The Blurb (spoilers):
A year has passed since an unlikely alliance saved the Tressian Republic from fire and darkness – at great cost. Thousands perished, and Viktor Akadra – the Republic’s champion – has disappeared.
While the ruling council struggles to mend old wounds, other factions sense opportunity. The insidious Parliament of Crows schemes in the shadows, while to the east the Hadari Emperor gathers his armies. As turmoil spreads across the Republic, its ripples are felt in the realms of the divine.
War is coming . . . and this time the gods themselves will take sides.
The Review (spoiler-free):
If you haven’t read my review of Legacy of Ash, then you should know that it was a book that I really loved. It was a very familiar-feeling European epic fantasy that played with some old ideas, added some original flourishes, and scratched an itch that I’d had since G.R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.
Now, look. Playing the Game of Thrones comparison is the laziest thing that a fantasy reviewer can do, I know that. And in many ways, Matthew Ward’s Legacy trilogy is nothing like GRRM’s books. When I say it scratched the same itch, I’m specifically talking about something that I appreciated in Legacy of Ash, and something that I think comes to the forefront even more in the sequel: viewing a single conflict from multiple sides.
This is something that I think Ward handles really well, and is something that I love in books that have multiple points of view. I love it when the individual stories of different characters overlap and intertwine. When we have four or five people who want (or need) different outcomes from a single event. These books thrive on such conflicts of interest, and Ward manages to fold in character motivations, political situations, the chaos of war, and more in order to make these conflicts feel “epic” and personal at the same time. It means that most action sequences have context, motivation, and reason behind them, which made them feel more engaging for me than equivalent scenes from some other books.
For those who haven’t read the first book, the world of the Legacy trilogy focuses on a nation with a North/South divide (the Tressian republic) who are at war with a neighbouring empire (the Hadari). In this world there are gods who can interact with mortals via boons, blessings, possibly-manipulative deals, and outright threats. With gods come followers, and so there are raven-cloaked death-worshipping assassins, holier-than-thou sun fanatics, magic-sword-wielding moon warriors… you get the picture. War is waged on multiple planes.
Following the events of book 1 (and I’m trying to be spoiler-free here), the gods are taking a far more active interest in mortal politics. Champions are chosen. Deals are struck. Characters who only trying to make the world a better place are swept up in a momentum that they don’t fully understand. Traumas are revisited, wounds are reopened. What is “good” or “right” from one perspective may cause nothing but pain from another.
These books are large. The hardback of Legacy of Steel I read was 750ish pages long. This means that, realistically, it can’t be all action all of the time. There has to be some downtime. And I think Legacy of Steel handles that pretty well. It has an almost sinusoidal flow to it — building up towards a peak, and then calming down for some lower-key character moments. I wouldn’t say that it goes particularly in-depth with much of its characterisation, but it went deep enough for me to provide context, meaning, and emotion for much of the story.
However, there were some aspects that I wasn’t too fond of. Some scenes contained too much description for me, to the point where I would start to skim forward. The prose — which is very readable though with a classical fantasy lilt to it — contained a few quirks that would bug me, including a tendency towards the personification of inanimate objects. One of my favourite characters from the first book (Viktor) had a character arc which started off promising, but in my opinion paid off too early and left him somewhat rudderless until the end of the book. With all that said though, this book was still a solid 4-star read for me.
For those of you who enjoyed Legacy of Ash and are looking forward to diving into this one, I think you’ve got a lot to look forward to. I had a blast with this book. One scene in particular came very close to bringing me to tears. I would recommend, however, that you seek out a summary of book 1 if it’s been a while since you read it, and I wish one had been included in the front pages.
For all of you who haven’t read the first, but are intrigued by the sound of it… Well, what are you waiting for?
We received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Orbit Books for the review copy!
