Promise of Blood: Book 1 in the Powder Mage trilogy

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Taniel chases the mystery Privileged through the city, before being retasked with taking out the last Royal Cabal member, his best friend Bo. Each character comes with their own misconceptions of the world, and strengths that help them drive past their faults and quirks.

There is quite a bit of discussion regarding the difficulties of feeding and equipping an army on the move, especially in a world like this that is still at a colonial technology level.Tamas must rely on his friends and alienated son Taniel if his people and the Nine Nations are to survive. Dark Matter creator Joseph Mallozzi has a new project: adaptating Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage books for television.

And even though I thought I didn’t like flintlock fantasy, it’s happened again with Brian McClellan‘s Promise of Blood. Despite centuries of corruption, Tamas still has an uphill climb ahead of him, between royalist holdouts, priests who believe in the Divine Right of Kings, and ordinary people who are caught up in the violence of the times.

For example, when Tamas and Olem are meeting with a spy, their point-of-contact with the Black Street Barbers, they begin discussing Mihali. The field marshal instructs Adamat to find what the words mean and what the threat could mean for the future. Which makes the inclusion of the guns a non-issue – even more so considering the way that McClellan wove the introduction of guns and gunpowder into the world’s magic system.

Where they lack in power, they make up for in reach and alacrity and the added benefit of being able to deflect bullets, force gunpowder to explode from a certain distance with their minds and all that. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids.His powder mages have slaughtered the king's Privileged cabal of sorcerers and the nobility has been rounded up to face the guillotine with their king. It’s just easier to talk about what you didn’t like than what you did, especially when it’s only the first of a trilogy and a debut novel.