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A review by escan
Cold Iron by Miles Cameron
5.0
Definitely a slow burn - it took me a few goes to properly get into it, hence the start and finish dates which are almost a year apart, but once I was into it, I was into it. I loved the Byzantine-esque setting, Aranthur’s awareness that he’s becoming someone else and he has to choose who that is, the huge amount of linguistic depth in the novel (I’m a nerd!), and the slightly on-the-nose but very socially relevant themes of violence, persecution, racism, and refugees.
The book jumped around a lot from, for example, a night out at the theatre to Aranthur’s work at the leather shop the next day, or a sword fight ending in bloodshed to a scene of daily life at the Academy. At first, this really frustrated me - characters got left behind, moments of tension were left without resolution, and there seemed to be loose threads dangling everywhere. In my third attempt at reading it, however, my patience was rewarded, as in the second half of the book all those threads begin to intertwine to create an exciting story that sits somewhere between a military campaign and an espionage thriller (all while Aranthur tries to balance his studies, his work, his relationships and Finding Himself).
The book jumped around a lot from, for example, a night out at the theatre to Aranthur’s work at the leather shop the next day, or a sword fight ending in bloodshed to a scene of daily life at the Academy. At first, this really frustrated me - characters got left behind, moments of tension were left without resolution, and there seemed to be loose threads dangling everywhere. In my third attempt at reading it, however, my patience was rewarded, as in the second half of the book all those threads begin to intertwine to create an exciting story that sits somewhere between a military campaign and an espionage thriller (all while Aranthur tries to balance his studies, his work, his relationships and Finding Himself).