The Guns of Empire

Executive Summary: Can I have book 5 now? Please? This series has become one of my most anticipated new releases for the last few years, and Mr. Wexler once again delivers. Don't sleep on this series!Audiobook: I like Richard Poe as a narrator. He has good volume and inflection, and does a few voices to boot. I think this is a series that works great in audio, and Mr. Poe adds a little extra to story with his reading.Full Review[b:The Price of Valor 23435269 The Price of Valor (The Shadow Campaigns, #3) Django Wexler https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1423008261s/23435269.jpg 42905071] was one of my top reads last year, and I've been eagerly waiting for this book ever since. As my rare five star rating would indicate, I really enjoyed this one too. Mr. Wexler is setting the bar extremely high for the final book next year.Four books into this series, and it continues to delight. Much like the previous book it struck the right balance between politics and military action to keep me constantly engaged. It's a book I always hated to stop each day and looked forward to getting back to. That's usually my main criteria to push a solid 4 or 4.5 star book to the rare 5 star rating.At first blush, you might see this series and think it's just another military fantasy series. However the early books always felt more like low fantasy to me, and even these later books don't revolve entirely around the magic. What makes this series so great is the characters. Winter Ihernglass has probably become one of my all time favorites. And if Winter wasn't great enough, there is both Raesinia and Marcus. However I think more than anything is the supporting characters. It's hard to make a reader care about your protagonists. It's even harder to make them care about the secondary characters, who often don't get the kind of depth as the POV characters. I love them all, and worry constantly anytime they are threatened.This book really ramps up the stakes and set the stage for the fifth and final book, while still managing to come to a satisfactory stopping point. I can't wait to see how it ends! I highly recommend checking out this series.