Duncan M. Hamilton

Knight of the Silver Circle by Duncan Hamilton is second in the Dragonslayer trilogy. Alpheratz the Black has been defeated. Gill doesn't get the chance to rest for long though. Long dormant eggs clutched by Alpheratz' mate have unexpectedly hatched, and now three more dragons are terrorising the land. With none to shepherd their growth, mental or physical, these juveniles are potentially far more dangerous than their da. Learning the secret of the Chevalier protection ceremony from Solene, show more Guillot must recruit new dragonslayers to meet the threat. There's more than meets the eye with these dragons though. Things that will change the way humanity regards the ancient creatures. Dragon memory is long, and human memory a mere mayfly flicker.

Gill continues to be my absolute favourite. I can't get it out of my head now that he looks like an era appropriate Hopper (from Stranger Things). It's because their background is so similar, with loss and how they handle it, and how true crisis shows them they are still good people, and there are still things worth fighting for. Also, a similar sarcastic sense of humour. I felt so bad for Gill in the aftermath of his recruitment efforts. Sure they took out two of the dragons, but at what cost? And the betrayal before the hunt for the third was heart-rending.

I enjoyed following Solene's story as it diverged from Gill's, only to rejoin again unexpectedly. In his increasing hunger for power, Amaury has sent Solene to find the Temple of the Enlightened. I guessed the secret of the enlightened early on, and was pleased to see I was correct. Also, her search and success greatly appealed to the anthropologist in me! I wish we had gotten to explore more ruins with her. Maybe next book. I wanted to hug her too, so much. She suffers a terrible loss, in the form of my favourite tertiary character. I won't give it away, but I hope Solene or Solene and Gill together can fill the gap this person has left in the opposition against Amaury. I think the Prince Bishop's intentions are (mostly) well-meant, but he's going about it all the wrong way. Especially in trying to force magic on a populace taught to fear it. You can't so completely overturn centuries of thought to the contrary all at once. Small, in-between steps of compromise are needed, but he doesn't want to wait for that.

I loved Pharadon! I know we will see more of him in the final book, which will hopefully take Gill and Solene away from the crazy political machinations for awhile, as the search for more vessels of enlightenment. Although, they know exactly where the stolen one is headed so maybe they can get it back before Amaury gets it. I know the golden dragon is still about, but I'm hoping that we get to see even more. It seems Alpheratz couldn't sense the dormant ones, so maybe there are other sleepers that will waken. It seems the more the Fount refills the land, the more likely nearby dragons will waken, and we know from Alpheratz, and the ones here, that they are not merely beasts, but a self-aware species more advanced than humans in many ways.

And now I'm going to go crazy til the next book comes out!! I have to be choosy as to which books I get as hardcopy lately, thanks to space. This is one of two series that have earned those spots! (The Mia Scalisi series by Meredith Allison is the other, and if you enjoy Prohibition era historical fiction, be sure to check them out.)

***Many thanks to the Netgalley & Macmillan Tor/Forge for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Reviewed for JBN Tours. show less

I just finished reading the Society of the Sword trilogy by Duncan M. Hamilton and need to share my thoughts while they're fresh. The series is available in one unit in audiobook form on Audible, which is what this review is based upon.

Duncan M. Hamilton is the author of The Wolf in the North series which is set in the same world as Society of the Sword and follows it. I've given much better ratings to those books and as a TL;DR I recommend you go read them instead of these.

I felt that this show more trilogy missed the mark for many of the same reasons that Brandon Sanderson's early work, Elantris, also fell flat. It comes down to 3 elements:

- The action is told and not shown.
- The main characters do not drive the action
- The characters to not evolve

In the case of Society of the Sword I could also add some extras:

- It feels like 1/3rd of the scenes end with the main character falling unconscious
- The entire second book seems to have forgotten that the love interest and main character fell out with one another (and that pesky prostitution thing)

Ultimately it's the top failings that kept everything at arms length. Our hero struggled for a year at war in the eastern lands, of which we saw his first two days and a summary paragraph. So much of his time there supposedly influenced his character and made him grow (we are told) but we never see the fruits of it nor do we witness it. Did he make friends? Did he learn to lead men? Instead, the character was left at a distance and described almost in outline fashion as having moved from one place to another, gaining such-and-such skill or reputation. These don't seem to have much effect on anything later on except in the most basic of terms (a rank carried forward, or noticing a soldier's bearing). The cloak collected through a harrowing experience in book one never matters again, despite its legendary status and the world-recognizable tale that accompanies it.

The Soren of book three is the Soren of book one, but with more listable accomplishments, money, and titles. His attitudes to those around him are not changed through exposure to various cultures and friends made from afar. He is single-minded in his purpose at all times...

Which makes it utterly remarkable that he doesn't actually make any decisions for the vast majority of the series. He moves from one emergency to another, pulled along by shipwrecks and piracy. The very moment he will wrap up one task introduces another that hijacks his actions and pushes him along. This stands out clearly as a sign of early Brandon Sanderson as well, and something that he learned from and fixed in his later books to great effect.

Duncan M. Hamilton is a good writer. His Wolf in the North series shows that. Not a lot of time has passed from this book to those, but he has shown tremendous growth in that time. It would be very interesting to see him come back now and rewrite scenes and selections missing from this story. I'm sure he could humanize Soren more, give him living and changing hopes and dreams, and so on. I think this chapter is closed, though, and it's probably for the best. He has more stories to tell of this world and I'm eager to read them. show less

This was solid 4-star territory, but the ending gave it that extra star. This series was kind of like Game of Thrones, where it started off really low on magic and then the amount increased in each book. It still wasn't some high-magic Forgotten Realms type place, but it definitely made it more interesting.

The only problem I have is with the repeated use of cliche metaphors, "needle in a haystack", "like a knife through hot butter" etc... Mr. Hamilton has shown that he knows how to compose a show more story and create characters that you care about, but the cliches make the writing seem kind of lazy.

Still, a great trilogy that wasn't 3000 pages long, looking forward to more from Hamilton in the future. show less

An expedition deep in the mountains, searching for a mysterious artefact, finds far more than they expect. They find this world's last living dragon, waking him from his centuries long slumber. In the time he has slept, humans turned their backs on magic, and are only now returning to its use. The last that Alpheratz remembers is humans hunting down his kind and butchering them. So he responds with aggression at these new invaders. Once he learns he is the last of his kind, he vows show more vengeance, and begins attacking human settlements.

To deal with the new threat, once renowned, now disgraced master swordsman Guillot dal Villerauvais, last of the Chevaliers of the Silver Circle, is sent after it. But Gill has had more practise lifting a wine bottle than a sword these past five years, and though the original Chevaliers were the dragonslayers of old, they were imbued with magic long since forbidden. What hope does Gill possibly have against a creature out of legend?

Guillot is an excellent antihero. The kind I always fall for. He's not a bad man. He's broken and hurting still over the loss of his family, and a deep betrayal. I just want to hug him, to stuck the broken pieces back together. Once a master swordsman, Gill has lost much of his skill thanks to turning to wine in an effort to numb the intense emotional pain. That all changes when a beast not seen for a millenium wakens and begins terrorising the countryside. As the last Chevalier of the Silver Circle, Gill is charged with killing the creature.

After Gill, or equal to, Alpheratz is my favourite character. He, too, is suffering from intense pain, and the loss of his family. For centuries on end, he slept after being wounded in battle. When meddling humans accidentally awaken Alpheratz, he kills them. His last memory is of humans attacking him. Fully awake, the great dragon goes to find his mate, or any of his kin. Find her he does, in her mountain cave. A pile of bone stripped of scales, horns, teeth, and claws. Desecrated. And beyond her body, the remains of their egg clutch, all destroyed.

This was soooooo sad! I wanted to soothe Alpheratz too! And his story made me loathe the humans in this book in general. Reflecting our own world, these humans found a source of energy/power they just had to use and abuse. They used magic willy-nilly, and drained it from areas, killing trees, plants, etc, in the places they drew heavily upon. They started invading the dragons' territories, slaughtering those defending their lands, using magic to do so. It sickened my heart that these humans just took what they wanted, butchering the indigenous beings who objected to this theft. These humans committed genocide, pure and simple.

I adored the French influences in the story. From people and place names, to even some of the dragon mythology. I can't wait for the next book! If you love stories of dragons, be sure to check this awesome read out!

***Many thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing a hardcopy in exchange for a fair and honest review. Also reviewed via Netgalley. Reviewed for JBN Book Tours. show less