Some readers were disappointed by the move to multiple characters in the rest of that trilogy (that I must read!). Many fantasy readers like a 'cool' sword swinging hero and they got that in spades in Ryan's first book. I will say though that the spectacular success of Ryan's debut, Blood Song, was in part due to the focus on a single, young, heroic character. It's a marvelous piece of imagination with plenty of twists and reveals to keep it going.Īny complaints or doubts? Not on my own behalf. In this last thread we have a wild-west element with gunmen (and women) aplenty. And the out in the wilds with the drakes and the natives element was also fascinating. The covert operations were great fun too. I loved the naval battles and the life aboard ship stuff. Our characters are a secret operative in the corporate wars, a thief with special talents, co-opted to explore the wilds in search of a unique drake, and a naval officer serving on an ironclad warship. Plus there's a largely unexplored continent where the drakes are hunted and on which a lost explorer is sought (Dr Livingston, I presume?).

The presence of the drakes and the need to harvest them make for an unusual kind of Victoriana. The implementation though bears no resemblance to mine and the setting is a refreshingly different with late 19th century(ish) technology and a vast commercial empire where profit and trade have replaced royalty or democracy. The magic comes in through gaining powers from drinking the blood of dragons (drakes) - exactly the same as in an unpublished book I wrote in 2001, down to the colours and the fact that a very tiny percentage of people can survive drinking the blood. The main pillars of the book are world-building and story. There are three point-of-view characters and the story is split reasonably evenly between them. Anthony Ryan can write! In fact he's annoyingly good. At 220,000 words it's longer than any book I've written and almost three times as long as Prince of Thorns! Still, it's only half a George Martin doorstop.īut mostly, I had an electronic copy and I don't get on with reading from my laptop - I keep nipping off to the internet!įirst off, it's really well written. I've been reading this book for 16 weeks!

The Tower's Alchemist by Alesha Escobar