A review by marktimmony
The Obsidian Heart by Mark T. Barnes
4.0
As some of you may have noticed, I read a lot. Luckily most of the books I pick up I enjoy. If I’m not enjoying them I put them down very quickly. There are too many books waiting to be read to waste time on those that just don’t ‘do it’ for you.
Within a page of starting Gardens of Stone (Book One in the Echoes of Empire series) I knew that I was going to enjoy Mark Barnes work, I even had a sneaking suspicion that he’d push his way into the upper echelons of those authors I rate as amazing.
He did.
The Obsidian Heart is the second book in the Echoes of Empire series and where GoS was a lot of world building and furious velocity that drops the reader into the middle of a war zone at the story’s start (a la Steven Erikson) OH slows the pace and turn from blood soak fields of physical battle to the Machiavellian backstabbing, plotting and jockeying for position that is the battle field of politics.
Ever building, Barnes leads the reader through the exotically beautiful capital of Shrian and the deadly power play of the Great Houses, while ply us with hints of the rich history of one of the most magnificently realised worlds I’ve had the pleasure to read. In fact my admiration of his creation wars with a jealousy that I didn’t think of it first! Read more here.
Within a page of starting Gardens of Stone (Book One in the Echoes of Empire series) I knew that I was going to enjoy Mark Barnes work, I even had a sneaking suspicion that he’d push his way into the upper echelons of those authors I rate as amazing.
He did.
The Obsidian Heart is the second book in the Echoes of Empire series and where GoS was a lot of world building and furious velocity that drops the reader into the middle of a war zone at the story’s start (a la Steven Erikson) OH slows the pace and turn from blood soak fields of physical battle to the Machiavellian backstabbing, plotting and jockeying for position that is the battle field of politics.
Ever building, Barnes leads the reader through the exotically beautiful capital of Shrian and the deadly power play of the Great Houses, while ply us with hints of the rich history of one of the most magnificently realised worlds I’ve had the pleasure to read. In fact my admiration of his creation wars with a jealousy that I didn’t think of it first! Read more here.