The Emperor's Knife (Tower and Knife Trilogy) (original 2011; edition 2011)

Mazarkis Williams picked deserts and middle eastern inspired culture as a setting for his debut novel. It's a refreshing change from medieval based setting that most of fantasy authors use. Add to this two magic systems:
1) commanding one specific element (fire/stone/air..) by forming symbiotic relationship with elementals;
2) spell-casting by drawing intricate patterns on objects and hive-mind group behavior;
and we have a base for great fantasy book. I love a good unique magic in a book, and on this The Emperor's Knife did not disappoint me. My only regret is that there is almost no explanation how that magic actually works.

The story is told through four point of views:
• Prince Sarmin, locked in a tower from childhood;
• Eyul, royal assassin, whose honorary tittle Emperor's Knife is the name of the books also;
• Mesema, Sarmin's fiance from horse-riders tribe in norther planes;
• Tuvaini, the high vizier - emperor's chief adviser.
They all plot and scheme trying to fulfill their desires. Whether they yearn for freedom, forgiveness for past sins, love or power, each of them weaves another strand in a web of court intrigues that can have only one winner.
I usually love multiple viewpoints in a book because they offer us different perspective and view on plot, but in this case they only added to the general confusion. The descriptions jump from one character to the other randomly and sometimes just after one page or even paragraph of text. I think that it is better if writers stick to rule one chapter per character and to use multiple POVs in one chapter only when there is a culmination of plot.

If we disregard the POV confusion problems, I must admit that there is a good character development for all main and even some side-characters in a story. The only front where this failed is romance/love. There was a lot of sex happening, but I could not feel the love, affection or sometimes even motivation for it between characters, even where it should be. But I'm a girl, so maybe male readers won't even notice this.

'The Emperor's Knife' is an interesting start to a series and Mazarkis Williams is definitely a new promising fantasy writer. I only hope that point of view jumps will not be so sudden and quick in [b:Knife Sworn|13595011|Knife Sworn (Tower and Knife Trilogy, #2)|Mazarkis Williams|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1342535256s/13595011.jpg|19183544], next book in a trilogy. This book is next on my to-be-read list so I will find out soon enough. :)

This text is also posted on Amazon and my blog. ( )

Actual rating: 3,5 stars

I'm all for shaking up the usual Fantasy setting and Williams has done a wonderful job accomplishing just this. We enter a Middle Eastern scenery with the matching silk robes and exotic weather and buildings, while being introduced to the rather harsh culture of the Cerani Empire. (They ride camels! I was so used to reading about characters riding horses it didn't sink in at first. Off course they're riding camels in the desert, that's kind of logical, but it was still a nice "ha!" moment for me.)

Political intrigue is a central theme in "The Emperor's Knife", but interweaved is the imaginative plot of a disease threatening to overwhelm the people of the Cerani Empire. And it's not just any disease, but a blue/red Pattern of circles, crescent moons, triangles, diamonds, ... that slowly spreads over the body and when complete, kills you or makes you a puppet doing the bidding of the Pattern Master. Big thumbs up for this original idea, the mystery about the Pattern and it's Master got me hooked right away.

I'm a big fan of Williams' writing! There are lots of writers that can write fairly good, but don't give me that extra, special feeling. Mazarkis Williams is definitely in the group of authors that can write beautifully. I love the way she describes everything and how she can make her character's thoughts sound so philosophical and put so much meaning in them.

Although I enjoyed the story, I didn't get a "wow" feeling while reading it. There's definitely room for improvement and some growing. I can't really pinpoint a real problem, but I missed some sort of connection with the story, it could have used more depth on some occasions. I'm really frustrated I can't put a definite 'why' on the problem, I want to give the author an explanation if a make a remark about their book.
At times the story confused me a bit, everything happening at a rather fast-moving pace, which is where I missed the depth sometimes, this especially in the second halve of the book. Williams did succeed in surprising me about certain decisions the characters had to make (Eyul and Amalya) and I would have liked more of these shock moments in the second halve.
The ending was good, but not as explosive as I'd hoped it would be. I kind off already guessed who the Pattern Master was (but not why he did it). But still, I'm curious about the rest of Sarmin and Mesema's story.

I'm starting the second book, Knife Sworn, in a few minutes and I'm really hoping I can find what's missing in the first one in there.
( )

If there's one thing I can be certain of about my taste in books, it is that I can never resist a tale of dark fantasy -- especially one involving magic, assassins, and court politics. That Mazarkis Williams does it all in such a unique way is an extra added bonus.

It's going to be a little tough to describe this book without revealing too much, but here are the basics: across the Cerani Empire, a disease is spreading throughout the populace, manifesting as geometric forms and lines that spread across the skin. The afflicted quickly worsen and lose control, becoming part of an overall "pattern" and losing themselves to will of the "Pattern Master". All those marked are believed doomed and put to death, so you can imagine the resulting freak-out when it is rumored that Emperor Beyon himself has begun exhibiting the tell-tale marks.

Only a few people at court know the truth about Beyon being marked by the pattern, amongst them the Emperor Mother Nessaket, the crafty vizier Tuvaini, and the royal assassin Eyul. Of course, the question is, are these Beyon's loyal subjects there to help him, or might they actually be harboring their own ideas on just who should take the throne?

Also, one would definitely not want to be a younger male child in this particular royal family. Following tradition, Beyon's brothers were all killed the day their father died and he took the throne; that is, all except Prince Sarmin, who was kept locked up in a tower as a secret backup -- just in case. One of the many schemes set in motion in this book involves the arranged marriage of the secret lost prince to a daughter of a Felt chieftain, a young Windreader seer named Mesema. Thus this intricate tale of court intrigue is woven together through the eyes of all these characters.

And out of all of those characters, I think I have to say I enjoyed Mesema's narrative the best. On the surface, a story about a young girl being packed off to a foreign land to marry a total stranger is nothing new, but while many other reviewers have found her characterization to be on the weaker side, I actually felt most connected to her. It was a curious development, considering the male-dominated cast, but quite honestly, a very clear personality profile of Mesema emerged for me in her dialogue and interactions, whereas I felt all the other characters felt bland in comparison, almost like they were missing something.

A similar sensation arose when I though about my feelings about the book overall. The Emperor's Knife features some gorgeous writing and superb storytelling, but once again, a part of me just wanted a little more. More action, perhaps? More excitement, more emotion, more "edge"? I know I hit upon several dry spots in the book which lost me briefly, and part of the reason for this is the frequent jumping around of points-of-view and scene changes. Rather than keeping me on my toes, my focus was instead hindered by the confusion of always trying to figure out where I was and who I was following. I'm happy to say the book finally finds its groove in its last quarter, though; from then on, the momentum was like one of an unstoppable freight train gloriously hurtling me all the way to the end.

The book's world, too, is something I want to talk about. I already mentioned that the writing was gorgeous, and this is immediately clear from the way the author can bring beauty to what is otherwise a barren desert setting. There is one particular scene involving flowers in bloom and their sweet perfume amongst the sandy dunes that I know I will always remember. The skill with which the descriptions are handled are such that I have no problems envisioning it all in my mind.

As it also turns out, one of the most impressive things about this book are its magic systems, something I did not expect at all when I first picked this up. Recently, fantasy authors have been coming up with all kinds of incredible stuff, and the "pattern concept" in The Emperor's Knife is probably one of the more unique ones I've read about in the last few years. First of all, the pattern disease itself has a sort of magical basis behind it, but there are also these mages in this book that harness their powers by sucking that energy from elemental spirits that they "imprison" within them. And it is most definitely not a symbiotic relationship, I can tell you that.

Over all, despite some issues with pacing, this was a wonderful fantasy debut from Mazarkis Williams. ( )

I feel cheated. The Emperor's Knife rambled along, including lots of sex (that somehow managed to not sound like they were having sex; quite an accomplishment I can tell you), something about a pattern magic, or some sort of astral projection type thing going on. As you can probably tell Williams had me thoroughly confused throughout the entire story, except on the most major of points. The one who was responsible for it all. Honestly this is one of the most boring books I have ever read. Also for the most part the characters felt like they couldn't be bothered to really attempt any form of emotional intensity, and decided to coast through the entire story. My first thought as I finished was: "That's it? It just ends? I still have questions. Williams you must answer them." As that last statement goes you can see how emotionally involved I was. It was so little that the request for Williams to answer my thoughts did not even warrant an exclamation point. Definitely no going to recommend this to anyone. Oh it also took me a long time to finish. Ten whole days, when the average for a book of this length is one to two days. I doubt I will be reading the second book in this series. ( )

It did feel like a first novel, there were times when I wanted to know more about how things worked in this world, a world that somewhat resembles our own, but not quite, some of the differences aren't quite clear enough to make this resonate properly with me.

It's an interesting world, this semi-arabic style world where Sarmin is a brother of the emperor, the only survivor of the massacre that happened when his brother took over the throne. He's isolated and going somewhat mad while a strange pattern magic is creeping around the kingdom. The pattern appears on a person's skin and can kill or possess, and it's contagious (TBH the pattern magic and cool cover got the book an extra half-star)

Sarmin's mother has organised a marriage for him with Mesema, a windreader from the northern plains and she will change everything, if she survives.

It was an interesting read, though there were moments when things felt somewhat rushed and incomplete, I liked the characters but sometimes they felt like shells, and the big showdown fell a bit flat for me, having said all that, I was drawn into it and kept reading.

An author to watch for in the future, shows promise. ( )