I was so excited to hear that this author was releasing books about the founding of Valdemar. It is one of my favourite series in fantasy with so much depth of characters.
I found I was slightly disappointed, not because the book isn’t good. It was written very well. The problem I have is that it looks to have contradicted some of the books that we had read in the past.
I was actually hoping for much more. I wanted to see more about people of the Empire but they seem to not have really pushed too much into why the Empire is the way it is.
The political parts of the book showed a lot of thought and really made you wonder just how this Empire had survived. I enjoyed that part I think the most as it just showed a lot of what could happen in a corrupt society.
The main character seems nothing like what I imagined. Is he good hearted? Yes. He just felt so distant and not really the nicest of people. I do think that his time in the Empire is showing that he had been manipulated and while he does try and rise above it all it seems he failed.
There was so much good about this book. Learning about the baron and seeing what he was really like gives some great insights into why valdemar became as it did.
Kordas is a very strong character however his magic seems not as strong as what I would assumed. He seemed to really not have too much of it relying on others to do the magical works.
Imagery in this book made me smile at times especially when he is helping with the birth of a foal. The analogies were very strong and of course I do get a perverse pleasure when they talked about the gassiness of the mare.
This was a good start however despite my love of this book there was a lot more that I wanted to see. I wanted to see them fleeing the empire and really the founding starting. This will be great series and I hope it solves some of what we see in the current valdemar
Crazy Canadian Writing 