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A review by curgoth
Kingdoms of Dust by Amanda Downum
3.0
He's a fae-touched warrior rescued from a terrible Turkish-ish prison. She's a necromancer spy mourning a lost mentor and lover. The other he is a djinn trapped in human flesh struggling with the politics of a vast empire! They're all feeling Too Old For This Shit!
With the third book of her Necromancer Chronicles, Downum brings back two of my favourites from The Drowning City, Asheris al-Seth the demon wizard, and Adam, the lethal mercenary.
One of the interesting things about this series is that it looks like standard heroic fantasy, but it keeps subverting and avoiding tropes. The standard model has the heroes getting injured, having thier powers lost or weakened, but in the end, their injuries don't get in the way, their power returns, stronger than ever, and the heroes stride into the sunset, badass and wounded aesthetically.
Downum's heroes win, but at great personal cost. Isyllt's hand never recovers from the first book in the series, and Adam's health is about what you'd expect from someone who spent a good chunk of time in a terrible Turkish-ish prison. It stands out for me, because three books in, we don't see the characters levelling up to increasing levels of badass; they have the same, or sometimes less to work with to face the threats they're presented with. I'm curious to see if this trend continues, or if they eventually start to recover what they've lost and/or gain awesome new power. I believe the series is continuing, and I like the characters enough to keep reading either way - it's just a nice twist on standard epic fantasy tropes.
With the third book of her Necromancer Chronicles, Downum brings back two of my favourites from The Drowning City, Asheris al-Seth the demon wizard, and Adam, the lethal mercenary.
One of the interesting things about this series is that it looks like standard heroic fantasy, but it keeps subverting and avoiding tropes. The standard model has the heroes getting injured, having thier powers lost or weakened, but in the end, their injuries don't get in the way, their power returns, stronger than ever, and the heroes stride into the sunset, badass and wounded aesthetically.
Downum's heroes win, but at great personal cost. Isyllt's hand never recovers from the first book in the series, and Adam's health is about what you'd expect from someone who spent a good chunk of time in a terrible Turkish-ish prison. It stands out for me, because three books in, we don't see the characters levelling up to increasing levels of badass; they have the same, or sometimes less to work with to face the threats they're presented with. I'm curious to see if this trend continues, or if they eventually start to recover what they've lost and/or gain awesome new power. I believe the series is continuing, and I like the characters enough to keep reading either way - it's just a nice twist on standard epic fantasy tropes.