Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: The Emperor's Blades: Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, Book 1

Top positive review

Excellent Fantasy Fiction

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 14, 2014

This was an excellent fantasy book (no spoilers below that aren't in the book description). The first book in a planned trilogy that should thankfully release every year so the wait times are reasonable. This is fiction in a Game of Thrones type setting and it focuses on the three children of the Emperor. The two sons get by far the most attention with Kaden, the oldest son and heir to the throne, who was sent to train as a monk and the younger son Valyn, was sent to train with the Kettral (the country’s elite military division). The oldest sibling is daughter Adare who remains at the capital. She has a minor role in the first book.

This is not a coming of age book. It’s a well written story focusing on the lives and training of the two sons and things are escalated due to the murder of their father the Emperor. I loved both characters and the supporting cast around them. There are many side characters that are interesting and pivotal to the story. There are also a number of mysteries in the book with the largest surrounding the Emperor’s death. They push the story along and hooked me in.

The fantasy elements themselves in this book are low key. There are many different gods and there is an underlying belief that they may affect things but for the most part this is a tale without god interference, without dragons (although a few non-earthly creatures exist) and largely without magic.

At the end of the day if you love fantasy fiction I can’t imagine you not loving this book.

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Crewe Luke

Good story - too much cursing

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 30, 2020

A nice tale based on Eastern philosophy and mysticism makes for an interesting take on the fantasy genre. My only negative (but a fairly serious one) is the liberal use of modern cursing spread throughout the story that just doesn't fit the mood and environment being built; it is quite jarring and interferes with the immersiveness of the story. A second major negative: too many annoying and unlikable characters.

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Crewe Luke

Good story - too much cursing

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 30, 2020

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4 people found this helpful

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Serge Dakkach

Good universe, slow story development.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 16, 2016

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Good fantasy book. The universe of Brian stately in this serie is simply fantastic. For anyone looking for fantasy I would recommend this. Is it the best fantasy book I have come across? The answer is definitively not. I feel there is very little character development in the book,the story revolves mostly around the two sons of the emperor and both the characters and the story don't progress much overall. Which is sad since the universe is quite attractive.

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Scott McClelland

Two Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on June 14, 2018

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Could not get into it.

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Anglobotomy

... ever been read by a well-meaning friend or a good editor. It has potential but fails on several ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 20, 2017

There is the sense that this book was published without having ever been read by a well-meaning friend or a good editor. It has potential but fails on several key points. Characters, particularly the Kettrel, can stray into the realm of charicature. The Kettrel, especially the females, are hateful, spiteful, unruly, unlikeable brats. Other characters, like Adare don't get enough screen time to be realized.
Interesting and inventive world ideas are glossed over, whereas a better writer would showcase those. The Kettrel birds, even when they're used in the end come off as empty and unfulfilled as elements of story and world.
The writing itself can be juvenile at times. We are endlessly reminded of how deadly the Kettrel are, for instance.
And call me old school, but fantasy writers should not have to fall to peppering their book with explitives just to get the feeling across. It breaks the illusion for me.
There is potential here but it needs someone to coax the best out of Staveley. I'll read the next book and hope for more maturity.

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Peter Rudic

almost 500 pages of UTTER WASTE

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 16, 2018

Overrated and tedious. To be sure, there is plenty of "action" and "intrigue" - behold my two stars !!! - but Staveley's lifeless prose does not make any of it interesting. Stay well clear of this 'Chronicle', and invest your reading time into something else.

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Endurance97

Tough Read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 27, 2023

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This book doesn't really start moving until at 57% on my Kindle. I guess the author is world-building. When I read the few sentences that denoted the turn - and, yes, it's that obvious - I yelled out, "Finally! Maybe we can get to this story now."
The women in this story are written deplorably. All the new world-building and the women are still treated like shit, treated as weak - smart, but weak. Virtuous, but beholden to desire. The brothers in this story - spoilers - are deployed to different ends of this world to gain knowledge while the sister is kept at home. She gets three main passages - introduction, a little action, and then her turn. And that's it. The rest of the book is about her brothers. And at the end, when the brothers are deciding their next moves, neither of them consider going to find, protect, or just see their sister. She's smack-dab in the middle of the mess, and neither one of her brothers even says her name.
The world is interesting - the creatures, the religions, the mythology. Everything else is the same male-centered bullshit written by males. I haven't decided if I'm going any further in this series.
Read at your own peril.

JPS

Ok or bad?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 9, 2014

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I had a number of problems with this book, and one of the main ones was to make up my mind as to whether I liked it or not. I also took longer than usual to finish it, which is never a very good sign. The main reason for this is that the book contains a number of features that worked rather well for me, but also almost as many that did not.

Starting with one the later ones, I generally dislike it when the author makes it too obvious that the book is just the first volume of a series. In other terms, this is not a stand-alone book and it ends rather abruptly. Having mentioned this, the author did manage to create a strong sense of suspense throughout the book and it is mainly because of this that I finished it, despite everything else.

Another issue is that the basic plot is not exactly original: leader (here the Emperor, in other books, some kind of King, or Duke - pick your choice!) is killed, falling victim to a bunch of powerful conspirators who then move to hunt down and take out his two sons who are of course far away when the murder happens. This feature has a strong sense of "déjà vu" and appears in numerous other fantasy novels. Also largely "déjà vu" is the reference to half-legendary cruel non-human races who used to dominate the earth and are allegedly extinct but whose heritage remains after a few thousands of years.

While it is not necessarily a problem in itself, it is compounded by the fact that the two sons were sent some eight years before at the two ends of the Empire - one to become a "Ketral", a member of the Empire's equivalent to modern "special forces", and the other, the heir to the throne, to a very remote monastery high up in the mountains, also to learn some special skills. The author tries to explain this by mentioning at some point a kidnapping of the two boys when they were only four years old. The explanation is somewhat unconvincing. If their security is so much at stake, sending them off on their one to places thousands of leagues away from their father to learn some arcane skills that supposedly cannot be thought in the capital seems like a rather strange way to guarantee it.

Then there are the trainings themselves. In both cases, I found them rather unbelievable, with the respective ordeals that the boys go through being quite excessive. Regardless of whether any princes would realistically be treated in such - highly unlikely - ways, some of the treatments seemed designed to kill the pupils, or at least make them fail, more than anything else. I will not go into details to avoid spoilers, but the Ketral training seemed particularly "over the top" at times while burying the heir to the throne and leaving him in his hole for days without food or water seemed somewhat unnecessary.

The treatment of the female characters was also somewhat odd and inconsistent. While I am not quite sure I agree with another reviewer who found that the book expressed misogyny and sadistic features, it is a bit strange to note that the Emperor felt obliged to exile his two sons far away so that they would acquire "special skills" but did not bother doing the same with his daughter and kept her at his side. It is also rather unlikely that any of the courtiers or any of the high priests would have dared treat an imperial princess with the kind of lack of respect shown in the book.

Another bit that was somewhat inconsistent was about the Aedolan Guard. These are the Emperor's elite bodyguards, yet they seem to die a bit too easily both at the beginning of the book, where one of the sons finds a boat full of corpses, and at the end, when they get killed by the dozen, although by ultra-skilled enemies. Another potentially inconsistent feature is the absence of any qualms when they are tasked with murdering the Imperial family, especially coming from those who are supposed to be the most loyal.

A final disappointment was that there was not much "world-building" in this volume. To be fair, however, a remote monastery up in the mountain and a no less remote base on an archipelago of far-away islands do not lend themselves very well to this. Despite this, the author could have, for instance, shown us much more of Annur, the imperial capital and the palace, through the eyes of Adare, the Emperor's daughter.

I hesitated between two and three stars, but will finally settle for a somewhat generous three stars, mainly because there is some suspense to the story and because, despite all of my misgivings, the author has managed to make me want to read his second instalment. I hope I will like it more than this one...

14 people found this helpful

cody

Good Book, Not Worth a Kent-Kissing 10 bucks. Maybe $2.99

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 6, 2015

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As far a debuts go, this book does really well. The worldbuilding is definitely one of the best parts of the book. The Empire, a family line with burning eyes, and the idea of giant birds as war engines. I have to say I definitely like the book overall, but this author could have done a better job at delivering on many aspects within the world. I should also note, while it's nice that the author had the world envisioned so much that he has his own cuss words and slang words, there were many points where I literally put the book down and didn't come back to it for awhile because the phrase "Kent-Kissing" or "Shael take me" was litterally in every other word. It was beyond annoying. I do hope the author matures a little, no one cusses that much, and if they do, no one wants to read about it. It almost seemed like filler material.

First off the villain(s) are pretty shallow, cliche, and beyond that, just boring. With an good book there is pressure, which is needed, and even pressure from an unknown entity is okay. However, pressure from silly villain just dulls the entire book.

Secondly, the characters are too cliche. It's okay, and I still like the characters, I really just hope the author finds away to give the main characters a little more depth socially and internally. Valyn is by far my favorite of the siblings, but even he is the typical rash teen that and quip with the best and always seems to get the up end of everything. There's nothing wrong with that, I just feel like that author could have done a better job at developing his characters.

Moving on, the typical ascension to manhood trial. This really takes from the whole perspective of elite, dragoonlike on giant hawks, squad that is supposed to be legendary. I'm okay with downright brutal training in a lot of fantasy books, but no one throws away tools if they are useful. What is really the point with having a deadly training, almost to the point where you pass or die? It unrealistic. I know fantasy is not supposed to be realistic, but there's still a pretty broad line between productive and just out right silly and unbelievable.

All in all, I suggest anyone to buy this when it comes on sale. This is a fun time-killing book that you will really like, but 10 dollars for kindle is just way to expensive for a book you can read in half your Saturday. I respect that the author and his publisher reserve the right to price his work however he deems fit, but there are better written, way more content than 400 something pages, and just to be plain honest, more entertaining books to read for cheaper that the 10 dollars.

Brent Weeks': Night Angel Trilogy or Lightbringer Series. (Individual books are under 10 dollars for the most part)

A Song of Fire and Ice Series. Heck the compiled 5 book special is 20 bucks.

And the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.

Again, don't get me wrong, this is a good book and I hope to read the entire series someday, but it is no where near worth 10 dollars compared to other titles.

Dan Strickland

Very patriarchal slant

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 1, 2021

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This is a man's world, with tough training for soldiers and monks. There're attempts to portray tough female characters, mostly by making them look like tough men. The rulers must be men, and become rulers not by being selected but by rules of succession (yet another American who thinks he knows about monarchy and does not. I'm married into a royal family, and that's not how it works and mostly never did). There are some interesting ideas in the world building - ancient beings, elder gods, are they real or myth - but I'm midway through the first book, will probably finish it but unsure about going on. Too much machismo.
on edit: in fairness, the author did have a female scold one of the leads for doing the protective savior role, and that lead is portrayed as not getting it. I'm slightly uneasy that that female appears to be Asian, while no one else is portrayed as anything so specific. There is one female lead, with her POV appearing much less than the two males, and she wavers between trying really hard to be a strong woman, being intimidated, and hoping that buff strong male will take over.

2 people found this helpful

Son of Tiamat

2 edgy 4 me

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 14, 2015

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I wanted to like this book, I really did. The premise sounded intriguing. The three children of a recently assassinated monarch become embroiled in adventure and intrigue in the after math of the emperor's death. Any story that doesn't fall on the tired evil empire/evil emperor cliché get's an extra point with me, since empires/emperor's are not automatically evil, and because we wouldn't have civilization without empires.

However, the story comes off as painfully pretentious at times, what with characters that are supposed to be hardened individuals occasionally stopping to wax quixotically or curse unnecessarily. I don't mind swearing in any story but it feels excessive here. The author is obviously good enough to weave decent prose, he doesn't need to insert f-bombs arbitrarily to spice up the language. I can't tell if he's trying to be like Stephen King or G.R.R.M but he's not succeeding in either case.

And when reading about certain ancillary characters, I can't help but think of them as cardboard cut-outs and nothing more. You have the female character who is a massive thunder c*** to everyone around her (Edit 11/18/2016: a term I now know of as "tsundere"), the fat man who sits behind a desk and seems to exist only to make life more miserable for the main character (seriously, why is it in EVERY SINGLE FANTASY NOVEL the fat guy is always a jerk? Why is fatness so indicative of being bad?), and the wise mentor who is excessively brutal in teaching his pupil.

Where I gave up was when the second main character, Valyn and his love interest, both of whom are being trained to be the fantasy equivalent of Special Forces Airborne Rangers, deign to help a prostitute solve the mystery of her murdered sister. Mind you, this is while they're trying to solve their own mystery involving a possible attempt on Valyn's life. They do so at his friend's insistence because she argues that to not do so would be callous and heartless (despite the fact that a few chapters ago, she took the life of an innocent woman--that Valyn himself was trying to save--for cold, but justifiably pragmatic reasons). Her reasoning being this time that they're in training to be the protectors of the empire's citizens. This sudden bout of sentiment on her part comes completely from left-field and doesn't make any sense, given how they're being trained to be elite soldiers, not a constabulary of peace-keeping civil servants, which just so happens to have convenient knowledge in forensic science which they then use to determine the approximate time of the murdered girl's death, which coincidentally coincides with their own mystery.

*bangs head on wall*

The following chapter continues with the two of them burying said dead girl while Valyn grouses internally about death using some very pretty language such as (and I'm paraphrasing here):"...the bright stars...hung directly overhead, cold, distant, and unpitying." and "He imagined them...together, no more than children really, spooning up some kind of broth and telling each other stories to keep their lives at bay." and "Rianne's life had turned dark enough without him dousing whatever light was left."

Are you feeling maudlin enough, yet????

This about where I stopped and decided that continuing to read this would be a massive chore. Add on to the predictable writing and the occasional purple prose plenty of adverbs and constant use of dialogue beats which I've frankly come to find quite obnoxious from reading many a mediocre fantasy story, dialogue beats such as "shrug/shrugged" and "spread his/her hands." Such language always seems as though the author is saying, "Guise! Look how edgy I am!"

I am sorely disappointed with this book. Despite it having an engaging beginning and interesting world building there are just too many amateur mistakes being made.

17 people found this helpful

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5 star		60%
4 star		28%
3 star		8%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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The Emperor's Blades: Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, Book 1

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