Promise of Blood

4/5

The first book of the trilogy starts off very strong with a French Revolution style coup and execution of the nobility of the kingdom. It certainly wasted no time to really get into the heart of the conflict and really puts you directly into the middle of all the action and problems.

The kingdom had grown greedy and stagnant and a revolution was the only seemingly right choice and I think this was a great way to really hook you in and keep you reading despite the density of the information. There was little room to breathe as you go through four different POVs in the book, each having its own distinct storyline and sometimes overlaps with the others.

I think the various POVs was both a great look into individual pieces of the world but also at times felt too much. I love some good POVs but when they change multiple times in one chapter it can get a little overwhelming, especially if you are reading through a lot of the book at a time. It probably just works a bit better in shorter bursts.

However each individual story was interesting, with a small exception of Nila who I am still a bit unsure of how she will fit into the overall story. She had most of the lower-stakes chapters so far with very small problems and at times her ignorance of the overall conflict was a little annoying. But I am hoping that will improve in the next few books.

The lack of any major women as a POV character is also not great, I would have loved to see the world through a stronger woman in the army or elsewhere in the world. Most of the women in the world are relegated to maids, nurses, assistants etc. which is definite a bit of a letdown as there is no reason to include them in bigger roles.

I think the book really delivered on a large scale epic with many conflicts, though I think it may have also overdone itself a little bit with the magic. I love good magic in fantasy stories, but it seems like there are so many disjoint systems in this series that have very little connection between each other so far. It almost feels like the author couldn’t quite choose which is cooler and decided to go with all of them. But it’s possible the later books will have better answers for why this they are so vastly different from each other.

I think overall it’s a very promising start to the trilogy and I am definitely going to be reading the next two.

I started the Powder Mage series because Brandon Sanderson recommended it in a Reddit thread. If the king in fantasy recommends a story you take heed.

Like most fantasy stories this drops you right in the action and this event had been decades in the planning. Characters are new, the magic system is unfamiliar to and you're off to find out how it all connects. Information is given to the reader at a good pace and I never found that too much was withheld at any moment.

Others have called this a "French style revolution with Magic" and that's pretty fair. The amount of political subterfuge and layers that existed here were more than I imagined too. Multiple stories in different locations kept the book fresh and at a good pace because there was always something happening.

The downside I had with the book was keeping the characters straight. This may be my fault as I took longer to read a book of this size than I usually do, and it wasn't until I was able to devote some time and make progress that the story picked up and I understood who was who.

This was partly annoying for a minor character or two, but as the story ramped up there were characters involved that I didn't feel had enough of an introduction. Perhaps they were mentioned in that first 15-20% where I was unfamiliar but it made the climax a little underwhelming when a character who didn't stand out was at the center of the plot.

Everything else about this story shows a lot of promise and I will definitely continue the trilogy.