“Promise of Blood” – Brian McClellan. 2013. Orbit. Paperback. 608 pages. $16.00.
Newcomer Brian McClellan’s “Promise of Blood” is a unique and exciting entry in the world of fantasy, and the promise of future volumes is exciting.
One refreshing aspect is the elimination of the usual medieval or Renaissance trappings used by most fantasy authors in favor of a world more like the late 1700s or early to mid-1800s. Rather than bows and arrows and swords, there are pistols, muskets and cannons. In fact, much calls to mind the French Revolution.
McClellan drops you into the middle of the action from the first page. Field Marshall Tamas has just completed a coup against a corrupt king and noble class and sent them all to the guillotine. And those are just the first 65 pages. After that, things get really interesting.
Leading the revolution and ousting those in charge is the easy part. The hard part is keeping things together after it all.
Once the heads have fallen and the dust has settled, there are the royalists to contend with, and then Tamas’ council starts making demands: the labor unions, the church and his mercenaries all scramble for power and money. And the coup has provoked war with at least one of the Nine Nations. Tamas’ main allies are his estranged son, one of the best marksmen and powdermages ever to be born, and an investigator who is being blackmailed.
And then there are the gods to deal with. Are gods really being reborn, or is it just a rumor, or were they always myth?
The magic used here is definitely unique. There are the traditional magics/sorceries, and then there are the powdermages – people with an affinity for gun powder who can do amazing things with it.
McClellan keeps the pace fast, at the same time putting wheels within wheels and machinations, traitors – shifting attention with each chapter to a key player but never boring or confusing the reader.
There are some missteps for a first novel – mainly some of the major players not being fleshed out enough. But perhaps that will be fixed in the upcoming second title, “Crimson Campaign.” In that same vein, I found the lead character Tamas, very interesting – a man who has done terrible things for what he perceived to be the best interests of his country. While not selfless by any stretch, he’s no villain or antihero, either. He’s a man trying to save his homeland from a corrupt royal class and from being sold down the river by treaties that would make them a vassal state, only to find himself beset by others who are mainly looking out for their own mercenary interests.
This is interesting and exciting enough to follow the series.
So, my friends, this is my last column filed from this side of the pond. My next will be submitted from l’Italia bella. I have enough books with me to provide several columns. But I do plan to spend my first month just recuperating from some heavy-duty stuff, so who knows – I may finish them all in one fell swoop. But not to fear, my wife has found two bookstores in downtown Florence that specialize in English-only titles. My only worry is the selection will all be artistic/literary stuff – you know, the kind where a middle-aged professor tires of his boring academic life, falls in love with a free-spirited coed or younger colleague and leaves his family to find his inner bliss. And they say genre fiction is all formula.
Saluti amici miei!
Rich welcomes questions and comments from readers. You can reach him through this paper or by email at [email protected].
