TL;DR Review: Grimdark and brutally epic, a solid conclusion to a trilogy that promises to be one of the best reads of the year.
Synopsis:
THE TIME OF JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND
The Empire of the Wolf is on its knees, but there’s life in the great beast yet.
To save it, Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena must look beyond its borders for allies – to the wolfmen of the southern plains, and the pagan clans in the north. But old grievances run deep, and both factions would benefit from the fall of Sova.
Even these allies might not be enough. Their enemy, the zealot Bartholomew Claver, wields infernal powers bestowed on him by a mysterious demonic patron. If Vonvalt and Helena are to stand against him, they will need friends on both sides of the mortal plane—but such allegiances carry a heavy price.
As the battlelines are drawn in both Sova and the afterlife, the final reckoning draws close. Here, at the beating heart of the Empire, the two-headed wolf will be reborn in a blaze of justice . . . or crushed beneath the shadow of tyranny.
Full Review:
In The Justice of Kings, we started off with a small story set in a backwater village and small provincial city. In The Tyranny of Faith, our world expanded to the capital city of the grand Sovan Empire, where the plots get bigger, the enemies more powerful, and the stakes higher.
Now, with The Trials of Empire, the trilogy ends in truly epic fashion, with the battles affecting both the mortal and spiritual planes, facing entities quite capable of destroying all of humanity. An incredibly breathtaking end to a wild ride!
From the first chapters, you can feel the rising dread within the POV character, Helena, and the darkness permeating the world around her. The foreboding continually mounts, and you get the very real feeling that evil is growing, spreading, and conquering.
Nothing the main characters do seem to make much impact in the grand scheme of things. For every small step of progress, there are two setbacks and a bloody reversal. And yet the characters struggle on, knowing that to give up would be to abandon the world to the evil that is Patria Claver—and the dark powers at his back.
As the story continues, the grim darkness is layered on thicker and thicker, until it’s suffocating us as much as it is Helena, with elements both fantastical and horrific on full display. The lore and magic of the world is developed even further, providing a solid foundation with which to understand—and fear—the evil seeking to take over the world.
But most interesting of all is the characters’ moral journeys. As has been the case since the beginning, we see choices made out of necessity, even at the cost of morality. Vonvalt, in particular, continues his journey down the path toward evil by sheer expediency.
It begs the question: is there such a thing as a “lesser evil”, or will even small evils taint the soul until it permeates every action, no matter how well-intentioned in the beginning? Truly a fascinating look into how “doing what needs to be done” can lead down the path to darkness as certainly as a conscious choice to do evil.
I burned through this book as quickly as I could, eager to find out what came next, what battle had to be faced, and how, ultimately, some measure of good would triumph over evil. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that it left me extremely satisfied. The ultimate comeuppance of the villains felt utterly appropriate to a story that has always championed the rule of law over “might is right”. And yet, in the true spirit of grimdark, there’s a sort of blasé-ness to it that really cements how unimportant many people are in the “grand scheme of Empires”.
With The Trials of Empire, this series has cemented itself firmly among my Top 10 for 2024, a truly unforgettable reading experience from start to finish.
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