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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
I am not a particular fan of muskets being involved in fantasy books, but thought I would give this a try after reading the dissappointing Promsie of Blood (which was also a world with muskets).
I found this book had a good pace to it, reasonably interesting characters and a grittiness Promise of Blood was sadly lacking. There could of been a few more main characters, but overall the plot was interesting and developed well.
I do feel this was an introduction to a far more far reaching and interesting world and am definately looking forward to the next installment.
I found this book had a good pace to it, reasonably interesting characters and a grittiness Promise of Blood was sadly lacking. There could of been a few more main characters, but overall the plot was interesting and developed well.
I do feel this was an introduction to a far more far reaching and interesting world and am definately looking forward to the next installment.
This book was quite interesting. Having POVs from opposite sides of conflict can have a good potential and the author did it quite well. Military tactics, character interactions and other things were well described. But I think that there could be more...
“Of the two, the Almighty was a good deal less frightening. The Lord, in his infinite mercy, might forgive a soldier who strayed from the path, but the Last Duke certainly would not.”
I read this as a buddy read with Sam from The Book in Hand and Eleni, my co-blogger at FanFiAddict. I hadn’t read a Flintlock Fantasy since the Powder Mage trilogy by Brian Mcclellan, so when Eleni suggested we buddy read one of her favorites series I was all about it, having had this book on my TBR for a considerable amount of time.Thanks to them for making this reading experience so much fun!
The Thousand Names is easily one of my favorite books I’ve read in 2021. The combination of high stakes warfare with flintlock weapons, intrigue, and fantastic characters made for a book that I couldn’t help wanting to come back to when I had a spare moment. The story starts off somewhat slowly, utilizing the first 20% – 30% to set up the world, the political situation, and to introduce the characters we would follow throughout this novel. However, after that things really get going. Wexler creates a pace that never felt fast, but always felt purposeful and intentional. Each moment of the story was engaging and immersive, creating a page turner of a book that I did not want to put down.
“He’d sometimes thought that the War College was really a thinly disguised royal subsidy to the local tavern industry.
The highlight of The Thousand Names has to be the characters. We follow two POVs for the majority of this story. One is Winter Ihernglass, a soldier on the run from the past with a secret that could destory her. The other is Marcus, loyal Senior Captain of the regiment who is basically just done with everything. I loved following both of these characters as they encounter tons of adversity in this book. Seeing how they adapt and fight their way through their troubles was one of my favorite things about it. Wexler also writes non-POV characters in a compelling way. Often these types of characters can be basically caricatures or very 1 sided characters that don’t have any agency. Not so in this book. The author provides us with memorable side characters including but not limited to Colonel Janus, Lieutenant Fitz, Feor, Jen Alhundt, Jaffa, Sargeants Bobby, Graff, and Folsom, and Captains Adrecht, Val, and Mor.
“Can you be haunted by someone who isn’t dead?”
This is a tale of war and the people who fight in it. The purposeful nature of the pacing of the plot is reflected in the calculating and strategic mind of Colonel Janus, who leads the war effort. I loved this mysterious character and the way that Wexler slowly unraveled both his personality and his secret desires and ambitions. I also really enjoyed that the author never really tried to smack us in the face with the fact that the people we are following are the good guys. In fact, there were plenty of times where I questioned whether this army deserved for me to be rooting for them. However, as I mentioned above I loved the characters and couldn’t help but root for them.
The Thousand Names was an incredible book one. A Military Fantasy filled with fantastic worldbuilding, compelling and unique characters, mysteries and intrigue that had me hooked, and a plot that had me constantly wanting more. A story that stands very well on its own, while at the same time hinting at so much more to come. I have already started book 2 and I cannot wait to see where this story goes from here!
I read this as a buddy read with Sam from The Book in Hand and Eleni, my co-blogger at FanFiAddict. I hadn’t read a Flintlock Fantasy since the Powder Mage trilogy by Brian Mcclellan, so when Eleni suggested we buddy read one of her favorites series I was all about it, having had this book on my TBR for a considerable amount of time.Thanks to them for making this reading experience so much fun!
The Thousand Names is easily one of my favorite books I’ve read in 2021. The combination of high stakes warfare with flintlock weapons, intrigue, and fantastic characters made for a book that I couldn’t help wanting to come back to when I had a spare moment. The story starts off somewhat slowly, utilizing the first 20% – 30% to set up the world, the political situation, and to introduce the characters we would follow throughout this novel. However, after that things really get going. Wexler creates a pace that never felt fast, but always felt purposeful and intentional. Each moment of the story was engaging and immersive, creating a page turner of a book that I did not want to put down.
“He’d sometimes thought that the War College was really a thinly disguised royal subsidy to the local tavern industry.
The highlight of The Thousand Names has to be the characters. We follow two POVs for the majority of this story. One is Winter Ihernglass, a soldier on the run from the past with a secret that could destory her. The other is Marcus, loyal Senior Captain of the regiment who is basically just done with everything. I loved following both of these characters as they encounter tons of adversity in this book. Seeing how they adapt and fight their way through their troubles was one of my favorite things about it. Wexler also writes non-POV characters in a compelling way. Often these types of characters can be basically caricatures or very 1 sided characters that don’t have any agency. Not so in this book. The author provides us with memorable side characters including but not limited to Colonel Janus, Lieutenant Fitz, Feor, Jen Alhundt, Jaffa, Sargeants Bobby, Graff, and Folsom, and Captains Adrecht, Val, and Mor.
“Can you be haunted by someone who isn’t dead?”
This is a tale of war and the people who fight in it. The purposeful nature of the pacing of the plot is reflected in the calculating and strategic mind of Colonel Janus, who leads the war effort. I loved this mysterious character and the way that Wexler slowly unraveled both his personality and his secret desires and ambitions. I also really enjoyed that the author never really tried to smack us in the face with the fact that the people we are following are the good guys. In fact, there were plenty of times where I questioned whether this army deserved for me to be rooting for them. However, as I mentioned above I loved the characters and couldn’t help but root for them.
The Thousand Names was an incredible book one. A Military Fantasy filled with fantastic worldbuilding, compelling and unique characters, mysteries and intrigue that had me hooked, and a plot that had me constantly wanting more. A story that stands very well on its own, while at the same time hinting at so much more to come. I have already started book 2 and I cannot wait to see where this story goes from here!
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Male and female POV writing - nicely done.
Military detail - extensive and lovingly described, esp. battle strategy, you'll need to really enjoy that stuff to get through this book.
An awareness of how fantasy realms track against real ones and the resonance of an army of 'plucky whites' fighting overwhelming numbers of 'the locals' in a desert setting - highly lacking. Making the indigenous people 'grey-skinned' didn't in any way solve the race problem, especially when we start the book very promisingly from their POV.
A good story, that could have been made great by listening to a sensitivity reader's feedback. 14/20
Military detail - extensive and lovingly described, esp. battle strategy, you'll need to really enjoy that stuff to get through this book.
An awareness of how fantasy realms track against real ones and the resonance of an army of 'plucky whites' fighting overwhelming numbers of 'the locals' in a desert setting - highly lacking. Making the indigenous people 'grey-skinned' didn't in any way solve the race problem, especially when we start the book very promisingly from their POV.
A good story, that could have been made great by listening to a sensitivity reader's feedback. 14/20
This book is so great guys. I definitely wouldn't have thought so without Winter/Bobby/Feor. I wasn't especting them, and Winter might be one of my favourite characters in fantasy now. My only beef is that it takes a really long time to get to the point. If the characters weren't interesting enough this would have been a problem. I'm interested to see where book 2 goes.
Action-packed, fun, and rowdy. The ending is as predictable as the character development, but entirely entertaining nonetheless.
I'm really glad I picked up The Thousand Names, the first book in the Shadow Campaigns flintlock fantasy series. I mean, who can't resist flintlock fantasy written by someone with the name Django Wexler? In all seriousness it was a solid book with an interesting backdrop. The setting takes place in a desert colonial outpost (Khandar) on the fringes of a large and powerful empire (the Vordan Empire). Right before the book begins, there has been upheaval in this colonial possession as the propped up state is overthrown by a rebellion with a large helping of zeal for a new religion ready to sweep away the old.
The colonial garrison has been wasting away since the original conquest and it is among these colonials where the two POV characters come from. Captain Marcus d'Ivoire volunteered for this ill reputed post essentially to remove himself from his past and suddenly has to be in position of serious leadership as a campaign mounts up to reassert Vordan authority. Winter Ihernglass on the other hand is a women who is disguising herself as a man in order to serve in the army. Similar to Marcus, she too is trying to prevent the past from ever catching back up to her. Throughout the novel, Winter climbs the ranks as she performs nobly with the men under her change. A the same time, she is trying to keep her cover intact as well as care for a hidden refugee.
There were a few sticking points that bothered me with the book. First, the reinforcements for the languishing colonial troops are the greenest troops I've ever read before. Some have had a grand total of 0 days in training. But, after some drilling on the march apparently most of them are up to snuff miraculously. There is also a relationship that the reader can see a mile away. The predictability of the relationship isn't the problem though. The problem is when one of the characters essentially works for this shady and sketchy secret police cabal and the other character is sort of “meh” since he knows the whole time.
The biggest problem I had with the story was the magic though. The weirdness alone wasn't a big deal (licking eyeballs for example.) My problem was that the magical elements are largely entities residing inside people to enhance their abilities/powers/strength to a point where they can literally catch bullets. While they are not overly present in this volume, I'm nervous about the scaling up of magical elements in the later books since the average person has absolutely no way of confronting such power. The only way that these magical people are are managed is for someone else with a stronger entity to deal with them.
That being said, I did enjoy the characters quite a lot. Since there were only two POVs they became quite fleshed out for the most part and they had depth. Even many of the side characters were well done as well, my favorite being the eccentric Count Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran. The pacing of the book was also really well done in that it felt like an actual planned campaign going on rather than one major cataclysmic battle at the end. There are pitched battles, stealth, and skirmishing that take place interspersed throughout the book and it flows quite well.
Overall I was very pleased with the book and look forward to reading the remaining four books in the Shadow Campaigns.
4 out of 5 stars.
The colonial garrison has been wasting away since the original conquest and it is among these colonials where the two POV characters come from. Captain Marcus d'Ivoire volunteered for this ill reputed post essentially to remove himself from his past and suddenly has to be in position of serious leadership as a campaign mounts up to reassert Vordan authority. Winter Ihernglass on the other hand is a women who is disguising herself as a man in order to serve in the army. Similar to Marcus, she too is trying to prevent the past from ever catching back up to her. Throughout the novel, Winter climbs the ranks as she performs nobly with the men under her change. A the same time, she is trying to keep her cover intact as well as care for a hidden refugee.
There were a few sticking points that bothered me with the book. First, the reinforcements for the languishing colonial troops are the greenest troops I've ever read before. Some have had a grand total of 0 days in training. But, after some drilling on the march apparently most of them are up to snuff miraculously. There is also a relationship that the reader can see a mile away. The predictability of the relationship isn't the problem though. The problem is when one of the characters essentially works for this shady and sketchy secret police cabal and the other character is sort of “meh” since he knows the whole time.
The biggest problem I had with the story was the magic though. The weirdness alone wasn't a big deal (licking eyeballs for example.) My problem was that the magical elements are largely entities residing inside people to enhance their abilities/powers/strength to a point where they can literally catch bullets. While they are not overly present in this volume, I'm nervous about the scaling up of magical elements in the later books since the average person has absolutely no way of confronting such power. The only way that these magical people are are managed is for someone else with a stronger entity to deal with them.
That being said, I did enjoy the characters quite a lot. Since there were only two POVs they became quite fleshed out for the most part and they had depth. Even many of the side characters were well done as well, my favorite being the eccentric Count Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran. The pacing of the book was also really well done in that it felt like an actual planned campaign going on rather than one major cataclysmic battle at the end. There are pitched battles, stealth, and skirmishing that take place interspersed throughout the book and it flows quite well.
Overall I was very pleased with the book and look forward to reading the remaining four books in the Shadow Campaigns.
4 out of 5 stars.
Extremely good, but not quite 5/5. Perhaps it didn't surprise me enough to get the full 5, not sure what my hesitation is exactly.
So far, so standard. Nothing really stood out for me in this book, neither positive nor negative. I do like the setting, fantasy with powder weapons is almost criminally underused. I did like Janus, and the beginning of the story reminded me of the Chain of Dogs in [b:Deadhouse Gates|55401|Deadhouse Gates (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, #2)|Steven Erikson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1385272744s/55401.jpg|3898716], one of my favourite stories of all the books I've read so far. In fact, between this book and the updates by a GoodReads-Friend, I have decided to re-read the Malazan series when I'm done with the second book of this series, but that's besides the point.
So, nothing out of the ordinary here. If you are looking for a book with fantasy in a powder weapons setting, you basically have the choice between this one and [b:Promise of Blood|15790883|Promise of Blood (The Powder Mage, #1)|Brian McClellan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1350337505s/15790883.jpg|21512438] / the Powder Mage Series, and in that case I'd recommend Promise of Blood over this one, at least if you like your fantasy with a lot of magic. If you'd rather have very little mystical stuff going on,why are you reading fantasy? you should pick this one up.
So, nothing out of the ordinary here. If you are looking for a book with fantasy in a powder weapons setting, you basically have the choice between this one and [b:Promise of Blood|15790883|Promise of Blood (The Powder Mage, #1)|Brian McClellan|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1350337505s/15790883.jpg|21512438] / the Powder Mage Series, and in that case I'd recommend Promise of Blood over this one, at least if you like your fantasy with a lot of magic. If you'd rather have very little mystical stuff going on,