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I wanted to summon one, to bind it to a sword. But not just any demon, I wanted their master, the Lord of the entire Hell. He had a name, and it was the End of Sorrows." "You. Will. Obey! As we discover who Khraen used to be in his previous life, an internal fight arises in him. With every devoured shard it’s getting harder and harder to differentiate between the often conflicting thoughts – the ones of the new (Khraen with conscience and remains of a good moral compass) and the old Khraen ((cruel, merciless, ready to pay the cost). There’s a lot of self-doubt and self-persuasion, and I absolutely loved that! Creatures called from a hundred different realities stood waiting. Massive beasts, some dwarfing even the Deredi giants, held formation beside winged nightmares from some distant hell. Many, hailing from closer realities looked human, differing only in some small detail. Purple skin, horns, claws, too many or two few fingers. With this army, he had bound the world under a single rule: His. And now, with this army, he would lose the world."I would highly recommend this to readers of GrimDark Fantasy. Here are some beautiful quotes... Despite chasing the shards of his heart, Khraen’s great capacity for change is the driving factor of this novel—I suspect it will permeate the rest of the series, as well. The supporting characters play a part in this, driving Khraen towards or away from his old self. Fletcher has assembled quite the cast – a necromancer who stirs something up in our poor lad’s memories; a caravan guard who treats Khraen like a human being despite the midnight colour of his skin; an old friend who knows everything about Khraen’s former life but is a bit stand-offish when it comes to sharing; and plenty of mages, all of whom Khraen hates in a way that defies reason itself. Strange, that – as he is the victim of just such hatred himself. Everyone in the North, where Khraen awakens, sees the colour of his skin as a mark of the stain of his soul. Derided and loathed, Khraen doesn’t have much of a reason to like the society he discovers in this brand-new world.
Black Heart: The Number One international bestseller The Ink Black Heart: The Number One international bestseller
Demonology and its myriad practices in particular open up an engaging moral debate about the price of societal efficiency and progress, about crime and punishment, and the horrific cost of power. This practice forces Khraen to face certain aspects of himself, facets which are appalling and frightening for anyone to come to grips with – woven here with great skill by Fletcher. Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq War—the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpost—one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives. Only thing that bothered me about this book is the revelations. I saw almost all of the revelation a mile ago but it didn't hinder my reading experience at all. The wizards might win. Tomorrow, the Empire might be theirs to rule. But it was also theirs to lose. And lose it, they would. Short-sighted, they had no idea just how much the Empire relied upon demons. Demons the wizards had no means of controlling."This has to be the best Fantasy read I've ever had the pleasure of coming across so far. The only ones that come close are: The Prince of Nothing series by Bakker, Some of the magic in this is pretty cool I admit. We see demons, necromancy, wizards and magical items. Everything fits nicely into this fantastical world, and as you uncover the story we see more of the magic and the different paths.
Jet Black Heart by Teresa Flavin | Goodreads Jet Black Heart by Teresa Flavin | Goodreads
However, both of those things were kind of dragged down for me by the execution of the story. The narrative is overly repetitive where it feels like it hits the same story beats over and over and over again. Ditto for the characterization. I don't know how many times we had to get inner thoughts from the main character about his conflicted nature. My best estimate is approximately 10,000. I found myself saying "Dude you murdered someone in cold blood right at the beginning. You're a homicidal maniac. Just embrace it." Fletcher had a similar issue with how often we are told people at large dislike the main character because of his skin color. It feels like he belabors this point to absurdity. I'm retroactively adding a star after reading the rest of the trilogy. My original review stands below, but the next books redeemed the series for me. In truth, Fletcher gifted us with a wildly original dark fantasy concept and executed it with brutal flair. That might have been part of my initial dislike; it was just so different, standard epic fantasy expectations didn't properly apply. Anyway, it's an interesting ride and I highly recommend the series to grimdark fans. Cuore di Ossidiana è stata una lettura ricca e scorrevole che mi ha coinvolto dall'inizio alla fine. Orsù gente, unitevi anche voi alla #fletchermania e percorrete il Sentiero di Ossidiana. Once again Michael Fletcher manages to spellbind you into this grimdark spiral of madness, and yet it feels so very fluent and logical it makes you take a double take at your own thoughts and emotions. The story is perfectly balanced on a fine edge, it holds the reader’s attention all the way as the characters grow, develop and come alive in your mind. Ahora, en cuanto a la novela en sí, me gustaría decir muchas cosas, pero, siento que destriparía parte de la historia y lo que esconde. Así que voy a intentar ser lo más breve posible porque lo dicho siento que cualquier cosa que se diga pueda considerarse como “spoiler” sobre todo para mí, que a la mínima que se me comenté algo sobre el contenido del libro, por muy banal que sea me molesta. Llámenme “rancia” como se diría coloquialmente, pero soy así y es algo que no soporto.Commands were sent out and the demonic host, bound in servitude to the demonologists, had no choice but to obey.
Black Heart by Robert Galbraith | Waterstones The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith | Waterstones
Sadly the story didn't live up to its potential. The main character barely seemed to develop except in his knowledge of things long lost. He has an ongoing internal ethical debate ("Am I the bad guy?") that doesn't progress; he merely recirculates the same thoughts ad nauseum. The plot progression has a certain litRPG quality to it, which is fine if that's your bag but it doesn't make for great epic fantasy. Technically it's a progression fantasy, a term some apply to stories featuring significant character power growth, but the character barely uses the knowledge and abilities that level him up from his original state. Overall the story arc felt very flat, with a couple of unsurprising twists near the end in place of a satisfying payoff. I can see potential in the sequels for exciting story, brutality, and mind-blowing magic, but I didn't have a good enough experience to push me forward. Khraen is the stand-out character, of course. Khraen is in part an archetype who tries to answer two age-old questions. I was drawn in right from the very start of the book…I found that I raced through…desperate to know how it would end.’ Go Buy the Book En cuanto al desarrollo del argumento se me ha hecho en algún parte un poco lento al mismo tiempo que me esperaba otra cosa. Asimismo, algunos giros de la novela me los he visto venir, mientras que otros no me los quería esperar porque me hubieran parecido demasiado morbosos, por así decirlo. Con eso no digo nada, pero al mismo tiempo lo digo todo (cuando lean la novela me entenderán).After killing the farmer’s horses, we rode them south, exchanging our dead mounts for new ones whenever their appearance decayed to the point they became recognizable as corpses.” Every day we do the things we think we have to do. So rarely do we stop to question our choices. We don’t even see deciding that we ‘have to do something’ is itself a choice. We blunder through life, writing our failures and excuses as we go, defending every choice with justifications made up after the fact. The truth is, we never really consider the consequences.” Also, the mc has a magical ability of detecting whether someone is over 19 or not 😉 (Idk what is so distinct about 19-year-olds but whatever) This is definitely an anti-hero tale told from first person with Khaern as the one who is trying to uncover just who he was and who he is now. Along the way he meets Henka and Shalayn who are two very different women with two vastly different impressions they leave on him.
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