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