BOOK REVIEW: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

I have been hearing about the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne series by Brian Staveley for quite awhile. Amazon.com has been suggesting Staveley's books to me because I have either bought books by Brent Weeks (The Lightbringer Series) and Daniel Abraham (The Dagger and the Coin series). I read some reviews on Goodreads and requested the first two books from the Glendale-Pasadena library system. I'm very glad that I did! These books excellent works of fantasy, in the classic tradition of my favorite authors like George R.R. Martin, Peter Brett and Scott Lynch.

A new name can be added to this list: Brian Staveley. His debut novel is The Emperor's Blades, which won the 2014 Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut Fantasy Novel. Happily this award-winning 2014 release is the first book in a trilogy with the second book, The Providence of Fire published in 2015 and the third and final book, The Last Mortal Bond, set to appear in March 2016. Together these three titles form what is known as The Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne.

The Unhewn Throne is the symbol of the Emperor's power in Annur.At the beginning of the first book, Emperor Sanlitun is dead, murdered by forces unknown. His three children are Adare, the eldest child, a daughter; Kaden, the Emperor's heir; and Valyn, the youngest son. Adare is in the capitol city, surrounded by both enemies and allies, where one of her father's posthumous acts has been to appoint her to be Minster of Finance. She has not seen her two younger brothers for years. At a tender age, Kaden was sent far, far away to train with the monks of the Blank God in the distant Bone Mountains at the very edge of the Annurian empire. Valyn has gone to the Qirin Islands to try out to survive the deadly training regime to become a Kettral, one of the elite forces who ride giant birds in service of the Emperor.                    

The Emperor's Blades is primarily a story about what happens to Kaden and Valyn as the ramifications of the assassination of their father the Emperor are revealed it becomes clearer that he was probably not the only member of  the royal family targeted for death. But even more intriguing is that who ultimately sits on the Unhewn Throne controlling Annur may not be the most important fact that needs to be determined.

Staveley does an excellent job of making the reader want to care about all of Sanlitun's children. (One of the main criticisms of The Emperor's Blades that one often sees is that Adare's story is not as interesting or important to the plot in the first book. This is true, but this is a somewhat minor quibble and is more than balanced by how compelling both Valyn's and Kaden's stories are. I do like Adare's character and wish there was more of her in the first book. Happily, she plays a much larger role in the sequel, The Providence of Fire. In addition to Kaden, Valyn and Adare, the other characters are also well-drawn and I was genuinely moved when really bad things happened to some of these characters who I had started to care about. The stakes are high, people! This is epic fantasy at its best.

Title: The Emperor's Blades.
Author: Brian Staveley.
Paperback: 480 pages.
Publisher: Tor.
Date Published: January 14, 2014.
Date Read: July 21, 2015.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Republic Of Thieves by Scott Lynch

Scott Lynch's The Republic of Thieves is the third book in the Gentleman Bastards series, following the rollicking success of 2007's The Lies of Locke Lamora and 2008's Red Seas Under Red Skies. 

The first two books in the Gentleman Bastards series were widely heralded as the arrival of a truly great voice in fantasy and the third book was widely anticipated, and anticipated and anticipated. Word came out that Lynch was battling depression which hampered his writing and finally the third book in the series came out five years after the second. The fourth book, The Thorn of Emberlain is scheduled for Fall 2015.

I read The Republic of Thieves eagerly when it first came out in 2013 but have delayed my review of the book due to the fact I have been spending more time reading books than reviewing them on my blog recently. The third book really is quite good, definitely not as good as the first one but better than most fantasy books. According to goodreads, the Gentleman Bastards books have ratings of 4.28 (Lies), 4.22 (Skies) and 4.21 (Thieves), respectively. The Amazon ratings are similar to the goodreads: 4.3 (Lies), 4.2 (Skies) and 4.2 (Thieves).

The Republic of Thieves is a large and complicated book. It takes place in multiple time lines and follows the story of Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen, two of the principal members of the Gentleman Bastards, a group of talented grifters and thieves we have come to know and love in the first two books in the series. The book tells the past backstory of the love of Locke's life, a former member of the group named Sabetha Belacoros, as well as sets up a current high-stakes clash between the two where the goal is to win a majority of seats in a local city council election by any means necessary.

There is also a meta-plot (which gets short shrift, if I recall correctly) about the near-omnipotent beings who set the current situation into motion and who were maneuvering mostly behind-the-scenes to influence the events that occurred in the first two books.

The Gentleman Bastards books are a lot of fun, primarily because of the characters of Locke and Jean and the rest of the crew (I'm a big fan of the Sanza twins) and the sheer hilarity of the capers that they are forced to pull off to extricate themselves from the situations they find themselves in. In addition to his imagination for intriguing heists, the author distinguishes himself from a large fraction of fantasy by his use of language, especially his incisive deployment of humor, insult and mockery by his characters.

In the end The Republic of Thieves is negatively impacted (in my opinion) by its reliance on making the central tension in the plot be about Locke's infatuation with Sabetha and the question of whether there is a way that the two can ever find romantic happiness together or not. Don't get me wrong, this is not to say that The Republic of Thieves is a Gabaldonian hybrid of romance and science fiction, it's just that this particular sub-plot of "will they or won't they" became uninteresting to me after awhile and lead to part of the middle third of the book tending to drag a bit.

That being said, I am very glad that Lynch has continued the Gentleman Bastards series and it looks like that we will have a new entry in the series by the end of this year. I can't wait!

Title: The Republic of Thieves.
Author: Scott Lynch.
Paperback: 608 pages.
Publisher: Gollancz.
Date: October 10, 2013.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.