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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sunbeam60" data-source="post: 2781272" data-attributes="member: 6528">A reviewI just posted this review to a private blog I run with my mates:Fantasy readers are a funny bunch; simultaneously we show the greatest stupidity and the greatest resolve when we go shopping for books. With so much bad fiction in this section of the bookstore, we must be stupid because we keep buying, hoping for the latest fix to be something different, but on the other hand it’s hard not to admire our resolve as we plough through endless series that lost their zeal a long time ago.Vying for attention, publishers consistently brandish every fantasy book “ground breaking” and we, in the process, have become numb to the whole thing, favouring word of mouth over book sleeves.The Prince of Nothing series is, actually, ground breaking, and wholly realized, and grand of scope and all the other things we’ve become deaf to. Despite readers distrust, it has to be said: This book is a masterpiece.The Darkness That Comes Before is no easy read. Like so many other things worth doing, it requires effort and attention. In that way it reminds readers most of, dare I say it, Lord of the Rings, simply because of its many layers, strange spellings and long time line.But it isn’t, thankfully, like that “other” fantasy milestone. The world of Eärwa is all politics and religion, backstab after backstab, and there is little “good” to counter all the murky “bad”. The prologue details the end of the world, in all its melancholy glory, and within the first twenty pages, your head is spinning with umlaut place names and synonym after synonym that leaves even a dutiful reader a little confused. Not an easy read at all.The prose, however, is astounding and a little frightening almost. It’s dense, yes, but so textured and exquisite it’s hard not to smile as you’re eyes are led from one realization to the next. And before you know it, you’re halfway through the book, and now fully accustomed to the languages of the Three Seas (yet another synonym, this one for Eärwa), and the scope of the series dawns on you fully.A new leader of the Inrithi factions - one of the major religions of Eärwa - announces a crusade to recapture Shimeh, the long lost holy city of Inrithism. In the maelstrom that follows, a sorcerer spy, a faded prostitute, a tribal leader, a prince of a bickering empire and a monk of a remote order of philosophers are put into play. Achamian, the sorcerer spy, is an agent of one of the magic schools fighting covertly across the world, but he no longer has any faith in its mission which hasn’t had a clear clue in thousands of years. Esmenet is the whore who falls in love with this tragic man, but she gets tangled into his web and then something dreadful happens. The tribal leader and the monk hooks up early in the story, but it is not an easy pairing and the fate of the world may rest on the outcome. The prince, meanwhile, plays his political cards, trying to extract value from the holy war about to ensue.Confused? You haven’t even scratched the surface. Each character is way beyond a two dimensional stencil; full of hope and despair and doing things both good and bad the story pries their mind but never reveals their full intentions. We follow, wondering how it all ends. It’s a yarn, like all fiction, but behind it is a sensitivity and craftsmanship normally reserved for the classics. Fantasy, it seems, has finally met literature, and its outcome is the Prince of Nothing. Do not miss these books, fantasy fan or not.<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841494089/026-0356106-8505249" target="_blank">The Darkness That Comes Before</a>  is an adult themed book and intended for a different readership than the Harry Potter books. It is followed by <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841494097/ref=pd_sim_b_dp_1/026-0356106-8505249" target="_blank">The Warrior Prophet</a> and future volumes yet unpublished. Other reviews are available <a href="http://www.sfsite.com/02b/td146.htm" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/sciencefiction/0,6121,1201830,00.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</blockquote>

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