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A review by bhalpin
Blades of the Old Empire by Anna Kashina
3.0
Here's what I loved: this is a fantasy novel that forgoes the usual Ponderous First Third of the book. We start with a battle, and it's pretty much "there's stuff happening; keep up" for the rest of the book. Which I actually like!
So, wonderfully paced and plotted (fantastic twist about halfway through that had me like, "how will they ever get out of this???"), but then the thing I liked about it became a problem. I never got much of a sense of the characters, except that they all have crushes and some smell like fresh water and pine even though they fight all the time and never seem to bathe. I was hooked enough by the plot to finish, but in the end, I didn't feel like I knew enough about the characters to really want to spend more time with them. And the political stuff at the end sailed right over my head because it was never set up earlier in the book.
All of which is possibly explained by the fact that though this is billed as book 1, it turns out to be the second book with these characters. Not sure why this was done or who's responsible, but it's a disservice to this book. It felt like I was supposed to know all of this stuff (like what the Keepers are, exactly) already BECAUSE I WAS. I probably won't continue with the series because I didn't care enough about the characters or the world, which might not have been the case if I'd read the actual first book. (It's called The First Sword, btw.)
So, wonderfully paced and plotted (fantastic twist about halfway through that had me like, "how will they ever get out of this???"), but then the thing I liked about it became a problem. I never got much of a sense of the characters, except that they all have crushes and some smell like fresh water and pine even though they fight all the time and never seem to bathe. I was hooked enough by the plot to finish, but in the end, I didn't feel like I knew enough about the characters to really want to spend more time with them. And the political stuff at the end sailed right over my head because it was never set up earlier in the book.
All of which is possibly explained by the fact that though this is billed as book 1, it turns out to be the second book with these characters. Not sure why this was done or who's responsible, but it's a disservice to this book. It felt like I was supposed to know all of this stuff (like what the Keepers are, exactly) already BECAUSE I WAS. I probably won't continue with the series because I didn't care enough about the characters or the world, which might not have been the case if I'd read the actual first book. (It's called The First Sword, btw.)