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A review by zitongren
Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan
5.0
A fantasy world set in the Napoleonic era of technology? An original and awesome magic system that involves guns? An imaginative world that has everything fantasy world needs? Brilliant characters? Steady pacing and an awesome plot?
All of this screams Yes for someone like me who absolutely loves fantasy and has been away from an actually proper good fantasy series for too long. Recently, I have read a fair share of dystopia’s after loving [b: Legend|9275658|Legend (Legend, #1)|Marie Lu|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1501368160s/9275658.jpg|14157512], including more of Aveyard(which was a disaster and Patrick Ness’s awesome Chaos Walking series. The last time that I read proper fantasy was Brett’s Demon Cycle and I only thoroughly liked his first book, so I guess I can pray that book 2, [b: The Crimson Campaign|17608111|The Crimson Campaign (Powder Mage, #2)|Brian McClellan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1363102695s/17608111.jpg|24566794] will be equally as good or even better than this book was.
This awesome piece of fantasy was actually on my did not finish shelf and it has been pretty much exactly one year since I dropped this book. Frankly I don’t even remember why, but I think that I was more eager to read other things and it was around that time that I did get into Erikson’s Malazan series, so… blame that.
The Napoleonic Era is one of my favourite periods in history and having a entire fantasy series based on that time frame is just freaking fantastic. Also, to be fair, I have been reading too much YA where all the characters are in their early/late teens which often brings a fair bit of immaturity that sometimes might not feel right in the situation. This book does not have any of that. In fact, many of the main characters are leaning towards old age, but that does not make them any less energetic, but rather means that they understand how to go about things through this thing called experience, which I often find YA characters lacking. Look at Mare or Ruby for crying out loud. Right of the bat, we have an execution that resembles the French Revolution that leads to a full blown war with Adro’s powerful neighbour, the Kez which has an army that outnumbers them, I kidd you not, outnumbers them five to one. This led me to search up a world map to find that Adro is in fact the smallest country in all of the Nine(the main countries in this world that is largely based of Europe) while Kez looks like it would be able to steam through it.
This books has tons of plotting, political intrigue and there is no one that is necessarily good or bad, people who do things for their gain perhaps, or bad leaders, but not people who want to destroy the world. This only makes me like the book more as there is no one specific ‘bad’ guy but a number of people plotting and trying to seek the advantage.
If the rest of this trilogy is as good as this book was, as I literally can not find anything wrong with the characters, world or pacing in this book, then this will be sure to be a new favourite of mine. 10/10
All of this screams Yes for someone like me who absolutely loves fantasy and has been away from an actually proper good fantasy series for too long. Recently, I have read a fair share of dystopia’s after loving [b: Legend|9275658|Legend (Legend, #1)|Marie Lu|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1501368160s/9275658.jpg|14157512], including more of Aveyard(which was a disaster and Patrick Ness’s awesome Chaos Walking series. The last time that I read proper fantasy was Brett’s Demon Cycle and I only thoroughly liked his first book, so I guess I can pray that book 2, [b: The Crimson Campaign|17608111|The Crimson Campaign (Powder Mage, #2)|Brian McClellan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1363102695s/17608111.jpg|24566794] will be equally as good or even better than this book was.
This awesome piece of fantasy was actually on my did not finish shelf and it has been pretty much exactly one year since I dropped this book. Frankly I don’t even remember why, but I think that I was more eager to read other things and it was around that time that I did get into Erikson’s Malazan series, so… blame that.
The Napoleonic Era is one of my favourite periods in history and having a entire fantasy series based on that time frame is just freaking fantastic. Also, to be fair, I have been reading too much YA where all the characters are in their early/late teens which often brings a fair bit of immaturity that sometimes might not feel right in the situation. This book does not have any of that. In fact, many of the main characters are leaning towards old age, but that does not make them any less energetic, but rather means that they understand how to go about things through this thing called experience, which I often find YA characters lacking. Look at Mare or Ruby for crying out loud. Right of the bat, we have an execution that resembles the French Revolution that leads to a full blown war with Adro’s powerful neighbour, the Kez which has an army that outnumbers them, I kidd you not, outnumbers them five to one. This led me to search up a world map to find that Adro is in fact the smallest country in all of the Nine(the main countries in this world that is largely based of Europe) while Kez looks like it would be able to steam through it.
This books has tons of plotting, political intrigue and there is no one that is necessarily good or bad, people who do things for their gain perhaps, or bad leaders, but not people who want to destroy the world. This only makes me like the book more as there is no one specific ‘bad’ guy but a number of people plotting and trying to seek the advantage.
If the rest of this trilogy is as good as this book was, as I literally can not find anything wrong with the characters, world or pacing in this book, then this will be sure to be a new favourite of mine. 10/10