Knight's Shadow

Sebastien de Castell has managed to find a wonderful niche within fantasy with his Greatcoats series. The best description of it is the Three Musketeers but fantasy. His world is well developed, even if the villains are a bit of caricature at times, but then if you look at real history those caricatures can seem remarkably apt. The Musketeers style setup allows for a fantastic buddy relationship to form the heart and soul of the books and the character relationships really are the highlight of the stories.

Knight's Shadow follows on immediately from Traitor's Blade, with our heroes trying to unite the rest of the Tristia against the northern dukes but end up caught up in some larger conspiracies. The commentary on class system inherent in the original Musketeers is still present here, along with some interesting musings on the right to rule. Knight's Shadow keeps up the excellence of the first book and drives the story along very satisfactorily. I look forward to continuing my exploration of Tristia with the next book!

I have got to say that the second book of The Greatcoats had me going wow and whoa at various points throughout Falcio's second adventure. De Castell has ramped up the action to eleventy stupid and it is more like a summer blockbuster.
This is a bigger book in every way, it's got more pages, more Falcio, more plots and is more expansive in everyway.
The second book starts shortly after the first book, with Falcio dealing with the effects of the Neatha poisoning that he suffered at the end of Traitors Blade. Whilst Falcio is experiencing the after effects of the Neatha poisoning, we learn more about the Greatcoats and Falcio's relationship with the King through a series of hallucinations that he experiences. As a reader, you are not entirely sure whether these are true recollections or whether they are how Falcio saw his relationship with the king as throughout the book there are different viewpoints of the kings actions and some of them are opposing to Falcio's view of his beloved king. What is certainly evident is the king was not a perfect godlike figure and that there were some aspects of his plans that were definitely shady.
I think one of the best bits of this book is the relationship between the three main characters, Kest certainly gets fleshed out a lot more in this book and Brasti provides the comic relief, except when he doesn' t.
However, this is a darker book than the first and at times is quite grueling. Not only from Falcio's own battle with his mortality and Kest coming to grips with what it actually means to be the Saint of Swords, but Brasti's own struggles with the cause that they have undertaken and the effect that it has on the lower classes of the world.
There are some parts of it that made me wince as they were extremely grueling, and when you get to it you will see what I mean.
It's very rare that a second book is better than the first, but this was. Now onto the third installment.

Even more torture and more luck.

Fun(?) fact: I started reading this book first by accident. After many references to previous events, I finally stopped and went back to the first one before finishing this one.

The torture is not bad, it just felt like an aside to the book. Like, lets stop our main story for a moment while I describe all the ways the protagonist will suffer. And after the torture, instead of a long and hard recovery with many consequences, he just shrugs it off and goes on to save the world.

This book is of same quality as the previous one. We get to see our 4th Greatcoat, and the heroes are hard pressed to step down from their high horses and be pragmatic every now and then in order to get things done. That includes an association with a dubiously moral ally. The protagonist is is still a self righteous ass, but still a likeable one.

We get to learn more about the fate of some of the disbanded Greatcoats, and the King's last tasks for them. We also get to see the consequences of some of the actions taken in the previous book. There is also some magic!

There were still more luck then I would have liked, but the author does try to make things convincing. I did hate how Falcio was able to overcome impossible odds more then one time, with nothing more then his “sheer will”.

I am utterly in love with this series! If I wasn't hooked after reading Traitor's Blade late last year Knight's Shadow has stolen my heart completely. I am in awe of the wonderful storytelling in these books and right about now I'm wishing that I could do nothing more in this world than become a Greatcoat.

Yes, less than a month after I finished Traitor's Blade I delved back into Sebastien de Castell's wonderful Greatcoats series about the adventures of musketeer-esque friends Falcio, Kest and Brasti as they travel their country trying to put into action the promises gained from them by their now dead King. Picking up immediately after the ending of Book 1 we are immediately back into the story of the 3 brave soldiers trying to now put the dead King's daughter on the throne and save their country and put an end to the inequalities in their land. They know they will need to try and overcome the scheming and dangerous Duke's in their land and fight to do so whilst still being regarded as traitors.

Initially, it took me a few chapters to get back into the swing of things, to refresh my memory of what had happened in the explosive exploits of Book 1 but once I had cleared things up it and the action started to pick up this book was absolutely non-stop. If we thought there was political intrigue in Traitor's Blade well Knight's Shadow takes it to a whole new level. Someone is murdering the Duke's of Tristia and their families and Falcio, Kest and Brasti find themselves with the finger pointing at them. Who is trying to start a civil war and why? We travel Tristia with our Greatcoats as they try to stop the assassinations before they occur and find out just who is behind it.

Our circle of Greatcoats grows in this book, we add more allies to the little band of 3 giving us more context in which to view our heroes and the way they interact. The other thing I loved about Castell's writing in this book is the way in which he brings smaller characters from Book 1 and enhances their story for us. He doesn't simply say that the villain is all bad, he gives us more context and light and shade so we can see the complexities of their situation and how they can be redeemable. Also how he can take a small character and allow them to shine and be the hero, meaning someone who has perhaps been featured a small amount across both books leaves you feeling welled up and emotional when their story plays out.

Castell makes no compromises when it comes to outlining the more gruesome parts of this book, he doesn't shy away from violence and yet he never makes you feel uncomfortable with the amount or nature of it. There's lots of swordfights and battles in this book to give us plenty of departures and moments for our heroes to shine but for me, the star part is the wonderful political manoeuvring that Falcio manages throughout. This is my all time favourite thing to read, the careful managing of the different players on the board, the tiny moves that are made to move everyone to the position in which you want them. Castell's series is proving a master at this and for that reason, I am one of it's biggest fans.

I absolutely cannot wait to read the last 2 books in this quartet and already have them on my shelf ready to pick up in the weeks ahead and it says something that already I'm worried I'm going to miss my 3 Greatcoats when I'm done and am wishing that maybe he might release a fifth?