My appreciation of Brian McClellan’s storytelling started as something of a slow burn, as I read and liked Promise of Blood but did not feel greatly compelled to move forward with the series – at least not until I had the opportunity to read the first book of this new series, Sins of Empire, and found myself totally engaged with the story and characters, to the point that I went back to the Poweder Mage trilogy and started retracing my steps. Wrath of Empire is not only a worthy sequel to its predecessor, it’s also a huge game changer in the overall narrative sequence and the kind of story that consumes the reader with the sheer need to know what happens next.

Starting straight where Sins of Empire left, this second book of the Gods of Blood and Powder series takes us once again to the continent of Fatrasta, now in the throes of the Dynize invasion: as the attackers try to consolidate their hold on the capital of Landfall, they are also searching for the godstones, the powerful artifacts that will help them resurrect a god as a means of uniting their peoples once more. Clearly they have not learned anything from the past mistakes of others…. Two of the godstones might be found at the farthest corners of the territory, so our heroes are compelled to divide their forces in the attempt of finding and possibly destroying the artifacts before the Dynize can acquire them: Vlora and her Riflejacks, together with Taniel, head north toward the secluded valleys where gold mining operations are underway, having to balance the need for speed with the secrecy surrounding their mission, which makes things all the more difficult considering the natural suspicion of the miners concerning their claims and profits. Mad Ben Styke and the Lancers, with the addition of Ka-poel, travel in the opposite direction, constantly fighting with the encroaching Dynize army, while Ben tries to carry on his personal vendetta against the former comrades who betrayed him and sent him to the labor camps. And lastly, Michel Bravis, former Blackhat and Taniel’s fifth column in Landfall, must remain in the occupied city trying to find one of Taniel’s informants and bring her to safety before she’s discovered.

The three separate narrative threads are interwoven with such skill that the novel quickly becomes a compulsive reading with never a moment of respite, and pervaded with a mounting sense of urgency and dread as the clues pile up and we are made privy to the invaders’ plans and witness the defenders’ apparently impossible task in the face of such odds. At the same time we see more of Fatrasta: where Sins of Empire, with its focus on the city of Landfall, might have felt more cramped, so to speak, here our knowledge of the land and its history expands as the characters travel through it – and of course the characters are those who get the lion’s share of the narrative, taking on more facets and depth as the story goes on.

Ben Styke is the one who undergoes the greater changes: we first knew him as a mountain of a man gifted with enormous aggressive potential and the kind of physical stamina that made him appear almost invincible, more berserker than simply fearless. His interactions with Celine, the orphan child he befriended in the camps and became his ward, have changed him however, because he finds himself thinking more and more about what consequences his eventual death might have for his young ward. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg: apart from the delightful exchanges between the two of them, where the interaction of grizzled warrior and not-quite-innocent child gives way to several amusing passages, it’s Ben’s quest for vengeance on the men who betrayed him that transforms him and, more importantly, forces him to think about himself and his motivations. There is something approaching inner pain in Ben’s musings when he considers how his past actions have shaped both his personality and his “legend”, and it’s only in the acceptance of his failings as an individual, and the acknowledgement of old age, that he gets closer to his own long-lost humanity.

The other character who gains more interesting facets is Michel Bravis, who infiltrated the Blackhats for Taniel, playing a dangerous double game in which he was forced to compartmentalize his mind to work more efficiently in his role. Asked to remain in occupied Landfall, he’s walking on a razor’s edge as he works with his former colleagues to smuggle the families of other Blackhats out of the grasp of the Dynize, while trying to keep those same colleagues from learning that he was a traitor. This difficult balancing act is rendered even more dangerous by Taniel’s request to extract a precious informant about which Michel has very little information: forced to align himself with the Dynize, poor Michel finds his loyalties sorely tested once he realizes that not all of the invaders are bad people and that among them he can find the kind of human connection that his previous work always denied him. This is a man who had to keep to himself as much as possible so as not to blow his cover, and it’s here that we see his profound loneliness and the strong need to belong: if I found this character interesting before, it was this book that made me sympathize with him quite deeply.

Last but not least, Taniel and Vlora enjoy their own limelight as they engage in a spying mission without the support of the Riflejacks: there is something that reminded me of classic westerns as I followed their progress in the isolated mining community near the hiding place of one of the godstones, and if I still have some reservations about Taniel (he started out as a somewhat whiny young man with big daddy issues to morph into an inscrutable person with uncanny powers, who has no qualms about using others to attain his goals), I greatly enjoyed the focus on Vlora as her courage and capacity for self-sacrifice were showcased in the latter part of the story. I might have had some complaints about the author’s treatment of female characters at the beginning of the Powder Mage trilogy, but I acknowledge that he changed course as the story unfolded and made me completely forget those early objections.

Add to all of that a few momentous revelations (and no, I’m not telling you about whom, it would be quite unfair to even hint anything!) and a final section that literally took my breath away as I feared for the survival of some of the characters, and you will understand why I used the phrase ‘consumed by the need to know’ at the beginning of this review. The scene is all set for what promises to be a spectacular conclusion to this trilogy, one I will wait for with barely contained impatience.

Well done indeed…

I loved Sins of Empire, if you haven't read that one yet I would read that review/book first before reading this review as there will be spoilers for Sins of Empire. I listened to this via audiobook and received it via NetGalley/Orbit - thank you! Spelling goes out the window with audiobooks, so, keep that in mind. 

This book picks up where the last one left off - the Dioneyes are invading Fatrasta with a mind to take back their old city, and find their lost artefacts - the most important being the God Stones. They are landing all around the coast and seem to come in waves that don't end and things are getting very tense. 

Tanniel and Karpole are still calling the shots and putting their pieces in their places without the pieces knowing what the end game is. Despite being a very old friend and ex-fiance, even Vlora doesn't know what Tanniel's core motives are and what his end plans may be... or if she can even trust him not to get her killed. Tanniel's determined to get to the God Stones before the Dioneyes, and part of making that happen is keeping his undercover contacts safe. He wants Mikel to find his Dioneyes informant and get her out of the city before she's found out and killed. The problem is that Tanniel doesn't even know what this woman looks like, all the info he gives to Mikel is that her name is Mara. Mikel is trying to find this woman while the Black Hats are hunting him, he's been caught meeting with Tanniel and therefore outed as a spy. All of his safe houses and resources are lost when his cover is blown, forcing him to make unlikely allies to survive long enough to complete his mission. He has a sneaking suspicion that Tanniel knows that this is a near suicide mission. I thought it was interesting that despite his cover being blown, Mikel continues to talk and argue with himself, I found his dual personality fascinating in the first book so it was funny to see this tick continue. 

Meanwhile, Styke is working for Vlora taking over her cavalry unit, commanding them in the field against the Dioneyes. What Stykes doesn't know is that he's being hunted down by 6 Dragonmen who were recently freed from prison, with the promise that if they bring their master the head of Styke that they will be set free. Ben is busy hunting down the men who betrayed him which lead to him being forced into a slave labor camp and trying to keep Vlora's men together. Styke is also paired up with Karpole for a while, and their two strong-willed but polar opposite personalities make for some entertaining scenes. 

Vlora is being squeezed from all sides, the Fatrastans are angry with her, the Dioneyes have a debt to settle with her, and she's trying to escort hundreds of thousands of citizens fleeing the cities to safety. She's overwhelmed and overworked with no money to pay her army, she's working off promissory notes against her personal account and things are wearing thin. Tanniel is insisting that she help him find the God Stones which is a dangerous task in itself, let alone everything else she has going on. 

The main POV's from the last book are the same for this book, which lent itself to the faster pace of the book, there's no slowing down to learn a bunch of new people. The relationship between Styke and Selina continued to be a highlight of his chapters for me, it creates such a stark contrast to the rest of his persona and rounds him out so nicely. It's also interesting watching a young girl growing up in a labor camp where people kill each other regularly right in front of her, over something as trivial as bread. And now she's watching Ben take vengeance on people who have wronged him in the past, she takes a neutral almost academic like stance on Ben's killing, wondering why he kills some and spares others. The fact that Ben does show mercy at points helps make him a character you can continue to root for, I prefer when characters are less bloodthirsty. 

In my opinion, this book was faster paced than the first one. Sins of Empire was all leading up to the events of this book, it was a slower burn up until the Dioneyes arrived and laid siege to the city, which is right where this book picks up. Everything is coming together and I absolutely blew through this book, I couldn't stop listening to it. The audiobook remains fantastic, I'm probably going to seek out other SFF by this narrator. 

The writing continues to be great, but it also continues to use that fake curse word "pit" which always rubs me wrong when I hear it. I think it especially stands out in the audiobook since he sort of spits the word out. 

The tone was very tense through all of the POV's, the stakes are higher than the first and every one of the characters is in a fair bit of danger. There's war, there are assassins, there are spies and counterspies all of which created an atmosphere bordering on anxiety. 

The world building shifted away from The Depths which was a little disappointing, but also totally understandable given that city is under siege and Vlora is no longer stationed outside of it. I miss that place because it was so creepy, but we do get introduced to more of the world since the armies are marching. 

Overall, I think Mr. McClellan hurdled himself over the "second book syndrome" where things can drag on and on in the second book only to pick up again in the third installment. Wrath of Empire was highly engaging and just as great as the first one. 

Final Score: 85/100

This week I have returned to Brian McClellan’s series, Gods of Blood and Powder, to talk about the soon to be released second book – Wrath of Empire. The numeration of the series is starting to feel a little confusing, as this is the second book in the second series and the fifth book overall. However, the important thing to know is that Wrath of Empire continues both the story from, Sins of Empire right where it left off and continues to pull in the story of the original Powder Mage Trilogy. If you are unfamiliar with either the original books, or Sins of Empire, than this review is not for you and I am about to immediately launch into spoilers – but you can check out my reviews for both in the links. I moved the picture lower this week to specifically to keep you from reading spoilers in the next paragraph. For those of you who are still here, let’s talk about the war for Fatrasta.

28811018

So, we left off in Sins with the Dynize empire rolling into town in force, our protagonists Vlora and Ben on the run to find the godstones, and Michel hiding in a hole hoping he doesn’t get murdered by his fellow blackhats. With the twist of Taniel’s return out in the open McClellen felt like he had a lot more freedom to kick up the plot development and things get moving fast. Michel is stuck inside Fatrasta with absolutely no back up, being hunted by every possible side. Vlora is on the move with Ben and a train of refugees and two different armies on her tail – both bigger in size. And Ben Styke… well Ben is a psychopath who just wants to murder people. That is where we pick up the plot and it takes off like a gunshot and never slows down. Michel quickly meets up with Taniel and agrees to try and sabatoge the Dynize invades from within, while Vlora and Ben split up to go after the two remaining godstones. The book continues to pull in old friends from the previous series to my extreme joy and I can’t wait to see who shows up next.

Pretty much everything I like from book one is still here in force. In the first review I mentioned the similarities between inspector Adamat in the first series and Michel in the latter, but the more I spend with Michel the more I reject that comparison and have come to love him. In the landscape of gods, generals, and warriors shaping the world around them – he is just a man trying to survive and help his people with his limited talents, and he is easily the most empathetic character in the story. It also helps that he feels like he is on every side in the conflict, leading a voice to all the players no matter how small. In Wrath of Empire, his infiltration to the Dynize brings them to life and shows an incredibly complex and interesting culture. His voice in the book is the driving force in moving the conflict from black and white to grey and he has steadily become my favorite character in the series.

That doesn’t mean that Ben and Vlora aren’t seeing their own growth. Ben spends a large portion of Wrath reconciling who he was with who he has become, and where his ideal person is in that range. He starts a revenge quest for people who betrayed him in the middle of the book, and I was honestly surprised and moved with the way it turned out. His inner journey is very well done and I found myself looking inwards as well as he contemplated who he wanted to be. On the other hand, Vlora knows who she wants to be but finds herself having trouble stepping up into that role. Her growth as a character is much more subtle than the other two, but no less important as she slowly decides how she feels about her adoptive father and brother and becomes a better leader. Overall, Wrath of Empire is about people figuring out who they are at a time in their lives where different external factors demand them to be different people. It is a really good piece of self identity while also having all the kick ass plot and action that I have come to expect of Brian McClellen.

In terms of negative, there was really only one complaint I had about Wrath of Empire. An important but difficult thing to do in books is to make sure that you create events that steer the plot in the direction you need without making it look like you are steering. Events in a book should feel like they happened naturally, not because an author needed to set up plot points. When you can see the “author’s hand” it breaks immersion and can be really jarring. While I have had this problem with Brian’s writing occasionally in the past, it never showed up once in Sins of Empire. Unfortunately, that is less true in Wrath with a couple scenes being egregious offenders. The worst I can think of is a moment that Taniel and Vlora arrive in a town together to hunt a godstone. Due to Taniel’s immense power at this point in the series, I suspected that Brian would need to find a way to “occupy” him while Vlora hunted for the stone – because Taniel’s strength would make solving most problems trivial which doesn’t make for good writing. What I didn’t expect was Taniel to “accidentally murder” two people within the first five minutes of being in the town, and then get thrown in jail for the exact amount of time they had to search for the stone. It was just a little too transparent. There were a couple moments like this in Wrath that sucked me out of the story, but overall they didn’t even dent my enjoyment of book two.

Wrath of Empire has flawlessly completes the baton pass of excellence from Sins of Empire and has helped Gods of Blood and Powder eclipse the already stellar Powder Mage Trilogy. The action is exciting, the plot is gripping, and the themes are deep and thought provoking. You can’t ask much more of Wrath of Empire, and it is going to be one of the strongest books of 2018.

Rating: Wrath of Empire – 9.0/10
-Andrew