Paladin's Hope

I enjoyed this third book in T. Kingfishers Saint of Steel (and sixth in The Clocktaur War series) very much. I don't know what it says about me that the I found the build up to the romance in the first book annoying, and the romance in the second book only a little better, but this one hit the sweet spot. The first two were male paladins (with severe cases of PTSD) falling for females. This one was about two dudes, so I found their hesitancy to reveal their interest in each other a lot more believable than I did the couples in the previous books.

I do like this world quite a bit, and I skipped all three Temple of the White Rat books, so I have to go back and read those soonish. I did this as an audiobook and it took me a little while show more to get used to the narrator. He succeeded in making Piper and Galen sound like two completely different men, and he did the gnole voices very well. As with most Kingfisher books there is a lot of humor here. Because of this the horrible bits become easier to handle than they might be otherwise.

Also there is this bit of brilliant insight on the creation of torture devices and killing machines:

Once a thing is made, it exists in the mind of the world. The next one is easier to make, and the next one after that. The first takes a twisted genius. The hundredth can be done by any blacksmith.

Highly recommended if you have already read others in the series, or even if you have not. Although previous characters appear or are mentioned several times. show less

Crazy murderers! Deathly traps! Danger! Banter! Awesome gnoles! Adorable romance!

I think this might be my favourite book in this series so far. I am happy that Galen got a book. (I am keeping my fingers crossed for each paladin to get a book.) I love Galen, and it was about time he got paired off.

Piper is a doctor. He is a lich-doctor, to be exact. That means that he is a forensic pathologist in a fantasy universe, and deals with terrible things on a daily basis. I want to give Piper a hug.

“He didn’t mind living people, he was perfectly happy to meet them and talk to them and even work with them, but corpses never, ever asked stupid questions.”

The city guard finds a body in the river. And another. And another. Due to various show more circumstances, Piper, Galen, and Earstripe the gnole go off to investigate. Earstripe is awesome and cool, and I hope to see more of him in later books. (Please, dear author?)

The three go through many scary things together. The book gets pretty dark. But it wouldn’t be T. Kingfisher if there weren’t lots of chuckle-worthy dialogues and situations. I had so much fun. Galen and Piper are adorable and I loved them together. Naturally, according to the ancient tradition of romance novels, it takes them forever to figure each other out. (“He cannot possibly like me” and “I might put people in danger, so I’d better not get close to anyone” go on and on and on.) Things do get steamy.

While we go through the romance process, there are many fun quotes to enjoy:

“Generally it takes longer for me to make a fool of myself in front of good-looking men. I’m getting more efficient.”

“No, no, I love it when handsome men hug me for not being dead.”

Are you in any doubt about the destination? Well, the ending is very nice, with a cliffhanger in the epilogue :))) show less

It figures that when T. Kingfisher writes a romance series (and The Saint of Steel is absolutely a romance series) that it would involve lich doctors with mysterious powers, a deadly labyrinth, paladins of dead god and some really delightful gnolls. Wouldn't have it any other way. Love that this installment has even more gnoll culture, gay protagonists, returning characters from previous books and an aaaaaaargh cliffhanger ending. Love these as audio books, too -- the reader is excellent.

I didn’t really want to read about a doctor who does autopsies but when my library hold came through I decided to give it a go -- and was quickly engrossed. Piper spends less time dealing with dead bodies than he does trapped in an ancient deadly maze, alongside a paladin (Galen) and a gnole. If I’d known about the maze in advance, I might have doubted that would appeal to me too, but it was tense and interesting!

I also liked the bits about gnoles, and appreciated how the book gives Piper understandable (and non-morbid) reasons for preferring to work with the dead. I found Galen was less memorable than Kingfisher’s previous guilt-riddled paladins and was somewhat frustrated with the obstacles to romance in the third act, but show more nevertheless the book is a convincing argument that he and Piper are well suited. show less

Very fun romance, Piper and Galen are well-matched. And I enjoyed learning more about gnole culture. The plot is mostly Piper, Galen, and Earstripe surviving and then the fallout from what happened to them without much of a mystery.

Piper is the lich-doctor--effectively, the medical examiner for a district of the city of Archon's Glory. He played a role in the investigation of the "smooth men," who were leaving headless bodies around for unclear reasons.

Galen is one of the surviving Paladins of the Saint of Steel, a god who died, leaving his paladins to run berserk for just long enough that only seven of them are left alive. They're now in the service of the Temple of the White Rat. Galen is recently returned from a mission in which he played a mostly secondary role in the final resolution of the "smooth men" problem.

Piper and Galen find each other extremely attractive, and are each certain it's just hopeless, for different reasons. What draws time together into a show more new investigation is a new set of mysterious deaths, several bodies found floating in the river, each killed in different and hard to explain ways.

It's the gnole, Earstripe, after he's dismissed from the city guard, who recruits Galen and Piper to backtrack the corpses to their likely source, and attempt to find the killer. This, of course, forces the two into prolonged contact where they can drive themselves, Earstripe, and others batty with their mooning over each other while refusing to act on the attraction. That's hardly their only problem, though, as backtracking to the source of the corpses leads them to a harmless-seeming madman and labyrinth of deadly traps.

In the course of the story, we also learn more about the status of gnoles in human society. They do quite a few essential jobs that humans would rather not do, and they are certainly not valued for it. They are, of course, second class citizens, barely tolerated, and not really tolerated at all when, like Earstripe, they demonstrate the ability to be useful in more respectable occupations.

All three of our heroes, Galen, Piper, and Earstripe, all demonstrate depth of character and ingenuity that isn't apparent early on, making it a real delight to get to know them better.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. show less

I have enjoyed every single installment in this series thus far and, though this third volume is not my favorite, I did enjoy it almost as well. It is the shortest book and suffers a little bit from the fact that the plot mechanism is very contained and, as a result, repetitive. There's no way around that, it just is. It also relies more on references to the previous books of the larger universe, like Clockwork Boys, so I think I would have resonated more with the mystery if I had read that set of books, which I have not yet done. And, given the thinness of the book, the romance feels very quick. I like the characters a lot but didn't feel like I had as much time and variation of circumstances to really bond with them. That said, the show more least good T. Kingfisher book in a series is still better than most and the quirky humor, fascinating world, and enjoyable banter is still very much present. And that last line is a doozy. On to the next! show less