Promise of Blood

That moment when you type out a review and then the browser crashes. Nevermind.

I can't decide if I enjoyed this book or not: it's something I picked up because it's the Sword and Laser read for this month, and the Kindle sample chapter didn't suck. I'm not particularly interested in having guns in fantasy, and I'm not interested in steampunk worlds, but that's not the fault of the book. The fact that I kept reading says it didn't completely suck, but at the same time none of the characters, the politics, or the more interesting layers of mages and ‘gods' are enough to make me want to go on to the next in the series, despite ending on a cliffhanger (although at some point I will ask Wikipedia what happened to Ka-Poel).

As previously noted, the naming stuff really bugged me. Although taking ‘real' names and giving them a slight twist is a deliberate action on the part of McClellan, next time maybe choose a less universally recognised name than Karolus Magnus. I did have fun, however, imagining Ricard to be a shorter, fatter, equally bald version of Jean-Luc Picard.

The addict storyline also bugged me, for reasons I can't put my finger on. It makes complete sense in the world: of course the powder and the accompanying trance would become a habit and then a necessity, and I think it's important to explore that facet of the mechanics of gunpowder mages. But it still bugged me.

Overall, I would actually give this book three stars, but I stick closely to the Goodreads ratings and for me, this one was ok, but I wouldn't say I liked it. Hence two.

ETA: I have to mention I really did like that the impressions of the powder mages and Adamat about third parties were different, rooted in their backgrounds and social positions, and that different characteristics about each of the third-party people were noted by Adamat when he met them for the first time, as opposed to Tamas who has obviously known them for decades at this point in time.