Nerine Dorman originally recommended Promise of Blood to me, and as soon as I’d downloaded the sample I knew I’d need to read the whole book. Fantasy is one of those genres that can easily tread the same old tired, worn path, but not so for Brian McClellan – yes, his book features magic and ancient gods, but it also has a more ‘Georgian’ feel to the warfare, with powder mages armed with bayonets and gunpowder. I feel like I’m a little late to the party since this came out in 2013, but that just means I can whizz onto book 2, The Crimson Campaign (2015) and then book 3, The Autumn Republic (2016).
Here’s the blurb from Amazon;
The Age of Kings is dead . . . and I have killed it.
It’s a bloody business overthrowing a king…
Field Marshal Tamas’ coup against his king sent corrupt aristocrats to the guillotine and brought bread to the starving. But it also provoked war with the Nine Nations, internal attacks by royalist fanatics, and the greedy to scramble for money and power by Tamas’s supposed allies: the Church, workers unions, and mercenary forces.
It’s up to a few…
Stretched to his limit, Tamas is relying heavily on his few remaining powder mages, including the embittered Taniel, a brilliant marksman who also happens to be his estranged son, and Adamat, a retired police inspector whose loyalty is being tested by blackmail.
But when gods are involved…
Now, as attacks batter them from within and without, the credulous are whispering about omens of death and destruction. Just old peasant legends about the gods waking to walk the earth. No modern educated man believes that sort of thing. But they should…
In a rich, distinctive world that mixes magic with technology, who could stand against mages that control gunpowder and bullets? PROMISE OF BLOOD is the start of a new epic fantasy series from Brian McClellan.
This addition of technology into the fantasy genre is one of Promise of Blood‘s many strengths. It’s a genre-bending book, featuring a conspiracy that must be unwound using good old-fashioned detective work, mythology, fantasy and a whole heap of action along the way. Many fantasy books seem to owe a debt to Tolkien but McClellan’s work is more Bernard Cornwell – there was definitely an element of the ‘Richard Sharpe’ about the powder mages! The characters are well-rounded and flawed, and the narrative cracks along at a snappy pace, never dragging or sagging as longer works are wont to do. Definitely worth checking out if you like fantasy with a difference.
You can grab Promise of Blood from Amazon here.
Sounds cool
Well worth a read!