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A review by prairiephlox
Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan
3.0
A spoiler laden review- so at your own risk.
This was an incredibly strong opening to a series by a freshman author and I have every intention of continuing on and finishing the gunpowder trilogy. That said, I waffle between giving this book a 3 or a 4 star review. There are some things that I found refreshing and that I really enjoyed- like the idea that as technology progresses new magics also appear, in this case the gunpowder mages. I also really enjoyed the idea of gods becoming actively involved in politics because of ye olde promises they had made in folklore/religious doctrine despite the fact that most people consider themselves “modern” and don’t put much stock in the actual stories of their religion. I love the idea that you enter the story after a coup has happened, and you are watching everyone as they try and put the pieces of their country back together again. These were interesting perspectives and advantages that the story had, and I love a good “patriotism to the people” story.
But there were times that I felt the story was cliché or slow. A lot of Adamat’s background story seemed superfluous. I felt that we watched families be abducted to cause betrayals in a very repetitive (though admittedly effective) fashion. Something about the mute savage seems so *done* to me. Many of the “plot twists” I also saw coming from about a mile away. This didn’t lessen my interest, but did allow me to slacken my pace in reading. Then there was the magic system. It very much felt like the author began writing the story and did not have the magic system in place. The way in which he described the third eye opening went from casual sentences to grand descriptions by the end of the book. The same sort of goes for the way in which the powder mages powers work, it seemed very ill-defined at the beginning, and only began to take shape in the latter half. I felt like I just wanted a more discrete description of what was going on. I hope that in the next two books it’s something that the author defines more.
So I continue to feel myself waffle on the rating. I think I will go with 3 out of 5. I liked it, I’m excited to see this author grow. I just felt that this book had more potential than what it eventually gave me in actuality. I would recommend it, but probably only to true fantasy genre lovers.
Best character: obviously Mihali.
This was an incredibly strong opening to a series by a freshman author and I have every intention of continuing on and finishing the gunpowder trilogy. That said, I waffle between giving this book a 3 or a 4 star review. There are some things that I found refreshing and that I really enjoyed- like the idea that as technology progresses new magics also appear, in this case the gunpowder mages. I also really enjoyed the idea of gods becoming actively involved in politics because of ye olde promises they had made in folklore/religious doctrine despite the fact that most people consider themselves “modern” and don’t put much stock in the actual stories of their religion. I love the idea that you enter the story after a coup has happened, and you are watching everyone as they try and put the pieces of their country back together again. These were interesting perspectives and advantages that the story had, and I love a good “patriotism to the people” story.
But there were times that I felt the story was cliché or slow. A lot of Adamat’s background story seemed superfluous. I felt that we watched families be abducted to cause betrayals in a very repetitive (though admittedly effective) fashion. Something about the mute savage seems so *done* to me. Many of the “plot twists” I also saw coming from about a mile away. This didn’t lessen my interest, but did allow me to slacken my pace in reading. Then there was the magic system. It very much felt like the author began writing the story and did not have the magic system in place. The way in which he described the third eye opening went from casual sentences to grand descriptions by the end of the book. The same sort of goes for the way in which the powder mages powers work, it seemed very ill-defined at the beginning, and only began to take shape in the latter half. I felt like I just wanted a more discrete description of what was going on. I hope that in the next two books it’s something that the author defines more.
So I continue to feel myself waffle on the rating. I think I will go with 3 out of 5. I liked it, I’m excited to see this author grow. I just felt that this book had more potential than what it eventually gave me in actuality. I would recommend it, but probably only to true fantasy genre lovers.
Best character: obviously Mihali.