters. Now, however, the world we left is falling into turmoil, and we see a civil war.
Unfortunately for me, I felt I got way too much political perspective on this war where I wanted to be on the front lines, sweating next to my friends in melee as I'm swinging swords and taking lives. I wanted blood in my mouth, dirt under my nails, and my ears deafened by the sound of battle. That's my style of a fantasy book when war breaks out.
However, I didn't get much of that. I got everything besides the front lines in this war. I saw Geder playing the power role-which was very fun- Dawson Kalliam playing the ally while he see's these ancient priests of the Spider-Goddess gaining more political influence, Clara Kalliam doing her best to keep her family and friends stable and allied. You'd think that with Marcus having such a huge military background, we would get to see more fighting, but we simply don't. He's run off to help Cithrin and her banking problems because he's afraid she's in danger.
Best part of the book for me? Geder's story. Why is that? CORRUPTION.
Knowing Geder in the first book, who he was and where he's come from, you would never guess where he's heading. With the power of the priests at his side-whether or not they seem to be using him as a means to his own end-we see Geder become more corrupted and phase into our role as a Tyrant.
The last quarter of this book gets some action in it, all though I felt it was a too little too late, but it does resolve with a critical turning point for the entirety of the series. Also, we get to learn a little more about Kit; his past and who he truly is. I think Kit will play an essential role in the coming books. With the way the book ends, it seems like our plot is really thickening.
Unfortunately for me, I felt I got way too much political perspective on this war where I wanted to be on the front lines, sweating next to my friends in melee as I'm swinging swords and taking lives. I wanted blood in my mouth, dirt under my nails, and my ears deafened by the sound of battle. That's my style of a fantasy book when war breaks out.
However, I didn't get much of that. I got everything besides the front lines in this war. I saw Geder playing the power role-which was very fun- Dawson Kalliam playing the ally while he see's these ancient priests of the Spider-Goddess gaining more political influence, Clara Kalliam doing her best to keep her family and friends stable and allied. You'd think that with Marcus having such a huge military background, we would get to see more fighting, but we simply don't. He's run off to help Cithrin and her banking problems because he's afraid she's in danger.
Best part of the book for me? Geder's story. Why is that? CORRUPTION.
Knowing Geder in the first book, who he was and where he's come from, you would never guess where he's heading. With the power of the priests at his side-whether or not they seem to be using him as a means to his own end-we see Geder become more corrupted and phase into our role as a Tyrant.
The last quarter of this book gets some action in it, all though I felt it was a too little too late, but it does resolve with a critical turning point for the entirety of the series. Also, we get to learn a little more about Kit; his past and who he truly is. I think Kit will play an essential role in the coming books. With the way the book ends, it seems like our plot is really thickening.
thearbiter89's review against another edition
4.0
In The King's Blood, upheavals occur, characters come into their own (for good or ill), and the shape of the overarching conflict begins to emerge. And it is an ideological one that should be familiar to students of TOK.
The book's a faster-paced follow up to the first, and also the stage for the setting up of the overarching conflict - which, at its heart, is a philosophical one.
The emerging antagonists of the book are a cult who worships an entity known as the Spider Goddess, and they have the power the sense truth and falsehood through the timbre of a person's voice. They also have preternatural powers of persuasion. In that sense, they represent a classic epistemological fallacy - the conflation of certainty and truth. They can determine whether someone is saying something they believe is true, but they cannot know if something is objectively true. But what makes them so dangerous is that they can manufacture certainty in people - in essence, generating their own version of truth. Their goal is to spread a singular version of truth to envelop the entire world - one that they manufacture for their own expediency.
This is a powerful theme to explore in a fantasy setting, because it is able, like few other mediums, to explore topics of faith and epistemology in a way that steps on few toes. And Abraham is deconstructing the idea of religious faith in his own clever way - the priests of the Spider Goddess are the ur-cult, and the memetic transmission of their faith - the idea that certainty in something is a sufficient precondition for truth - is mediated in MacGuffinish fantasy terms - actual magical mechanisms of action - in order to bring out this theme in stark relief.
Abraham is also developing one of the most compelling antagonists I've come across in recent times - a character whose evil is mediated through a gamut of motivations - personal insecurities, revenge, faith that certainty is sufficient for truth. Geder Palliako, the man who unwittingly finds the Spider Goddess cult and brings them back to his kingdom, only to have them manipulate him into establishing a foothold for them. He was portrayed as a slightly buffoonish bookworm who happened to, through a series of serendipitous events, turn into something of a war hero.
He exemplifies a sort of banality of evil - he is awkward, affable and generous to those he considers friends, but implacable in his hatred to those whom he perceives have slighted or betrayed him. Wielding the truth-telling priesthood as his weapon, he goes on inquisitorial rampages to root out dissent in the name of protecting his young king, which is presented as a genuine sentiment, starts wars of conquest, and proposes the wholesale slaughter of the noble classes of conquered kingdoms. He thinks he does it out of love for king and country, and he derives legitimacy from the illusion of certainty that the priesthood affords him.
Although the circumstances behind his rise in the first book are a little dubious, plot wise, the sheer number of layers that undergird his motivations make him one of the most interesting antagonists I've encountered in a while.
Other characters are less compelling but just as delicately painted as complex weaves of motivation. Dawson Kalliam continues to provoke in terms of his mixture of (to modern liberal sensibilities) distasteful and intensely sympathetic traits. Kit, an apostate former priest of the Spider Goddess who serves as the main philosophical voice of its fallacies, exudes perfect warmth, wisdom and charm. Of all the major POV characters, I personally find Cithrin, the up-and-coming head of a branch of a bank in the world of the series, the least interesting, but that's more a matter of taste - her motivations are a complex weave of reckless ambition and almost self-destructive excess.
With The King's Blood, therefore, The Dagger and Coin is shaping up to be one of the most compelling character-driven, thematically complex fantasies in a while.
I give this book: 4/5 stag-piercing lances
The book's a faster-paced follow up to the first, and also the stage for the setting up of the overarching conflict - which, at its heart, is a philosophical one.
The emerging antagonists of the book are a cult who worships an entity known as the Spider Goddess, and they have the power the sense truth and falsehood through the timbre of a person's voice. They also have preternatural powers of persuasion. In that sense, they represent a classic epistemological fallacy - the conflation of certainty and truth. They can determine whether someone is saying something they believe is true, but they cannot know if something is objectively true. But what makes them so dangerous is that they can manufacture certainty in people - in essence, generating their own version of truth. Their goal is to spread a singular version of truth to envelop the entire world - one that they manufacture for their own expediency.
This is a powerful theme to explore in a fantasy setting, because it is able, like few other mediums, to explore topics of faith and epistemology in a way that steps on few toes. And Abraham is deconstructing the idea of religious faith in his own clever way - the priests of the Spider Goddess are the ur-cult, and the memetic transmission of their faith - the idea that certainty in something is a sufficient precondition for truth - is mediated in MacGuffinish fantasy terms - actual magical mechanisms of action - in order to bring out this theme in stark relief.
Abraham is also developing one of the most compelling antagonists I've come across in recent times - a character whose evil is mediated through a gamut of motivations - personal insecurities, revenge, faith that certainty is sufficient for truth. Geder Palliako, the man who unwittingly finds the Spider Goddess cult and brings them back to his kingdom, only to have them manipulate him into establishing a foothold for them. He was portrayed as a slightly buffoonish bookworm who happened to, through a series of serendipitous events, turn into something of a war hero.
He exemplifies a sort of banality of evil - he is awkward, affable and generous to those he considers friends, but implacable in his hatred to those whom he perceives have slighted or betrayed him. Wielding the truth-telling priesthood as his weapon, he goes on inquisitorial rampages to root out dissent in the name of protecting his young king, which is presented as a genuine sentiment, starts wars of conquest, and proposes the wholesale slaughter of the noble classes of conquered kingdoms. He thinks he does it out of love for king and country, and he derives legitimacy from the illusion of certainty that the priesthood affords him.
Although the circumstances behind his rise in the first book are a little dubious, plot wise, the sheer number of layers that undergird his motivations make him one of the most interesting antagonists I've encountered in a while.
Other characters are less compelling but just as delicately painted as complex weaves of motivation. Dawson Kalliam continues to provoke in terms of his mixture of (to modern liberal sensibilities) distasteful and intensely sympathetic traits. Kit, an apostate former priest of the Spider Goddess who serves as the main philosophical voice of its fallacies, exudes perfect warmth, wisdom and charm. Of all the major POV characters, I personally find Cithrin, the up-and-coming head of a branch of a bank in the world of the series, the least interesting, but that's more a matter of taste - her motivations are a complex weave of reckless ambition and almost self-destructive excess.
With The King's Blood, therefore, The Dagger and Coin is shaping up to be one of the most compelling character-driven, thematically complex fantasies in a while.
I give this book: 4/5 stag-piercing lances