A review by ineffablebob
The Desert and the Blade by S.M. Stirling

5.0

The Golden Princess (prior book in this series) was long and had little action. Mostly it felt like an entire novel's worth of setup. All that led into a whole lot of things happening in this book. It's still long, 600 pages in the hardback edition I read, but this time action is not missing. It feels like the two books were meant as one narrative arc, so long that it had to be published in two parts. (Maybe it was, I dunno.) If you felt a bit let down by The Golden Princess, I think you'll find that The Desert and the Blade is a return to what we're used to in the Emberverse series.