The Emperor's Edge

At the start, this one felt a lot like Tamora Pierce's Bekka Cooper series ([b:Terrier|13829|Terrier (Beka Cooper, #1)|Tamora Pierce|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320532506s/13829.jpg|3056999]). But that similarity soon fades as Amaranthe wanders down an alley that Bekka never took. On the surface, this new direction has it's own excitement and promise, but The Emperor's Edge is something of a conundrum for me. I enjoyed the writing - the use of language, the dialogue, etc. - but there were some gaps. I never got a really clear view of what the world was like. In fact, the cover tells me more about the world than the book itself does. And as a hero, Amaranthe has just the tiniest hint of Mary-Sue to her. Things work out just a tad show more too easily for her.

On the whole, I found a number of the plot choices to be rather strained and unlikely - enough so that I kept popping out of the world to grumble about the story planning. So while I read it all the way through, these repeated interruptions of immersion got enough in my way that I won't likely read the next book. But on the other hand, I may be overly critical, so if you like your adventures to be big and bold, you may want to disregard my rating and give it a try. It was fun. Just not quite fun enough to overcome some of the problems I had with it. show less

What a fun romp—I love the hare-brained schemes and the irreverent humor. The characters are really engaging. Of course Sicarius, with his sense of distance and mystery, begs following just to catch another glimpse of what lies beneath that unreadable façade, but I also found Books and Akstyr intriguing. The first for his wit and his intelligence as well as loyalty to Amaranthe, and the latter for his quirkiness and the hint of hidden depths. Maldynado, I suspect, hangs around out of curiosity: the adventures he gets into with the Edge are a lark, and how can Amaranthe not be attracted to him? Amaranthe herself is a funny contradiction of terms, alternately determined, fearing to fail, failing, and delighted at turning tables. And show more Sespian, dear Sespian, might have escaped the first pot he was set to brew in, but he's still in the clutches of adolescent hormones and idealism. Even Hollowcrest fascinated me. I would love to know more of what he was thinking and what influenced his choices.

The "steampunk" setting is delivered with a light hand (which is good, because I would not like to be run over by thundering locomotives). I enjoyed the contrasts between the classes and genders. While I have seen comments that the gender discrimination is excessive, I feel that it fits not only the story itself, but our own historic (and even current) patterns. Standards of our own society now are not global and they are certainly distinct from most of history.

The plot was a wonderful roller-coaster ride of ups and downs, and—much to my delight—it's a good, clean read. I am very much looking forward to reading more of the adventure! show less

If I had to describe this book (and ultimately, series) in one word, I'd say it's campy. I enjoyed the action-packed narrative, the line of characters that we are introduced to, and the fact that, even though there are quite a few of them, each character was unique.

It's not without its flaws, but I find that I'm very forgiving when a book stays within its limits; that is, it doesn't try to be something that it is not. From the beginning, the tone of the story was light, and the expectation was that things would turn out OK for the protagonists, even when they find themselves in the most unlikely situations. I expected this, so I wasn't annoyed by it - and that was good, because they always seem to find themselves in the most ridiculous show more situations! show less

Lindsay Buroker is the second indie author whose books I’ve tried (the first was Susan Ee), and again I wasn’t disappointed. The Emperor’s Edge exceeded my expectations in every way. It’s a delightful fantasy romp that kept me up all night reading. It has a wonderfully campy feel to it, like a summer action movie; there are cheesy moments, predictable plot points, and unbelievable escapes, but it’s just so much fun that I didn’t even care about the flaws. Likewise, I initially thought the writing was a bit amateurish, but then I got lost in the story and ceased to notice anything besides the characters and their exciting escapades. The POV shift between Amaranthe and Emperor Sespian seemed like an unusual choice to me, but show more it works; Sespian’s scenes are interesting and insightful, but short enough not to distract from the main thrust of the story.

The setting is an intriguing blend of sword-and-sorcery and steampunk-like technology, but it is the characters and their interactions that really make this novel shine. The banter is hilarious, and I love how this motley crew of misfits manages to work together. Amaranthe struck me as very uptight and morally straight-laced at first (and she is), but soon the circumstances propel her to develop a remarkable talent for prevarication and talking her way out of trouble. She proves that she doesn’t see the world in black-and-white when she recruits criminal accomplices and concocts a startlingly treasonous (and dangerous) plan, all for the good of the kingdom she loves. The conflict between staying true to her values and justifying her illegal activities is a major struggle for Amaranthe, and it makes her a more complex, interesting, and sympathetic heroine. I also love that her intelligence, leadership, and, above all, ability to see the good in people inspires loyalty from her ragtag band and penetrates Sicarius’ icy shell. (I’m sensing a romantic subplot and struggling to contain my pleasure. I am totally on board this ship.)

Overall, The Emperor’s Edge is solid entertainment. I can’t wait to grab the next book in the series. show less

From my blog at https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/the-emperors-edge-by-lindsay-burokers...

Three and a half stars.

2013 ended with a bang; a number of highly recommended books made it to the top of my list and gave a wonderful finish to the year. (Humans of New York, Zoo City, Alif the Unseen, Shipbreaker, and Stray Souls, in case you are wondering). The end of 2014 has been slightly more toward median range with books that entertained–but missed the wow factor. The Emperor’s Edge is one of those that just missed the high bar. While engaging and enjoyable, it suffered from a number of staple fantasy tropes.

After six years in the Imperial Guard, Amaranthe is still a corporal. Despite her professional attitude, her immaculate show more presentation, and her commitment to the guards, she’s never going to get promoted. Women have only recently been allowed to join the city law enforcement, and the glass ceiling is quite solid. When she and her partner are responding to a fire, Amaranthe notices a theft in progress. Her quick reaction gains the attention of the young Emperor. Later that night she is summoned to the rooms of the Emperor’s Advisor, Commander Hollowcrest (!), and given a top-secret mission: seduce and assassinate the assassin Sicarius. Despite ethical qualms, she realizes this could be her long-hoped for opportunity to advance, and reluctantly takes the mission. Before she leaves the palace, she runs into the Emperor again, and is struck by his boyish, charming demeanor. Amaranthe leaves for her mission and events quickly spiral out of all expectation.

The setting is vaguely steampunk, roughly equivalent to a London 19th century era. Workers cut blocks of ice to store for summer, but there are public trolleys for transportation, and the fire brigade uses self-propelled fire pumps. While there are pistols, they are reserved for military use only, and the guards themselves use swords. It is, we are told, a city of millions, although it seems much smaller, allowing for numerous coincidences at the same time allowing the troop the anonymity of the city when needed. Fantastical elements are eventually introduced, attributed to ‘mind-magic.’

In some ways, the plot feels like a structured role-playing game: each task Amaranthe completes inevitably leads her to the next, with just enough clues to see the logical–and perhaps trope-given–solution. Thus, while I didn’t predict the ultimate conclusion when I started, I didn’t find any step along the way particularly surprising. Entertaining, certainly, but hardly innovative. Themes in both personal independence and developing romance reminded me of The Blue Sword, in which a heroine learns to succeed in a man’s world.

Characterization is out of central casting, but like many movies, is still enjoyable. There’s a sloppy co-worker, a dark, brooding assassin, a drunk intellectual, a dandy of a swordsman, and a street sorcerer/thief. Amaranthe is definitely wearing Mary Sue perfume, but at least it was her brains and attitude that stood out. Oh, and her cleaning OCD (I’m not complaining; it’s an occupational hazard) and her comfortableness with her body (which did seem a little incongruent for the culture). Unfortunately, much like The Blue Sword, I’d note that it largely fails the Bechdel test, with Amaranthe’s band of miscreants formed of merry men.

In a charitable mood, I’d recommend it to fans of fast-paced heist stories such as Lies of Locke Lemora, only Amaranthe is far, far too moral to compare to Locke– although she does share traits of smooth talking, creativity and daring. Much like Locke, much of the entertainment comes out of the chicanery of the team of miscreants. I’d recommend it to fantasy fans looking for an adventure with an interesting female lead, but suggest that you be in the mood to accept predictable elements. show less

I had a lot of fun reading it thanks to witty dialogue, interesting worldbuilding, and, oh, the plot...

What happens, in one sentence? A former police officer and a hyper-competent assassin (and a few other misfits) try to stop a plot against the young Emperor by counterfeiting money.

It makes more sense in context. I love stuff like that. I'll mentally shelve it along with "military-school dropout becomes admiral of a space mercenary fleet by accident" (The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold).

The book has a subtitle/tagline of "a high fantasy mystery in an era of steam". The setting is a nice blend of genres, this book taking place in or around the capital of a militaristic and industrial empire where things just happen to be show more run by steam (occasionally involving punchcards), without the preoccupation with gadgetry that I associate with Steampunk. Magic does crop up, but isn't common - the Empire's official position is that a) it doesn't exist and b) it's banned.

What makes this take on saving the country interesting is the perspective. Amaranthe, who is our viewpoint character most of the time, nearly finished business school before entering what the Empire has for a police force, which informs a lot of her actions, such as recruiting a male escort for her cause on the basis of "someone that good-looking is bound to get good deals from businesswomen. (By the by, I think by making running businesses "women's work", Lindsay Buroker nicely balanced the "What, a woman Enforcer? How cute" chaff Amaranthe catches early on.)

Amaranthe is rather on the idealistic side, and her greatest strength seems to be talking people into things.

Sicarius, the assassin she is sent to kill but teams up with since he seems to be on the Emperor's side, by contrast is practical, amoral, and emotes about as much as a rock for most of the book. (We also don't get into his head.) He's so hyper-competent when it comes to killing people that he gets away with dressing in black accessoried with an armoury of knives in plain view, which I find rather hilarious, but may say more about the setting than anything else, come to think of it.

The second viewpoint character is the young Emperor. There are considerably fewer scenes from this perspective than from Amaranthe's; it seems to work rather well together.

The plot is fast-paced, somewhat twisty, and well interwoven, and thus for me a joy to follow. The book is a bit on the zany side, so I'd say it needs some more willingness to suspend disbelief in favour of rule of cool/rule of funny than some other books out there.

Content warnings? There's violence of various stripes (between an assassin and an evil empire, to be expected) and an attempted rape.

Proof-reading and formatting? I spotted something like three typos (and that the writer prefers "a couple [things]" over "a couple of [things]").
A few chapters had, on my reader and at my chosen font size, an empty page before the start of the next chapter. I'm quite sure that has to do with following the Smashwords Styleguide, which concerns making one master file to be converted into several formats, not all of which honour page breaks.
The book also has the neccessary meta-info that lets me jump to chapters through my reader's "table of contents" function.
That makes this book better proof-read and formatted than at least half the titles I got from big publishing houses.

Bottom line: Under aforementioned caveat, I recommend it highly. I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel. show less

I am really torn about this one. I really like the mc and her crew and the dynamics in it.
I usually dislike the obligatory crew building because it feels forced and formulaic most of the time but not in this case. I am not really sure what makes the difference. Maybe it even is just my current mood but I think the way the different members are introduced is so natural that it avoided the formulaic feel.
Anyway, I connected very well with the protagonists and was much more invested than I expected.

Throughout the story but especially, in the end, a pretty big problem became apparent.
Security around the King is laughable. There are so many completely uncontrolled single points of failure everyone and their mothers could plot any kind of show more manipulation/assassination of anything or anyone they want. Furthermore, this lack is repeatedly used as a plot device to perpetuate deception, deceit, and betrayal. This badly hurts believability.
An even worse related ridiculous plot convenience is the communication of information to protagonists. There are filters that conveniently make anything vanish that could resolve conflict everywhere.
It feels very much like these stories in which from the first page on, a single conversation could solve the entire conflict on the spot but in this case, information just doesn't reach people that really should but instead it is conveniently forgotten or lost or interrupted before it can be said or some other cheap excuse. You know what I speak of.
Even tho these flaws are there throughout the entire book, at first, it could've just been coincidence. I couldn't be sure but it kept on happening and every time was another nail in the coffin of my willing suspension of disbelief.

I am sad to say these flaws very much ruined my enjoyment of the book.
For the first 2/3ds of the book, I was sure I would want to read the second one immediately and already made sure I had it on hand but now I really lost interest in continuing even tho I still very much like the characters.
I'd rather keep the memories I have of them than risk them getting spoiled further by another cheap plot like that.
This really baffles me because apparently the author spent quite some time researching a lot of obscure details and made sure she had the facts right. The printing press and forged money are good examples of that.
There clearly went a lot of effort in getting things right and the author deftly avoided a lot of clichée traps and other opportunities for mistakes that presented themselves but ultimately the entire plot is built on a variation of the miscommunication trope which is generally considered to be very lazy and cheap.
This was incredibly frustrating to me because I really started to care. show less