G.R. Matthews

I received an advance review copy for free via NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. My sincerest thanks to the publisher and author. :)

Overall this was not a bad book or story though it fell a bit more flat for me personally than probably the average reader will find. The story itself is told well, the plot is a bit par for the course of the genre, from multiple angles and the prose itself is well done.

The setting for this book is incredibly Ancient Roman-esque and is the show more primary basis for the units, armor, tactics, weaponry etc. It has a bit of magic mixed in. The enemies of the empire are clearly either Gauls or Germanic tribes. There is a bit of late Catholic Inquisition thrown in for good measure and conflict between the Gymnasium of Magic.

This sadly, is where it falls flat for me. If I had known that a lot of this setting had been lifted from the Ancient Roman era I would have given it a pass. I found myself reading it and going "Man I wish I was just reading a historical fiction novel."

My humble point being is that there is too much lifted from that ancient era to really set this novel apart. If it isn't going to be a historical novel I desire a more original world to explore. As it is the bit of magic thrown in along with an Inquisition like church just wasn't enough to make this worth the read as a fantasy in my mind. I felt the author needed to commit, either write a historical novel or create a much more original world setting for his fantasy tale.

With one foot firmly in history, the other attempting to gain a purchase in fantasy, this novel collapses into a heap; where it regrettably gets lost in the shuffle. show less

This book is really good!
It took me a while to get into it, because it's set in (an alternate) China, and the habits, rules, and some things that I bet are really normal but I'd never heard, are quite different.
In the first part of the book there isn't an overt magic system (although when it happens, it's powerful), but it's a great plot on politics, strategy and land ownership. And people!
The second half had a lot more magic and it fit perfectly. The initial setting developed and you really show more got a sense of the 2 main characters' personal evolution, where neither is the good/bad one, and you care about each of them achieving his goals (even if they're conflicting ones!)
And I definitely want to read more about the Wu. show less

Fast Paced and enjoyable but I actually preferred the first one I just felt there wasn't enough intrigue until the end of the novel and Gang and Liu didn't really work for me as there wasn't much background on them, I thought at one point we would when Liu asked to have a separate room to the others in the barracks but it was never explained why .Haung Promotions seemed predictable to me as I've already seen it before (maybe read too much fantasy novels) I do like the magic of the wu and show more reading about Taiji show less