In the Shadow of Lightning (Glass Immortals Book 1)

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Powerful rival families, murderous conspiracies, epic battles, larger-than-life characters, and magic."—Fonda Lee, author of The Green Bone Saga As an author, I want to improve my own writing/editing skills. To that end, I like to learn lessons from every story I read. Here's what I learned from this story: Demir Grappo is an outcast—he fled a life of wealth and power, abandoning his responsibilities as a general, a governor, and a son. Now he will live out his days as a grifter, rootless, and alone. But when his mother is brutally murdered, Demir must return from exile to claim his seat at the head of the family and uncover the truth that got her killed: the very power that keeps civilization turning, godglass, is running out.

This book's main magic system is all about chemistry and engineering. There is no room in this system for Lovecraftianism.

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This a wonderful, slow-burn, epic fantasy that builds the intensity so deliciously. These characters keep getting better as the narrative twists and different perspectives overlap, and everything is so complicated and messy and incredible. Demir – I love how he have no intention of following tradition or the thoughts of the Assembly, he just wants to make the best life possible for his people. That is a true leader! I enjoyed this book. Personally, I think McClellan has improved as an author over the years. This is his best outing so far in the long-form format. It has competently written characters, an interesting plot, nice scheming, and good battle tactics. I also liked the whole 'engineering' aspect of the magic: basically magicians are forgemasters, who use magical reagents to create sorcerous jewelry. As a result, a lot of this book takes place in a forge, involving cables, crucibles, hammers and manual labor. This book had a constant sense of forward momentum. The author did something clever, in having six people kill the matriarch. Then the author had Kizzie catch them one at a time, over the course of the story. By catching them one-at-a-time like this, it drip-fed a sense of forward momentum to the plot, so that even if one of the other plotlines was slowed down, that mystery plot was constantly moving forward. I enjoyed Kizzie's sections most because I knew that something would always happen when reading her sections. The prose was functional window-pane fantasy prose, workmanly, and it gets out of the reader's way without being ostentatious. This is not stained-glass prose, art for art's sake; this book sets out suspend disbelief, and it succeeds.

Finally, we have Thessa, whom McClellan calls “our reader’s window into the magic system of the world.” Thessa is a godglass engineer who studied under one of the great masters of silica engineering. When Demir sets about solving the mystery of his mother’s untimely death, Thessa becomes a natural ally as Thessa’s master was also murdered, seemingly because he had a secret alliance with Demir’s mom to figure out why the world’s magic is running out. (Don’t worry—this is all revealed in the book’s first few chapters.) “This leaves these two who don’t even know about each other at the beginning of the book as the heirs to this tiny conspiracy to try to save civilization,” says McClellan. Thessa joins this group of ragtag outcasts Demir is putting together, launching a story that is only the first in Glass Immortals‘ much larger narrative. As an avid fan of Brian McClellan's previous works set in The Powder Mage universe, I was extremely excited to read his new foray into epic fantasy. By and large I thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience, and it definitely goes down as one of the best 2022 releases I have read. Excellent worldbuilding and a truly epic narrative combine into Brian's finest work to date. Heartily recommended to anyone who wants a new favorite fantasy series to read." — Brandon Sanderson My favorite thing about the book was the magic system. Magic-forged glass of varying colors, each type offering a different benefit to the user. It went into some good details on how the glass was created and used, which were among the best parts of the story for me – I love reading about people who are exceptional in their field of work. I also really enjoyed seeing the magic used in the many hand-to-hand combat scenes. Really cool. I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.I was dangerously close to bouncing off this one in the early stages, but think there's something of a tipping point around about the middle (give or take a bit based on the reader's preferences I suppose) where it finds its identity. With worldbuilding and interconnected timelines this intense, the characters also have to be solid. I love a good ragtag, underdog team story and this one had all the great elements of that. Like Demir, she is flawed for sure. She jumps to a lot of conclusions, especially with Demir, and she tends to not think things through fully. Both of these can get her in a lot of trouble if she isn’t careful…Also, what the hell is with the “I could be Lady Grappo”-sh*t? Girl, you haven’t even slept with him, tone it down a bit until you find out if every bit of him is magical. From Brian McClellan, author of The Powder Mage trilogy, comes the first novel in the Glass Immortals series, In the Shadow of Lightning , an epic fantasy where magic is a finite resource―and it’s running out.

I love how much of a total fighter she is, metaphorically and physically. As the bastard Vorcien, she definitely gets dealt low blows that she constantly has to rise against. She hunts down weak links like Magnum PI, fights like Elektra, and solves riddles like Alan Turing. She is basically the older sister I always wanted.If you say one word about this, or if I find out you’ve drugged any of my fighters…” Demir nodded at the shelf of destroyed wine bottles. “I’ll actually do something with all that glass.” He slapped the bar. “Have a good day, Morlius.” Idrian – I really love the harshness that Idrian and his viewpoint brings to the table. We see Idrian having to react mostly to battlefield and mental strategy situations, and the dude is FIT! ...except the whole thing about hearing voices and whatnot…BUT OTHERWISE, HE IS FIT! He is the heart and soul of his warrior group, the Ironhorns, and a real key player throughout the book.

The book begins with Demir's mother's assassination, and he's forced to return home to replace and avenge her. After his disgrace, he's not confident in his abilities to lead, so he recruits his old friends Kizzie and Baby Montego in his campaign of revenge. This series is off to a very strong start and I’m excited to see where Brian McClellan takes Demir and his colleagues next.Beyond that, this is a very developed world. The factional strife of the Ossan guild-families is equally well-realized to the geopolitical conflict that exists between the empire of Ossa and the city-state of Grent. In every scene, I felt like I was in the world. Not just in the particular location for that scene, but I actually felt like I was sitting in the world itself, with the rest of the details of the world moving all around me. I felt this during his earlier books too, but I feel like he's just gotten better at it. In the Shadow of Lightning is the first book in a brand new world as part of the Glass Immortals series. Sanderson fans won't want to skip In the Shadow of Lightning. Can I have the second book in the Glass Immortals series now? Also, this book is fantastic for LGBTQ+ representation. Many characters including at least one of our protagonists are gay or bisexual. It's really cool seeing Brian go from talking about feeling a little afraid of writing women in his first novel to representing all sorts of identities in his most recent one. I have a lot of respect for that growth.)