A review by jackmonetdfa
Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Woodring Stover

2.0

Heroes Die was one of my favorite reads of last year. It had a certain pulpy elegance in its freight train plotting and the core protagonist/antagonist duo of Caine and emperor Ma’ElKoth was genuinely compelling. It read like the novelization to a potent late 80’s/early 90’s Hollywood SFF blockbuster that never went into production. The follow-up, Blade of Tyshalle has some inspired stretches, but even at it’s best it feels like a ghostly retread of more compelling material from Heroes Die. And what’s being freshly explored in this sequel is more often miss than hit. The swings that Stover takes in BoT aren’t inherently bad, he wanted to tell a darker, more interior story. Fair enough. Unfortunately, the flatter character writing and not infrequent amateurish philosophizing nearly sink it.