A Sword of Gold and Ruin - Anna Smith Spark

I've been a fan of Anna Smith Spark's for years, ever since her Court of Broken Knives , which I hand-sell as "Kind of like if a heavy metal album was also a fantasy series". But she's kept going since then, and A Sword of Bronze and Ashes, a liminal, dreamlike, murderous, epic work about a woman stepping away from heroism and villainy, such as they were, and diving back in to save her family, was a surprise hit for me. This sequel, A Sword of Gold and Ruin takes the best of that story and crafts something new and beautiful and terrible with it. This is a book that wants to talk about people, about characters and stories, the stories we tell each other and ourselves which also happen to be the stories of us, and it wants to do so while looking at heroism, at blood-on-the-dirt villainy, and at how choices can make us mix one in with the other.

Our protagonist, you see...well, now she's Kanda. Mother of several girls, of varying ages. Wife to a man who is, well, stolid and good and delighted to be with her. But Kanda has been a few other things as well. She's been one of the six swords of Roven, a Camelot-esque dream that is revealed in flashbacks across the course of the narrative. They were made by and did the bidding of their Lord, fighting monsters and unseating tyrants and being general do-gooders. And she was also something else - a hardened killer at the front of an army that tore down cities, that burned for the sake of burning, killed for the sake of killing, built their own monsters and set them free. Until she wasn't, any more. Until the freedom to be a monster felt like a prison cell, and Kanda walked away, to make something else, a different life, a different love, a different family, neither gods nor monsters therein. Well, not right now anyway. And I don't think I can giuve much away by saying this is a very character driven book. We're in Kanda's head, while she examines herself, her preconceptions. What she wants. And what she wants for her children. Whether one is too gentle or another too keen to pick up the sword. Whether Kanda herself can feel pride in the works of her children, even as they step outside her, perhaps step beyond her. Whether that pride is tainted by her history or enhanced by it, and whether her daughters mistakes are their own to make. Kanda is a woman filled with broken panes of glass, looking back over a history that blurs into myth, trying to unpick fact from fiction in her own life, even as a new story builds itself around her and before he (and, whisper it, perhaps, without her). Kanda is a mother and a wife and a hero and a killer, and wrestles with her needs and those of others in a world still holding to the boundaries of the unreal - where a buried skull beneath the door of a new home can keep evil away, and a new hall built around the bones of a hanged man can exert malevolent power. What the truth is, is difficult to unpick, but in a sense it doesn't matter. Because Smith-Spark's prose carries that story directly into your brain. It has a precise, lyrical quality we see in Greek myth, and it rolls off the tongue as if it should be spoken or sung aloud. It's a tale in form as well as function, harking back to old traditions, built in a new way.

It is, as I say, rather tightly focused on Kanda, her family, and how they manage to get along in the face of what they survived in the first book in the series, and what they plan to do next. Things Do Happen, but to me it feels like these are events meant to let out a little more of our characters, show us a little more of who they are under pressure or under arms or in each others arms. Which isn't to say that those Things aren't ,momentous in their own right, don't tell us a tale that is likely to draw a gasp or a smile or a wry chuckle. This is a story of blended together worlds, where dragons and knights and killers and daughters walk hand in hand, and are sometimes the same thing. There's a lot going on. It just also serves the characters, gives us ways to see these people as they build their own palaces, or their own graves. It's thoughtful, incisive prose, wrapped in an elaborate, heady style that makes everything feel like a saga or a fireside tale. And it's compelling stuff - I couldn't put it down. I suspect if you enjoyed the first book in this series, you won't be able to put this one down either, and so...yes, highly recommended.

See you in 2026!

 Hope all our readers have a great end to 2025. We're taking a bit of time to recharge, and we'll see you all in January!

Shadows Upon Time - Christopher Ruocchio

Well, this is it. The final book in the Sun Eater series from Christopher Ruocchio. Shadows Upon Time. Its been a long time coming, and has a lot of expectations to live up to. And, you know what, for the most part it does a great job of meeting or even surpassing those expectations! It's the end of our journey with Hadrian Marlowe, sometime aristocrat, sometime arena fighter, sometime military commander, occasional agent for a universal force of creation, and a proud father.  That journey has been...eventful. Full of spiritual revelations and physical torments,  full of friendships, many of which ended in bloody circumstances. Full of comrades-in-arms, and the love (and loathing) of family, adopted and otherwise. Hadrian has been a busy boy, but his end, or at least the end of his story, is finally here. I've been trying to get people to read this series since way back in 2018 , and I'm unashamedly enthusiastic about the world and the characters, so seeing the end of the line is, for me, bittersweet. 

Still! We're here to talk about if the book is any good or not. And, perhaps surprising no-one reading this...yes, I think it is, actually. Equally unsurprisingly, I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you're already up-to-date on the series. This is the conclusion of thousands of pages of world-building, character relationships and Deep Lore(tm); if you walk into this book with no idea what's going on, you're not going to have a good time. Stop. Go and read Empire of Silence instead, and come back when you've caught up. OK? The rest of you....look, I assume you're here because you're fans. You stuck with it through the more esoterically spiritual pieces, and the occasional bouts of misery and torture, and all the way through blowing up a bunch of cool stuff, and the end of the story of more than one of your favourite secondary characters. And you want to know whether Ruocchio sticks the landing, or if you're going to be yelling about this series at your friends next time you're out for a beer, and declaring the whole thing to be bullshit.

I can't speak for you, but I have been talking about this book over beer, but only to tell people that it's a damn fine wrap up to the series. So yay!

We get more Hadrian Marlowe here. A man who has suffered deep loss, made into an avatar for forces, for lives, for singularities whose essential nature he struggles with, from time to time. A metaphor for faith? I think so, yes. As Marlowe struggles to accept his own place in things, the sacrifices that his role demands from both those around him and himself, one can see a metaphor for the divine. Well, it's not quite a metaphor, since Marlowe reaches out for that idea quite explicitly, at one point having a discussion about divinity with one of his comrades-in-arms, trying to map from his Absolute onto their understanding of the world. There's shades of C.S. Lewis here, and it can be a bit heavy-handed in the prose, but I found Hadrian's internal struggle with the idea of his responsibility as an avatar of everything to be quite compelling. The effort to show us his journey through the liminal, secular spaces and into a more tranquil understanding of his own truth pays off because it's been built over the entire series - we've seen the man Marlowe is now, built form the ground up. It still feels like a bit much, a bit on the nose, but I can see what Ruocchio is reaching for in the story he's trying to tell, and it mostly works, and when it does, it's a powerful story of self-discovery and spiritual and mental change. And to be fair, if it sometimes feels a little preachy, it's not only that. Hadrian remains a compelling, flawed protagonist, an unreliable narrator seemingly often uncomfortable in the role he finds himself playing. And that shines through, it gives him some, well, humanity as a protagonist. If he's a hero, of sorts, out of legend, he's also a man trying to figure out what is right, and indomitable in his desire to see his duty done.

And the world. Well, the universe really. It's been built over the course of the series, a cavalcade of distinct cultures, mostly human (or...human approximate), with some deeply alien aliens thrown in for good measure. It's a rich tapestry, with a history lurking in the background that I'd love to hear more about, but what we *have* promises stories on top of tall tales on top of legends. And you can see that universe shift and twist and change as the story comes to a close, things are fundamentally different, things will never be the same, and the consequences of that, the ripples of that all feel real.

And the story...I'm not going to speak to it more than I already have, but I will say that it has some vicious emotional lows, and some wonderful highs. There's passion and truth and joy and more than a splash of sorrow in there, and it's going to make you feel for sure. And the ending...well, I think it works. I think Hadrian's story ends how he'd want it to, and not least because he's the one apparently writing his own story. This has been a fiercely human, thoughtful, explosive journey, and the end is fiery, honest, and compelling. Go, read it - you won't regret it.

Back next week!

 Everyone here has the flu, so we'll be back next week - sorry, everyone out there!

Star Wars: Catalyst - James Luceno

This was a fun one! Catalyst is a prequel novel to Rogue One, covering the lives of Galen and Lyra Erso, the parents of Jyn, Rogue One's protagonist. Galen Erso was responsible for both building key parts of the Death Star, and for making sure that it had a weakness embedded in it that the Rebel Alliance could exploit - which they did, rather famously, in Star Wars, blowing the giant battlestation into teeny, tiny pieces. But how they got there, well that was an open question. How Galen and Lyra ended up on the run, in the middle of nowhere, hunted by the rather stylish but definitely malevolent Orson Krennic, was up for debate. Catalyst aims to answer those questions, and to explore the character of the Erso's, as well as several of their more-or-less problematic antagonists.

That's one of the biggest surprises for me about this book, actually. It's got its moments of tension, and action at the individual level, but it's more a suspense thriller than an action romp, more character study than outright adventure. Luceno focuses on the Erso's, but we also get to take a look inside Krennic's head, and indeed that of Tarkin, who turns up largely to piss in Krennic's cereal (which is rather accurate to their portrayal in the films, come to think of it). Anyway. The Erso's. We meet them first before Jyn is born, happily researching crystals for energy generation. The Galen we see here, however briefly, is in his element - digging into new ideas, at the same time as those ideas are being almost literally dug out of the surrounding landscape. He's clearly intelligent, a little detached, trying hard to be less so. Accessible, and clearly devoted to his wife, but a man with a passion for his ideas as much as for his ideals. In a galaxy being rent by the first of several galaxy-spanning conflicts, he wants to keep his head down, stay out of the way, and be as uninvolved as possible, preferring to live in the abstract, with the courage of his convictions, rather than have his research turned to deadly ends.

Lyra is, well, the same, but different. We don't see much of her in Rogue One, so this is her chance to shine. And she does. Passionate, thoughtful, not just a parrot for the obsessions of her husband, but an accomplished adventurer and researcher in her own right, Lyra has a protectiveness, a moral certainty, and a fire in her which complement Galen's more cerebral but less immediate demeanour. Lyra is the one who can Get Shit Done. She's also smart, and the member of the couple more willing to get her hands dirty and interact with the universe at large. When something looks sketchy, or too good to be true, she's more likely to call it out than Galen. That said, they're a wonderful pair to watch on the page - they complement each other, and they have the solid vibe of a married couple who know each other backwards and forwards, who are aware of each others blind spots and quirks, and balance each other out. And as they tumble further into the web of the Imperial weapons program, that balance, that trust and faith in each other shines off the page, even as it's central to the story itself.

And then there's Krennic. He's turned up in the fantastic Andor since this book was written, and he's pitch perfect there and here. A man without much check on his ambition, willing to use people, to lie, cheat, steal and commit the occasional atrocity in the service of his own rise to power - albeit with some fig leaves strewn about as regards the Greater Good. Krennic is shown here as a shrewd manipulator, a man with a plan to get to the top quickly, ruthless in doing so and in disposing of no longer useful tools. For all that, he's not directly violent, he's a people manager, a flamboyantly effective bureaucrat who happens to manage clandestine operations and earth-shattering weaponry in his day to day. Sitting in Krennic's head isn't living in the lair of theatrical evil, it's spinning wheels and careful paperwork, and a streak of utterly self-serving ruthlessness. His relationship with Galen, an old school friend, is fascinating in the sense that Krennic, who struggles to give a damn about anyone, actually seems to care about Galen. He wants to use the great researcher for his own advancement, but he also wants Galen to realise the potential of his genius, and struggles to understand why Erso isn't willing to do that, when all he'd have to do, which only Erso can do is build a few planet-busting weapons. This disconnect is  fascinating to watch, especially over Krennic's shoulder, as he tries to figure out a way to manipulate Galen into doing things that are good for Krennic, good for the Empire, and good for the version of Galen that is in Krennic's head, rather than the one walking about in the real world. Of course, Galen has a version of Krennic in his own head, somewhat more pleasant than the version in the real world. And that clash of perceptions and realities is what makes the book, I think, two people talking past each other in the service of different dreams, different ideals, different needs. 

It's a quiet story, one which slowly ramps up its discomfort and tension as the Ero's find themselves further and further enmeshed in Krennic's designs. A slow burn, a thriller, something that shows none of us are above the need to think, to question before we act, which asks what compromises someone should be or is willing to make for the sake of their country, their ideals, their own ambitions. In short, it's an interesting book, which built some excellent background for Rogue One, and was a lot of fun to read. Give it a shot!

Star Wars: Aftermath - Chuck Wendig

Alright, so I've been on a Star Wars kick recently. Here we are again. As I may have mentioned before, a surprising amount of my misspent youth was spent reading Star Wars novels in the then-extended-universe, filled with excellent characters, like Mara Jade, less excellent characters, like...clone "Lu-uke", standout stories like the X-Wing series, and...other...stories like The Crystal Star. All washed away now, post-Disney, and replaced with something a little more directed and a little more polished, for better or worse. Aftermath was one of the first of these, and takes place right after Return of the Jedi. I went in without knowing much about where it was going to go, and to cut to the chase - yes, it was a fun pulp adventure, and a nice antidote to the rather grimmer The Mask of Fear I'd read previously. It has some characters you can stand behind and cheer on, and some villains who aren't exactly moustache-twirling, but certainly don't read like they're on the correct side of history. And it all has that ineffable Star Wars feel to it, which ensured that I'd be happy to go on to read the sequel.

That's the short version. It's a good time, doesn't take itself too seriously, but has enough stakes, emotional and otherwise to make it a page-turning read. 

The slightly longer version? 

Norra Wexley is a one-time rebel pilot, now determined to settle back down in her old home and rekindle her relationship with the son she left behind. Unfortunately for Norra, she gets into a bit of trouble on the way home, trying to avoid Imperial entanglements, and her son is...less than keen to rebuild their relationship. I have a lot of time for Norra, a woman trying to build a life on the back of decisions she made a long time ago, as the cooling ashes of Rebellion turn into the more pragmatic needs of a governing Republic. She's a mother coming home from a war, a war she chose to fight while not expecting to win...and she has to live with the consequences of that. But she has a fierce love for her family (even the bits she doesn't really get on with) and especially for the son she left behind. Watching her struggle to decide on what she wants to be, whether she can leave behind her old-new-life and settle down again, or whether the spirt of the Rebellion is going to ignite again in her...well, it feels very grounded, very real, much like Norra herself. Her life is not made less complex when she picks up a distress call from Wedge Antilles (famed as "that other guy in an X-Wing by Luke Skywalker" in Star Wars). But it does serve as a catalyst for her to start making some increasingly desperate choices, which are entertaining and definitely not going to end badly and/or explosively.

She's assisted in her terrible decision making by Sinjir Velus, one time Imperial troubleshooter slash internal security, now hiding out on Norra's home planet in order to stay out of the way of both the Republic (who probably want a few quiet words) and the ex-Imperials he thinks are taking things more than a little too far (and who also want a few quiet words of their own). Sinjir is about 50% neat alcohol and 50% cynicism, and he's a lovely counterbalance to the more idealistic Norra. I think he'd perhaps be a bit much by himself in a story at this level of pulp-adventure, but as a foil for her heroism, his more pragmatic ruthlessness works perfectly. Also he has a nice turn in wordplay, and occasionally does that one thing that cuts through the moralising Gordian Knot that the ex-Rebels are rather fond of making for themselves. Whether he's a genuine defector or not is a question that gets asked occasionally through the story, and I shan't spoil it here - but whatever he is, Sinjir is an entertaining read, a self-centred rogue who may or may not be on the way to redemption, possibly depending on the relevant rates of pay. 

Then there's Jas Emari, the bounty hunter, who works for whoever happens to be paying, at least notionally. She's smart, thoughtful, and teetering on the grey edges of a universe that has a little more tolerance for grey edges than it did before the second Death Star exploded. She's focused on getting that one big score, on getting in and out, trying for that One Last Job that would set her up for life. Unfortunately for her, that puts her in the crosshairs of various powerful interests - Imperial and otherwise - and she swiftly finds herself entangled with Sinjir and Norra, all trying to stay one jump ahead. 

And then there's Temmin, Norra's son. Grown now, resentful of a mother he thinks abandoned him when he needed her most. A boy who now skirts on more than a few edges himself, with a sideline in technical sabotage, murder-droid construction and long-odds gambling, the last of which has a penchant for getting him into trouble. Temmin talks a good game as a young man on the boundaries of heroism and selfishness, and where he ultimately falls may be decided in this book, or the next, but in the meanwhile his internal conflicts, his refusal to see himself as less than a competent individual, and refusal to abdicate agency to his mother, mean that they clash often, even as they try and reshape their relationship in a world with no need for a Rebellion, but which might have a need for Rebels, still. 

They're a motley crew, and by the end of the book, I was thoroughly invested in them all, and in their weird and wonderful group dynamic. 

The story...well, honestly it's too full of twists and turns to really do justice to here. But it is, at its heart, a story where good triumphs over evil, where day to day heroism stands up against the boot of oppression, and where people justifying the poor choices they make may be said, occasionally, to get their comeuppance. That said, it works hard to make (some of) the villains of the piece more than cardboard cutouts. Rae Sloane, for example, an Imperial Admiral who I'm sure I've seen turn up in a few other places, is a competent, conscientious officer, not one keen to serve another cackling maniac, but also unwilling to relinquish power and control in a galaxy she sees as teetering into chaos. Sloane is political, ruthless, deadly, and definitely making some pretty horrible choices - but inside her own paradigm, she's not the villain . Sloane is a villain, make no mistake, but if she turned 45 degrees, she'd be the heroine of her own story, warped as it may be. 

In the end, this is Star Wars. Exotic locations. Adventure! Excitement! Really wild things! And in the heart of it, a story of found family, of love and sacrifice, defeat and heroism and unexpected victory. It's a story, to steal from Rogue One, a story built on hope. And one I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did. 

Star Wars: Reign of the Empire: The Mask of Fear - Alexander Freed

In my younger days, I was a massive fan of Star Wars (still am, actually). But before the prequels, we had something like fifteen years between the end of the original Trilogy with Return of the Jedi and the start of the prequel series with The Phantom Menace. Fortunately for me, George Lucas let that gap be filled with what I guess is now known as the Expanded Universe, eventually putting out a seemingly endless cavalcade of novels, comics and weird ephemera. All of these things were, kindly, of variable quality. Some were genuine blockbusters on the page, and other were...well, a limp noodle, but in the page. But I didn't care, because I was young and there were no other options, so I devoured it all whole. Eventually, the Expanded Universe was retconned out of existence when Lucas was bought out by Disney, and I haven't really thought about Star Wars outside of TV for a decade or so. This is the book I came back for, and I have to say, it really does deliver. 

Apart, perhaps, from having too many colons in its title, The Mask of Fear has a lot going for it. Set shortly after the collapse of the Galactic Republic and the formation of the Empire by the deeply malevolent Emperor Palpatine, the book follows a couple of Senators as they try, in their own ways, to figure out what they can do to navigate the new world they inhabit and mitigate the damage being done to institutions and people they hold dear. It explores the crisis of effective governance under totalitarianism, and the means by which those governments control the people in and out of power, be that through popular movements, secret police, or the quiet word in the right ear and the occasional disappearance. 

One of the protagonists here is Mon Mothma, who has a small role in the original Star Wars films, but was an absolute standout in the recent Andor as a woman of principle - albeit principle laced with pragmatism - struggling to figure out what she could do to stop a plunge into absolutism. While the Mothma of Andor has some extremely dodgy political connections indeed, the one in this book is still taking her first steps toward rebellion, still working inside the system, trading for votes and trying to understand why people don't seem to care quite as much as she does. Mothma is considered, thoughtful, occasionally afraid, willing to bridge gaps with those she personally despises in order to get the job done. Whether that's a good thing in a government being led by a megalomaniacal psychopath who can shoot lightning out of his hands has been left as something on which the reader can draw their own conclusions. That said, riding around on Mothma's shoulder demonstrates that she's trying her best, and doing what she thinks is right, and doing it well - and while she thinks the rise of more ideologically driven members of the senate is preventing them from getting their own demands met, she has her sympathies and her friends, on both sides of the aisle. Mothma's is a wolrd of backroom deals, of quiet conversations in secluded hallways, and, very occasionally, meeting informants and political partners in out of the way places which are also often horrifically dangerous. 

By contrast, there's Bail Organa from Alderaan, whose daughter, Leia, is of soooome importance in the Star Wars universe. But Bail, here, is relatively young and headstrong and determined to get things done, and he isn't at all willing to let stuff go, or compromise his principles in the name of pragmatism. He is, in fact, a giant noisy cricket in the Empire's eye, and himself readily admits that he hasn't been slapped down by now because he's just...not very effective. But Organa is doggedly persistent, and has a charisma and easy charm that Mothma thinks she lacks, and he's absolutely determined to dig into what happened to all of those Jedi that the Emperor says were traitors, because he doesn't believe a word of it. Of course, he's also being tailed by an agent of one of the many Imperial security bureaus, because he's...well, not good at this. Organa and Mothma, each in their own way, show us the best of people trying to work under an autocratic rule and find a way out, and at the same time they show us the weaknesses and humanity that make clinging to one position as the only answer untenable. Organa is too ideological to survive if he ever got hold of anything he could use, and Mothma is too much of a pragmatist to embrace the sort of violent rupture that unseating a nascent Empire would require. At least, right now. Both of them have a lot of learning and growth throughout the book. 

And I think that's the strength of the story, really. Both of them do grow. Both of them are compelx, flawed characters, working in a system which is becoming increasingly hostile to their existence. They're fighting a fight that we already know (thanks to Star Wars) that they're going to lose. But the face of the enmey, the face of a government led by a tyrant in a cloak of tradition and respectability is one made strange by familiarity. Watching the rise of "pro-Empire" popular movements which are actually astroturfed by Imperial Security, watching Security purge itself of effective members because they won't toe the line or aren't the right species, watching politicians step back from principle in the face of fear of reprisal against those they rep[resent...it's a creeping horror, and a fierce indictment of totalitarianism. This (mostly) isn't lightsabres and lasers - though there's a few in there. But it's a savagely compelling story of Star Wars for the modern era, and one that will leave you flipping pages well into the night. I'm already looking forward to the sequel.