Promise of Blood by Brian McClellanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This... was... awesome! It is such a nice surprise when you pick up a fantasy and you read a few pages and you become hooked. Time ceases to exist, you are immersed in a world other than this one and you marvel at the author's imagination. Magic, Muskets, Gods and tremendous writing. Promise of Blood should be on every serious reader of fantasy's must read list. This is that good.
The book opens with a military coup that takes power away from the King of Adro. We find out the reason why is that the King was imminently going to pretty much sign over the country to Adro's enemies, Kez. Tamas and his co-conspirators cannot let this happen, knowing that if they do it will be a tremendous blow to the people and pretty much enslave them to a foreign power. While successful in the coup, there are other matters afoot. Tamas wlll shortly face traitors, treachery and near death in his fight to free the people, but the real magic here is the magic systems that are employed with great skill by McClellan. In his world there are Powder Mages, those who can ingest gunpowder and by so doing increase everything from strength to the path of a musketball and its velocity. Very reminiscent of Sanderson's Mistborn, but entirely different. We also have people who are Knacked, or Privileged who have their own magic, with the Privileged the more powerful.
In the course of the story, we meet Tamas son, Taniel a Powder Mage in his own right, like his father. His companion is a "savage" girl named Ka-Poel who is MUCH more than she seems.
Are you intrigued? Because that is all you get from me.
Get this book. You won't be sorry.
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