Thursday, January 18, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Blood and Tempest (Empire of Storms #3) by Jon Skovron





The Empire of Storms trilogy has been one of my favorite series' that I've read over the past year or so.  The series, beginning with 2016's "Hope and Red" and continuing with "Bane and Shadow" in early 2017, is a fantasy adventure series that manages to be dark at times (Good guys lose limbs and/or outright die in the first two books, the two main protagonists manage to have an impressive body count, etc.) while still remaining incredibly fun.  So I've been looking forward to Blood and Tempest, the concluding volume of the trilogy, for a while.

Blood and Tempest made the wait worth it.  Like another fantasy adventure series I read over the past year (V.E. Schwab's Darker Shades of Magic), it increases the number of viewpoints shown in the final book of the series.  Unlike that other series, the new viewpoint is a fantastic addition to the cast and the whole thing comes together in an incredibly satisfying package.  The book isn't perfect by any means, but is just such fun and a blast to read that it almost doesn't matter.

I suspect the series didn't sell particularly well, as only book 1 has an audiobook and only one library on Long Island bought the book, which is why i took me so long to review this book (I've since bought a copy).  I hope this trend reverses itself, as it deserves to be more read.

More after the jump, where I'll try to limit spoilers from the first two books as much as possible:

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
Two books ago: Bleak Hope was an orphan from the Southern Isles whose entire village was killed in an experiment by the Empire's Biomancers - biomages who manipulate living matter.  Thanks to the kind efforts of the Vinchen monk Hurlo the Cunning, she became a skilled warrior with a legendary blade, devoted to vengeance against the Biomancers.

Two books ago: Red was an orphan with peculiar red eyes from the crime filled streets of Paradise Circle in the City of New Lavin, aiming to become the best thief in the Circle.  But as Red became more adapt at using his throwing knives and became more well known amongst the community, he helped start a gang war in the Circle to overthrow the gang that was working with the biomancers.

Fate would bring Hope and Red together, and fate drove them apart, and much has changed since the two last saw each other - Hope and her crew became considered the gravest threat to the biomancers, but in doing so, Hope lost her faith in her path and swore never to kill again.  Meanwhile Red has learned the politics of the Empire and how to throw off the yoke of the Biomancers and now works as an agent of the Empire's top spy.

The time has come for Hope and Red to reunite, because the time has come for the Biomancers to take their most dangerous action yet, threatening all within the Empire.  But with all the changes they've undergone, will things really be the same when they reunite?  And do they stand a chance in the fight to save the Empire?
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The above plot summary is my attempt at being as spoiler free as possible (obviously there's spoilers involved, but nothing that would really surprise any reader coming into the series), so it doesn't truly capture the scope of the story.  Through 2 books, we've met a number of interesting characters with varying personalities and skills:
A female biomancer with the special ability to affect living things at a distance but a bit of a disregard for human life;
A pacifist noble-born engineer with no sense of self preservation;
A vicious chain-wielding woman who started as an enforcer for a male whorehouse who is willing to fight for her friends;
A girl who is an associate of all the above and trains to learn all their skills so she can be something.

This book features one new character and a renewed focus on one introduced last book:
A Noble woman who pretends to be a simple husband-looking noble but is actually the Empress' chief of espionage (introduced in the last book);
A Boy who is basically a necromancer and thinks the way to make friends is to kill people and raise them from the grave;

I'm omitting a few even now (and trying to avoid spoilers in the above descriptions) but the key point is that ALL of these characters are fantastic.  Even when the book spends time and chapters away from the main duo, these characters never make me feel like I'm missing out.  The chief of espionage for example gets a lot more focus in this book and she is absolutely fantastic (If you followed me on twitter, I posted a bunch of her quotes on twitter the last few days).  Everyone works really well in terms of actions and motivations and man did I love every last one of them.

The writing is incredibly well done in terms of providing a really fun story, with numerous moments throughout that made me crack up or smile.  And then there's the little interview post-script which is just an extra bonus.

I mean the book isn't perfect.  The end of book 2 and the first part of this book suggest a new threat on the horizon, but that threat never materializes in this book despite the foreshadowing, and this is the last book in the trilogy.  I wonder if the books' failure to sell well (which is my total speculation mind you, but I'm pretty sure I'm right) turned the series from a longer-intended series into simply three books, and a later book would've told the story of the new threat.  Still, the ending is very satisfying anyhow, even if I hope that there's more to come somehow.

So yeah, if you like fantasy adventure with a hint of darkness but a lot of fun, you'll really enjoy this series, and the series only gets better with this final book in the trilogy.
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