WayneLigon
Adventurer
I enjoyed all three of these. One more than the others.
The Book That Broke The World - book 2 in the Library Trilogy - Mark Lawrence
AKA The Consequences of Our Actions in Book One. Loved it; we get more of our heroes doing cool heroic things and we begin to pick apart the time-twisting narrative that has gone before. There might be a little too much spent on the background of the new ganar characters, but I think it's needed to understand what's been happening behind the scenes all this time.
Grave Empire - (The Great Silence book 1) - by Richard Swan.
A sequel series to the Empire of The Wolf series, which I loved. Anyone looking for sly asides and beloved character cameos from the previous series will be disappointed, at least so far. This is 200+ years later. The world-shaking events of the previous trilogy have faded into hearsay and myth, as the resurgent Sovan Empire is undergoing the first swell of it's Industrial Revolution. Gunpowder and cannon are the new weapons of war. Magic is all but forgotten until a new threat rears it's head, and suddenly the joke embassy of the mer-people (the mer-people are only vaguely aware they even have an embassy at the Imperial Capitol) becomes critical as the mer-people are the only one who have held on to their magic all this time.
The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path Trilogy #1) by Antonia Hodgson
I can't be objective about this book - it's the finest fantasy novel I've ever read. It's made me cry, it's so, so good. It is a gigantic layered novel with a dozen characters and yet her craft is so deft that you never forget any of them or wonder 'wait, who is this dude again?'. Plot and character and worldbuilding mesh together so utterly seamlessly that it's breathtaking.
Thousands of years ago, a cataclysm wiped out most of the world, leaving our empire surrounded by empty seas and poisoned lands, the human race adrift on this island of sanity and calm. The Eight Guardians put things to right, allowing them to live here. The Guardians have had to return seven times to save mankind from itself. The Eighth time, they will wipe out everything and start over.
The reign of the Emperor is coming to it's end, as he must abdicate after a maximum 24 years on the throne. Seventeen years ago there was an attempted coup, which failed. Now, those chickens are coming home to roost as the time of the Festival draws near. Each of the great houses aligned with one of the eight Guardians will choose a candidate that will compete in a series of fights and trials to become the new emperor.
Our main heroine is Neema Kraa, a humble and despised girl from the slums of Scartown who has become a scholar in the great library-temple of the Raven. She has nevertheless risen to be the Emperor's High Scholar, scorned even by her own people. Now, her time is coming to an end as well, as surely the new Emperor will bring in his or her own people, and she's looking forward to taking a teaching position in some small town where she can finally, finally get some reading done.
Things Do Not Go As Planned. Murder mystery combined with high court intrigue - you had me there, book. And then you did so, so much more.
