Alex Marshall

"It was all going so nicely, right up until the massacre." Twenty years ago, feared general Cobalt Zosia led her five villainous captains and mercenary army into battle, wrestling monsters and toppling an empire. When there were no more titles to win and no more worlds to conquer, she retired and gave up her legend to history. Now the peace she carved for herself has been shattered by the unprovoked slaughter of her village. Seeking bloody vengeance, Zosia heads for battle once more, but to find justice she must confront grudge-bearing enemies, once-loyal allies, and an unknown army that marches under a familiar banner. FIVE VILLAINS. ONE LEGENDARY GENERAL. A FINAL QUEST FOR VENGEANCE.

A Crown for Cold Silver

What a fantastic novel, this is easily one of my top books of the last few years and in my top 3 grimdark novels of all time. 

I love the anti-hero trope being used here and the multiple plot lines seamlessly being brought to life. 

I couldn't wait to get started on the sequel.

Karl Ansell

What a fantastic novel, this is easily one of my top books of the last few years and in my top 3 grimdark novels of all time. 

I love the anti-hero trope being used here and the multiple plot lines seamlessly being brought to life. 

I couldn't wait to get started on the sequel.

Kirsten Simkiss

My actual rating for this book is 3.5 stars, but I'm rating it 3 for Goodreads because it brings the average score closer to my true rating.

I actually enjoyed this book quite a bit, all things considered. I find the author Alex Marshall/Jesse Bullington's pace to be a little curious. This is the second book that I've read by the author (The Folly of the World was the other) and it seems to all build up to things right at the end of the story that are fantastic and hectic and crazy. However, up until that hectic moment, things stay relatively slow for most of the book. For some, I understand this can be a deal breaker so it's definitely something I feel like people should be forewarned of before trying his books. That pace definitely hurt my opinion of this book a bit, though I know there are more to come in the future volumes.

Now, on to the good stuff:

One thing I really appreciate about Bullington/Marshall's work is that he makes beautifully flawed characters. I can't tell you how many times I've read books that clearly lay out that a character is good and righteous or bad and wicked. There's no in between. This guy lays it out like it is. He doesn't even try to pretend that these characters aren't all out to save their own skins and out to manage their own personal agendas. Honestly, it's so refreshing for me. I love a solid flawed character and you just get so many of them in this book.

And holy cow is there some major fucking diversity going on here. I love how this world just doesn't even give a damn. It doesn't even bat an eyelid about female warriors or gay marriage. In this world, those things are just totally normal and that is so nice. It's valuable, of course, for books to also show how acceptance is hard won by society - because that's just how reality is, sadly - but sometimes it's just so nice to have a world where it's already totally normal and everyone just accepts same sex couples. I will say that the different regions are basically just imported from real world cultures, but really I haven't read any fantasy books with diversity that hasn't just borrowed from preexisting cultures.

My favorite was Zosia, a bisexual or pansexual 50+ year old mercenary as the main protagonist who waged war against the government with her signature blue hair and with the lower class as her army to overthrow the monarchy, got tired of the political bullshit, faked her death to retire with her sweetheart Lieb, a prostitute, and is only brought out of her happy hideaway 20 years later when someone sends a military regiment in to slaughter her, her husband, and her entire village. She's unapologetic as hell and flawed as hell and I honestly would like to shake her hand. Her skin tone isn't really commented on, so I'm assuming she's probably white. 

I could go through all of them in detail, but you have an Korean/general asian culture with a multitude of characters, an Indian inspired culture from which you get the badass female warrior Singh who also has a mustache because screw gender norms (though she isn't a POV character, I really hope to see more of her), several characters from the native tribe of the Horned Wolves, and other cultures I don't really have a true handle on yet because we've seen very little.

The world they exist in is also pretty interesting. You've got wildborn people who seem to be born with animal like qualities and skills who are reviled by the Burnished Chain, something that seems to be inspired by the Catholic church if it had taken over the whole world by force. You also have devils which can be summoned to inhabit the bodies of animals and can be tethered to a human using rituals, forced to protect them until the human is willing to make a deal with the devil they've bound, offering freedom in return for the granting of a wish. Of course, be sure you ask in such a way that there aren't any loop holes because you can be sure they'll utilize them. And, of course, you get dropped into the world in the thick of things. It takes a little getting used to, but I feel like the book handles the introduction to these things fairly well.

On the other hand, I really hope we get more character development over the course of the series. We got bits and pieces here for most of the characters - Maroto especially - but others seemed to just kind of exist in the way that they were for the entirety of the book. I feel like Sullen, Ji-hyeon, and Maroto definitely grew over the course of the book, but I felt like it was very minimal growth for the most part. Still, as I said, this IS the first book in a series, so there's definitely a lot more room for the characters to develop in the sequels.

I would recommend this to people who like gritty fantasy. This isn't a book for people who just want gay elves in love - this is a book where bisexuals are bashing people's faces in with mauls. It's not a pretty fantasy novel. Even with all the death, I feel like George R. R. Martin's fantasy is cleaner, somehow, than this is. And I'm not talking about the language, though there is a substantial amount of cursing in this book. This is not a book for children. It's definitely geared toward mature adults, though that's mostly in terms of violence.

Sheila

I liked this story! Definitely holding out for a sequel, because surely this will be a series of some kind?? 

In a way, this book starts out similarly to MBotF in that the readers get the story from the middle rather than the beginning. Most of the background material is told with third person memories. I liked the variety of characters, but maybe I'm more snooty about my fantasy now in that I was a little irritated at how the primary civilizations we come across are mirror images of Earth civs? EVEN SO having a devil-worshipping organized religion, arranged gay marriage & femme knights with moustaches not to mention bug-based drugs is pretty awesome!

But still, while I like the story a lot, I never got to the point of sympathizing with any of the characters. It's not that they were too rough, too brazen or too unlikeable, it's just that I felt that *spark* wasn't there for me - it didn't click. I don't know why, but I'm hoping a sequel comes out soon so maybe it can fix that! I guess my boiled down review is: read this for the story & not for the characters, it's still worth it.

A Crown for Cold Silver

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