The Emperor's Blades

WHAT
Many small flaws overall and completely came undone in the end, but what it got right puts this book above the others of the genre.

TLDR
+ characterizations
+ world building
+ “school training” trope done right
- rushed Adare plot

ANALYSIS
The book has 2 stories to tell, 2 POV, 2 brothers, 2 protagonists, heirs to the Unhewn Throne. It should have 3, their sister Adare, but her story was so curtailed that it barely counts.

A good portion of the book revolves around the “wizard/military school” trope, which I hate, but the author manage to kept me enthralled. It was not overdone, using pages to describe how one would handle his sword, or all the steps to tying her shoes. Nor was it about the teachers, the classes, etc. This was just the background for the story as seen from the eyes of Kaiden and Valyn.

I liked the grim tone of the world. The harsh training of the protagonists, the gods, the mythical immortal Csestriim, defeated foes who just might be lurking around, the mysterious creature killing animals around the monastery, the sister left alone in the big city, unable to wield power because she is a woman. All contributed to a feeling o dread, leaving me rooting for all 3 of the siblings.

Many characters are given a proper personality. Kaden's stern teacher, his best friend, Valyn's love interest. The author himself said he wished he had more space/time to flesh out some other secondary characters. I believe that would be nice, but the book is thin in plot as it is.

Now for the bad parts. I was fascinated by the amount of useless tasks Kaiden, the eldest son, first in line for the succession, was put through. Here is a boy that will become the ruler to this huge empire, and yet he started his 10 year training by the age of 8, and said training revolved around the most Karate Kid shit you can think of.

Move a bunch of rocks up the hill, now move then back. Do this for a few days. Stay for a few hours in the frizzing water, and stop bitching about it. Stay completely immobile for a whole week. NEVER question your elders (what a GREAT lesson) or else you will be beaten senseless.

A few things were going through my mind. This will make him stronger, more resistent to the elements, get more physical stamina. WISER! But nope, none of this were truth. By the end of the book, he was still a worthless pice of Unhewnian crap.

He did got this cool party trick, which was hilariously bad. He got the incredible power of not giving a shit. Your brother is dying. Don't care. Your father is dead, his enemies are trying to kill you. Tough luck. And how did he use that power? The BBG had a weakness to this power. He was an **emo mage**, deriving his powers from his opponents emotions. Now it was shown that such mages could gather this energy as mana, as store it for latter use. But no, not this time. When met with Kaiden, in spite of having his belly full of sweet, sweet evilness derived feelings, he just took an arrow to the knee, I mean, shoulder, and fell of a cliff. And has that killed him? Noooooo, of course not. What's the purpose of having a BBG if you can't keep reusing him, over and over again? Expect to see him a future adventure near you. Also bad was the fact that Valyn knew the BBG had this power, and all he had to to to stop him was to control his emotions, something he was trained to do. But no, it was too hard. The guy kept insulting him, so yeah.

Now to Valyn's part of the story. There are two factions of badasses in the world. The Aedolians, the most badasses of all, the personal guard of the emperor, and the Kettral, a SEAL like elite team of soldiers. The Aedolians kick the shit out of the Kettral, which in turn kick the shit out of everyone else. Except when they don't. See, even though it was plainly established that no other faction can beat them, there are plenty of factions that can beat them. A whole ship filled with Aedolian soldiers got wiped out without leaving a single trace of a fight. In other words, they got the shit kicked/outsmarted out of them. Then there is the Skullsworn, assassins that love the God of Death and therefore (really?) can kill just about anybody, anywhere.

So, the emperor is dead, there seems to be a plot to kill his sons as well. And what does the “Empire” do? The Kettral, the Aedolians and everyone else who may care? Absolutely nothing. The only one who cares about the life of the emperor, and his life in turn, is Valyn. Yet, there are a few good attempts on his life and what does he do? Nothing! See, the Kettral might be a bunch of badasses, but Valyn seems to be on the bottom of their Chad food chain. But that is not how the author paints him, he is supposed to be this super hero kind of character, it just so happen that he needs to get outsmarted every step of the way in order to convey how difficult his life is to the reader.

Still I liked his progression. His life in the “fighter school” was interesting. Perhaps I thought it was so bad that curiosity won me over and I desperately wanted to see where this were going. And theeeeen he is wrongly accused of murder by the very people that are supposed to outwit their foes, then he is confined in his quarters, magically gain the respect of his squad which then immediately forfeit their lives in order to go out on a hunch to hunt down the most powerful squad of Kettral there is. They being the exact opposite, a bunch of rag tags that individually are worst then any other, and collectively can't work together to save their lives.

And when they find the enemy, Valyn once again prove his uselessness by surrendering his arms, because this guy he knew 10 years ago said so. And guess what, This guy was also and evil SOB. So, all this training he went through? Worthless. Oh, in another hilariously bad twist, the one thing that made him apart was getting the special eye darkening egg won during the special Kettral training program final test, was used solely to counter another of the BBG. They went into a dark cave, and his new super power was to see in the dark. So, his whole live revolved around getting this super special power, which enabled him to kill this one enemy in a very special set of circumstances.

So, clearly, this is not a book about super heroes. It is a book about clueless underdogs, that can through their sheer will, after going trough a lot of physical and emotional pain, somewhat prevail against an army of enemies, each one of them THE most elite and deadly soldier in the Empire.

There are many good reviews here that touched on these points as well:
Jessica
Alexa

I have been queuing for this book on my library app for a while now, maybe a month or so. I remember being excited for it when I discovered it was provided by my library and immediately forgetting what the plot was and why I was excited. As you can clearly tell, I loved it.

My overall feeling from the book is that this is an adultier, better version of An Ember in the Ashes (which I liked, possibly loved). This book follows two (kinda three, but honestly not really) children of the Emperor. One son is the heir and was sent to live in a remote monastery as a part of his training. The other was sent to train to become a member of an elite military squad. The Emperor dies (it's in the Goodreads blurb, so I can spoil it) and the sons are thrown in immediate danger. The book follows both boys closely as they try to complete their training but there is also a murder mystery at the heart of the story that is a stroke of genius. I want more fantasy murder mysteries.

I adored every second of this book. I initially planned on marathoning it in one day while I was in work. The initial 30% or so is a slow paced deep dive into the world, but as we get further into the plot we reach the surface of the water and things just gradually speed up until we reach a comfortable pace. The plot was complex enough, and the different connections between the separate story lines kept me interested.

I found the male characters to be compelling and enjoyable to read. There wasn't too much in terms of variation between the women, they were all gorgeous and adept at their required physical skill. This in some cases felt surprising (a young girl who has not trained physically can keep pace with three others who have trained relentlessly everyday) and repetitive. No bloke was described by how sexy or attractive he was, so I could have done with less of a focus on the women's bodies and more on their person. All that being said, there were some fantastic female characters that showed flaws and strengths at the same time. I think the main source of the poor characterisation came from the idea that the book was written from the point of view of a 19-21 year old man, so he will be focusing on the sexy aspects of the women. If we could abandon this idea and let young men in books control their genitals more often, that'd be great.

The setting was clearly well developed and I adored every aspect. I'm desperate to find out more and see a map, as my library ebook copy did not have one. The writing had me by the heart from the prologue and it didn't let me down once. I feel acutely aware that the next book I read is going to be heavily compared to this, and likely won't hold up.

I'm excited to see where the second book goes, and I will definitely keep an eye out for more of the author's works. My largest paragraph in this review is dedicated to a negative aspect of the book, but it was a minor issue and overall I felt like this was going to be a five star book all the way through from page one.

Executive Summary: Despite being a bit slow and predictable in places, this book was a whole lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the next one.Audio book: I've listened to a few books read by [a:Simon Vance 5602 Simon Vance https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1240014151p2/5602.jpg] now, and I always enjoy his narration. Not only is his normal reading voice clear and easy to understand, but he does a variety of voices and accents. His reading definitely added a little extra something to the book. As a first time author, Mr. Staveley lucked out to get such a quality reader. I plan to continue this series in audio as a result.Full ReviewI'm not sure what in the description made me choose this book to review. Maybe it was simply the fact that it was the first in a series. Since doing so I've seen a bit of buzz about this book, so I was eager to get my hands on my review copy.This being the first book of a new series, there is a lot of character development and world building to get through. For the most part I think Mr. Staveley does a good job of this, especially as a first time author. However it does suffer from a few slower parts and some predictable twists.His characters are interesting and have depth. The lore of his world is intriguing. The prologue seems confusing at first, but later on the reader discovers its significance, so just tuck it away for future reference.For the most part this is the story of two brothers. They just happen to be sons of the Emperor of the largest nation in the world. First there is Kaden, the heir to the throne who is studying with the monks of the Blank God in an isolated monastery. Then there is Valyn, who is training with the Kettral, an elite military force made up of the best of the best.Both suffer a bit from some of the fantasy school tropes. Valyn especially has his small group of friends and his rival with his group of cronies. However this being a military training facility, things are a lot more serious than bullying in the hallways.We also get a few chapters with their sister, Adare, who has remained with their father in the capital. These are short, but politically charged. I hope we see a more prominent role from her in the books that follow.This highlights the main flaw of this book. Like many fantasy books, the women are mostly relegated to secondary characters. They suffer a bit from stereotypes, but I think he does have some strong female characters that just don't receive as much focus as I'd like. In general, the secondary characters are all pretty interesting and have enough depth so as not to be interchangeable. Each brother's story starts off in very different places but eventually converge with one another at the end. Things really pick up when they do. Strange things are happening around both brothers and they appear to be linked to a conspiracy to kill the emperor and his family. This makes for a lot of politics and conspiracy theories.One of biggest concerns when reading books in a series is how the author chooses to end it. You need to strike a good balance between leaving the reader wanting more and wrapping up the main conflicts of the book. I think Mr. Staveley does a great job here and I'm looking forward to jumping right into book 2 when it comes out.

4.5 out of 5 stars – see this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

This turned out to be a really wonderful debut novel from Brian Staveley; it's the type of fantasy I can really sink my teeth into — excellent worldbuilding, compelling mysteries, and great action sequences. I really enjoyed the the setting and found myself poring over the appendix and the beautiful map trying to understand every aspect of this world.

The story follows the emperor's three children: Adare, Valyn, and Kaden as they complete training in their respective disciplines. The two brothers have the meatier roles here, as Valyn trains to be a military assassin and Kaden works at a monastery honing his mental prowess. Although spread across the map, all three siblings fight against treasonous plots designed to bring down their family line. Their successes and failures are especially satisfying, as, despite their political standing, they receive no special treatment from their handlers and come by most of their skills honestly. Adare's story is underserved but should see a larger role in book #2, which I am excited to start.

Poor, poor Adare, she deserved so much more than what she got in this book. Actually, every female in this book was lacking, most of them characterized by either their stoic military toughness, or how their bodies show in their clothing (sometimes both at the same time). With that said, I did enjoy the Valyn scenes during his elite training, despite the murder mystery plot that derails the potential assassination storyline. Kaden did not have a lot to do in terms of development until the book was nearly 2/3 complete, and more or less acted like his brother. I may pick up the next in the series BUT... I am not feeling any particular rush.

This was not the book I was expected, and I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. Marketed as epic fantasy that perhaps fans of GRR Martin may like, instead I got YA fantasy with an author unafraid to kill his sympathetic characters (that's where the Martin comparison comes in). I'm ok with that.

The YA feel comes from the two teenage brothers doing the classic YA fantasy trope: one goes off in his teens to become as ass-kicking ‘knight' and learns about himself through discipline and killing, and the other is sent off in his teens to become a ‘mage' and learns about himself through discipline and ‘magic', although in this case it's eastern meditation philosophy. A third POV of their sister, the woman doing a man's job in a man's world, sometimes cuts in, but it's mainly about these boys.

The first three quarters of the book follows the standard pattern of the scrapes YA protags get into in their schooling, but then at pretty much 75% the shit hits the fan and doesn't stop until beyond the end - written as a trilogy the story doesn't end on a cliffhanger so much as a ‘the next chapter won't be out until 2015'. I'm looking forward to it.

I want to love this, wholeheartedly, without reservation, and just slam a 5 star on it and be done with it. It's awesome, in almost every way. Almost.

If only it were not for Adare.

Spoilers follow. You've been warned.

How can anyone who has supposedly studied everything and been raised in the utmost center of intrigue on the continent be so stupid and weak?

She has the treacherous bastard in her bed every night, and runs away on the very slim chance that she can gather a barely believable army instead of killing him when conditions are perfect for doing so. She then has the wished for army and a more or less undefended city (in book 2) but instead of taking it, she trusts the words of the bastards she has many reasons to believe have killed the rightful heir her brother, and marches off to do exactly what they want. Adare makes me grind my teeth until they ache. Ugh.

It's not that she does these things, it's that, the way she's written, I find it hard to believe she could be so completely idiotic. For contrast, Valyn getting disarmed by Ut near the monastery was a completely believable mistake. It was unclear what was going on, and him assuming Ut was on his side at the time made sense. But Adare is described as being educated and experienced in the life of the court, and yet every time she's presented with a problem, she walks into it like a wide-eyed, emotional child. Ugh.

Kaden & Valyn make their youthful mistakes, and somehow they're mistakes that I can swallow, but Adare always comes off looking like a hysterical and/or naive idiot. Is this a weakness in writing believable women? Is she just a Deus ex Machina character? I really don't know. But I somehow hope Brian reads these reviews and thinks about this. This trilogy is such a mass of awesomeness, with such a fatally flawed main character (of three), I only hope he gets this sort of thing right next time and totally rocks the 5 star review with his next books.

As always, crap is easy to ignore, but could've been perfect hurts. Brian, if you are reading this, you rock. Totally. I wouldn't care about Adare at all if the books were garbage, but they're so good that one of three protagonists that's an idiot is painful. Reread Adare, and get it right next time.

My second DNF in a row, about halfway in. I'm not happy about it, but I refuse to waste more time on a book I dislike so much.

The Emperor is killed, though he had three children, two sons (Kaden and Valyn) and a daughter (Adare). The two boys are sent away to study, one with monks, the other with warriors. The daughter is home as a minister.
And they're all bloody boooooring. Lets just start with Adare. She is young, but she becomes someone very important because her dad hands her a position. Of course she is pissed, because every fantasy princess needs to be an entitled shithead. Why didn't she get an even better position? Because she is a woman! That's also the reason why people are sceptical about her, not because she is young and got here because her influential daddy made it so.
Kaden is with the monks of boring. They are trying to achieve the state of emptiness. Because that sounds great. Of course his dad told him nothing about the purpose of it and the monks also tell him nothing at all, so some wonderfully exciting rock carrying and pottery happens. For them reasons, ya'll.
Valyn gets fucked over a lot, someone is constantly trying to murder him. His best friend/crush is another spectacular “I am a victim because I am a woman” with huge emotional breakdowns who acts like a bitch when he is being nice. She is also incredibly sexist. (A murder happens and she automatically says it was a man, because women can't be cruel. Oooookay, gurl.) Oh, this warrior camp is also full of teenagers who are not even proper warriors yet, but just happen to be the best blower-upper, the best sniper, the best gigantic-bird-pilot. Good to know everyone peaks at 16.

The whole thing is just so slow and feels like I'm watching paint dry. We know these three will eventually meet, but fucking when??? While we're wasting time on Valyn being helpless at his girl's latest titfit or following Kaden as he does senseless, repetitive shit while some monk asks him questions he is expected to just figure out.... we're not getting closer to meaningful things.
But we do get some fantasy swearing. Now some people hate it. I generally don't mind, though this... just really crossed the line. The most common thing is “Kent-kissing”, which according to my Kindle is used 77 times. How is that okay? And this is just one of them.
But hey, the info dump is something crazy as well. We hear a lot of names, foreign words, gods, all kinds of things that supposedly serve a bit cultural purpose, but it's never really properly introduced, just thrown around to feel like you're reading an actual fantasy novel. Some authors do this well. They create intricate worlds with many different elements, but there is some art in serving it all up in a way that's palatable for the reader who doesn't have a whole notebook of notes and graphs. We don't know shit about these things. The way new information is thrown in as a “plot twist” where it's just some convenient shit that feels like it was made up on the spot... not very graceful, no.

But back to the female characters for a second. Everyone gushes about strong female characters, how they are a must and how we need to create this big bullshit ideological framework around them. You know what? I think people who blabber about it and what to prove something are usually ending up with shitty female characters, like here.
Women are not morally superior. With pretending that we are it's like every active good choice made by a woman is eradicated. To be a decent human to me is just as much of an effort as it is for a man. I'm not born as an angel without a malicious bone in my body. We also have to learn, to work on ourselves. These ridiculous women are not flattering to me, more like annoying and wasted.

I have a week off now and I am not going to waste it on this. No. I'm uninterested, downright bored, I can't stand the characters. I will definitely not read the next book. It was so disappointing to read the hype about this, then see for myself and just not have a good time at all. It could have been something so much better, but it fell short in every single way I could come up with.

Good night and let me fall on my own blade!

Huh, well, I disagree with a large number of reviews here.

To be vague and brief, there's an ancient race(?) of evil(?) people, returned again and bent on revenge. That's the high level Big Bad we don't see much of after the beginning. The low level Big Bad of this particular book is a coup that kills the current emperor, leaving the children to pick up the pieces. Kaden is the oldest (and now the emperor), and was sent to a remote monastery ostensibly to learn monk things, but also for other more specific plot reasons. Valyn, his younger brother (and the more interesting of the two, IMO) is training to be a Kettral, highly skilled bird warriors who can do basically anything and do it with style. He finds out about the coup and wants to go protect his brother/the new emperor, but is waylaid with his training and unravelling his own set of plot problems before he can do so. Adare, their sister, is in the capitol at the time of the coup, survives, but cannot take the throne because, whoops, she's a girl. Instead, she's been made Minister, and is evidently highly skilled at politics or somesuch. She thinks she knows who's behind the coup, and wants to see them punished. We don't see much of her in this book.

I didn't think it was a perfect fantasy book by any means, but I don't think it was slow (a common problem I see mentioned here). I agree Valyn's storyline was the most interesting of the three, but I also think Kaden's was necessary to set up his development as a character, and also establish what he can do later on. I think both characters suffer a bit from the Chosen One(s?) trope, where they both seem incredibly capable by merit of being the main characters, though. And Adare, who exists in this book, definitely needed something more to keep her apace of her brothers and not made to feel like she's a less capable sibling.

All that said, I thought the story that's set up is interesting to me, and I do feel compelled to continue to see where it goes. It's not a perfect fantasy book, but if it's fun for me to read and interesting enough for me to want to continue with it, that's enough for me.

Pros: organic world-building, fascinating characters, slow build up, satisfying conclusion

Cons:

The Emperor of the Annurian Empire has died. His oldest child, a daughter, Adare, lives in the Dawn Palace and has been raised to the post of Finance Minister. Kaden, the heir to the Unhewn Throne, has been training under the tutelage of the Shin monks for eight years, trying to master a technique he'll need in order to rule. Their younger brother, Valyn, is close to becoming a member of the Kettral, an elite force that flies on gigantic birds.

As the plot that killed the emperor spreads to his children, they must master their various skills in order to survive.

This is a slow building story that allows the reader to learn about the world through the actions and knowledge of the characters. There are no info dumps, and a lot of information is left unstated. The characters develop slowly, changing as the events of the book affect them.

The world is multicultural, though the focus remains on the three protagonists, each of whom live in very different places. The majority of time is spent alternating between Valyn's brutal training as a warrior and Kaden's rather different, but equally brutal training to learn how to empty his mind. While Adare gets fewer pages devoted to her story, it's in no way less important to the plot or interesting to the reader. Hers involves more political intrigue while her brothers' tales have more blood and pain.

While the book employs familiar elements, the writing feels fresh and the ideas are cleverly used. It's a fantastic debut and I can't wait to see what comes next in the story.

Well this was a waste of my life.


This is the first book I've read where I have actively wished that the multiverse was real. Because I would like to meet a version of me that read this book at the exact same time but by myself and without a discord buddy read where nearly everyone disliked or was meh on it. Then again, I'd also like to meet a version of me that just didn't read this book and read something better. Or hey, a universe where Brian Staveley wrote a good book. That'd be the ideal one.

Okay, enough with the multiverse stuff. But it should be obvious by now that this book and I didn't get along. This was a buddy read as part of Library of Allenxandria's channel read, and I was, without a doubt, influenced by the people who started before me and had negative things to say. I accept that. This book, under different circumstances, could possibly have rung a three or even, dare I say it, a 3.5 star out of my generous soul.

But it is not this day. This day we fight.

I could list all the things I didn't like, but it'd be easier to list the things I did: the fact that there was a military branch that rode giant birds was pretty metal. And the fight scenes were decent. There were a couple semi-interesting secondary characters. But Staveley's internal logic for this world almost never holds up, there were plot holes everywhere. The way he treats female characters is male gaze personified, the most interesting POV is an afterthought, the twists were very easy to call, the plot does the less interesting option almost always. The main characters are relentless tortured by their teachers to show how BRUTAL the world is, how BAD ASS they need to be to survive, and then when they survive, they are BRUTALIZED again because that's what it takes to be TOUGH. Also over half of this book is essentially training that should have been montage'd. That's what montages are for!

As a last ditch effort, I skipped 9 chapters of this book...and felt like I missed nothing.

The more I talk about this, the less I like it. I'm glad this is over.

3.5/10

I wasn't into it from the start, but it did get better pretty quickly.

We follow 3 POVs in this book - Kaden, Valyn, and Adare. Unfortunately though, the only POV I found interesting was Valyn's (cadet school, murder mystery, great side characters, Annick <3), which luckily was also the biggest part of the book. Kaden's story only got more interesting towards the end, and Adare's never got that great at all.
Overall I did enjoy this way more than I thought I would, but I'm not super invested in its world beyond this book.

Aside from that nothing really jumps out, except that sometimes it had the tendency to take multiple pages to explain a new term that would appear in the dialogue, which in turn took me out of the story for a bit. Nothing too bad, but definitely noticeable.

I saw this book and knew I was going to love it so I bought the whole series and I have no regrets. This book was amazing. This book makes me second guess most of my other 5 star reviews because this one is just better than 5 stars. The story is about the 2 sons and 1 daughter of the emperor, who has recently been murdered (I'm noticing a trend with fantasy books and dead kings/emperors).
Kaden, the heir to the throne has spent 8 years training with “warrior monks” that teach him serious discipline and ancient powers
Valyn has endured brutal training as a Kettral who fly on gigantic hawks and are taught to be the ultimate fighter
Adare is his daughter who thinks she knows who killed him and will stop at nothing to avenge his death

After what seems a very long time, a fantasy that pulls its weight. World building is at the core of this one but it never overwhelms you with too much information. The time you spend with each protagonist also puts us under their skin allowing us to feel their emotions. I would say Brian looks to have modeled this along the lines of WOT but its way too early to comment on that. But the most interesting concept he explores here the power of mind to win battles. This looks like a classic in the making!

Sometime in 2013, I was nudged into the Warhammer 40K fandom by a friend of mine who was very much into the fandom, and suggested that if I gave the books a shot, I might find it to my tastes. Out of curiosity (and said friend???s enthusiasm) I decided to take a crack at it, and found that, while not all of it was to my tastes, there was quite a bit to like about it. It also helped that Hope and Matthew were into the fandom (especially Matthew), so there were people to talk to who were very enthusiastic about it and with whom I could consult for information, or just plain fannish talk.

One of the aspects of the fannish talk is a joke that is somewhat-prevalent in the fandom: the fact that the Emperor of Mankind is, quite frankly, a terrible father. The downward slide of his empire is often blamed on his mishandling and mistreatment of his own sons, the Primarchs: the eldest and (supposedly) most beloved, Horus Lupercal, would eventually bring down the empire his father built. An interstellar empire, spanning hundreds of lightyears and encompassing hundreds of thousands of planets, all of it brought down because one man could not be bothered to spend time with his own children and understand what made them tick, both as leaders and as individuals.

However, the Emperor of Mankind is not the only ruler to have made that sort of mistake???especially if one takes a look at the ranks of dead rulers in epic fantasy novels. What tends to happen is this: the ruler dies, and their nation is left in the hands of a child or children who are unprepared, undeserving, or both; this leaves it up to a hero (or group of heroes) to protect, aid, or put down the heir and ensure that the nation doesn???t fall further apart or disintegrate into civil war. This has become so common a trope that I???ve almost come to expect it of any novel labeled ???epic fantasy???.

Brian Staveley???s The Emperor???s Blades, however, turns out to be something of a surprise. In this first book of the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne series, the Emperor does die, but it quickly becomes obvious that he has done something right by his children, although they will certainly not find it easy to occupy the shoes their father left behind.

The Emperor???s Blades focuses on the three children of Sanlitun hui???Malkeenian, Emperor of Annur: Adare, his daughter and the eldest, who has risen to prominence as a politician in her own right and resides in the capital; Valyn, the middle son, who is training to be a deadly Kettral warrior at the Qirin Islands; and Kaden, his heir, who is training with the Shin monks deep in the Bone Mountains. But when Sanlitun is murdered, his three children must find a way to hold the throne for the rightful heir; find out who murdered their father; and keep themselves alive, for those who murdered the Emperor would like nothing more than for his children to die as well.

Right from the get-go, the first thing I noticed about this novel is the fact that the three Malkeenian siblings most emphatically don???t want to kill each other???in fact, they are more than happy to recognise Kaden as the next ruler: when Sanlitun dies both Adare and Valyn, but most especially Adare, know that they have to make sure their baby brother makes it back to the capital safe, sound, and as soon as possible, to ensure that the empire remained stable. Their lack of resentment for Kaden???s position is heartwarming, especially when considered from the flashbacks to childhood that both Valyn and Kaden have. Adare is conspicuously absent from these flashbacks, but it???s interesting to note that when the story is told from her perspective, most of her memories have to do with her father, implying that he intended to groom her specifically as political support for her youngest brother, while Valyn was intended to protect him, As for Kaden, the reason for his being sent away to a distant monastery is revealed in the novel itself. As I mentioned earlier, it appears Sanlitun did something right when he raised his children, which makes for a refreshing change instead of all the siblings wanting to murder each other.

The above impression is helped along by the fact that it is the three siblings themselves who are the story???s primary narrators, with the point-of-view jumping from one sibling to the other every so often. There is a noticeable death of chapters dealing with Adare, which I find mildly disappointing, but Kaden and Valyn are represented prominently, and I find that they make for some very good reading???even if Valyn does strike one as being rather bone-headed from time to time. The siblings??? individual voices are established quickly and solidly, with their personalities and motivations telegraphed quite clearly to the reader. There is still plenty of room for character development, of course, but as it stands the siblings are on firm ground, and what happens in later books will take off from what has been established for them in this first novel.

As for the plot, it???s got enormous potential: Staveley has clearly laid down the groundwork for something enormous, and I cannot wait to see what happens further down the line, now that most of the world building and character development has been gotten out of the way in this first novel. I do feel, though, that The Emperor???s Blades could have been touched up a bit in some places, especially when dealing with Valyn???s investigation of the supposed accidents happening around him. That plot line could have been very interesting, and very fun, if it had been loosened up a bit, given some room to breathe. I suppose Staveley was going for ???breathless action???, but it would have been nice for the facts???such as they were???to settle into one???s head before something else came along. I also wish that Staveley had written a bit more about what was happening with Adare. I???m aware that this is a double bias on my part, since I like Adare as a character and I adore plot lines that involve court intrigue, but I think it would have been very interesting to see how court life and politics works in Annur, especially given who Adare is and what she does. I???m especially interested in the interaction between religion and politics in the capital, given the clear friction between the priesthood of Intarra and the more secular imperial court.

Staveley???s writing is, fortunately, remarkably easy to read. There is a made-up language used in the novel, but it???s just terminologies for specific ideas and concepts. Staveley???s characters also use the swearwords that the reader would use in everyday life (if the reader does swear), with some alterations made for using the names of the gods when swearing. The rest of it flows easily and readily, with clear linguistic distinctions when chapters switch between the three narrators: Adare???s tone is very different from Valyn???s or Kaden???s, for instance, making it easy to figure out just who is telling the story at any given point in time.

I???m also quite happy with the world building Staveley???s done for this novel. The Annurian Empire and its neighbouring kingdoms feels big enough, and, more importantly, troubled enough at the borders to add some layer of urgency to getting Kaden to the throne as soon as possible (albeit not really enough in this novel; true urgency will have to wait until the next novel, I suppose). While I wish there had been more written about the imperial court itself, what???s been written about the Shin and the Kettral is interesting and feels quite solid. While it???s obvious Staveley???s drawn from a whole host of sources to create the world of his novel, what matters is that it feels like a cohesive whole, and fortunately, the world as it???s written about in The Emepror???s Blades feels cohesive enough.

In terms of themes, Staveley isn???t treading any new ground with The Emperor???s Blades, but then again, this is just the first book in a series, and is primarily devoted to introducing the reader to the series??? key characters and to building the world itself. Hopefully, Staveley will go somewhere interesting in later books, or at least not fall into certain painful cliches???especially where Adare is concerned.

Overall, The Emperor???s Blades is a very promising new novel, launching what looks to be a really fun series. It has three narrators/protagonists with clear voices whose personal histories and motivations are very clearly established in this novel, in a world that???s solid enough and big enough to support what looks to be a grand plot of the first order further down the line. However, this is just the first novel of a series, so hopefully the promise it currently holds will find fulfilment further down the line, in the upcoming novels. Staveley???s set the hook, and I???ve taken it; now, it remains to be seen if he can reel me further in by continuing the promise of this one. It will be truly disappointing otherwise.