Like with Sanderson books you can expect a magical system of sorts with rules for different classes of mages. There are also religions, cultures and ancient civilizations involved. In Adopest, Tamas forms a council to govern Adro until a permanent replacement for the monarchy can be established: Privileged are powerful sorcerers; being exceedingly rare, they are almost exclusively gathered into "Royal Cabals" in direct service to the Nine Kingdoms' various monarchs; at the outset of Promise of Blood, Tamas has assassinated almost the entirety of Adro's Royal Cabal. Tense action, memorable characters, rising stakes . . . Brian McClellan is the real thing' Brent Weeks While the world wasn’t explored as much as I would have liked, I’m impressed with how fantastical the world still feels, even with muskets and early rifles. It doesn’t feel like a world about guns where magic is shoehorned in. It really does feel like guns were simply the natural development of industrialization and that those weapons have significantly affected the world of magic. Like the plot, there’s still plenty to explore in the next books, so there isn’t much for me to expand on here.

It's a bloody business, overthrowing a king. Now, amid the chaos, a whispered rumour is spreading. A rumour about a broken promise, omens of death and the gods returning to walk the earth. The ending is rushed and the final gunshot that 'kills' a god is confusing and vague. I have a feeling the author got near the finish line and just sprinted past it rather than crafting a truly satisfying ending to this book (which is first in a trilogy). As the city reacts to the coup – the royal family and supporting lords and their families put to the guillotine, the Royalist military’s last stand, the new council in charge – Tamas sends Adamant on a mission to find out what Kresimir’s Promise is, apart from the final words on a dying Privileged’s lips. Adamant gets knee-deep in Adro’s underworld to find out what danger comes the realm’s way. Taniel chases the mystery Privileged through the city, before being retasked with taking out the last Royal Cabal member, his best friend Bo. All the while, Tamas tries to keep his new city and council in one piece, and the mighty Kez nation have smelled blood in the water and are on the way with their immense army. Ultimately some tried and trusted fantasy concepts make there way into the story; near immortal sorcerers who called down the original Gods. A thoroughly satisfying yarn that should keep readers waiting impatiently for further installments.

I don’t like her either. She could have gotten us all killed against that Privileged. Even a Privileged— especially a Privileged— should know you don’t just walk up to one of them and think you’re going to get the drop. She acts like she knows she’s going to win every fight.” Promise of Blood starts off tossing the reader right into the middle of a mystery. A former police investigator, who now does the same thing for private clients (not the only similarity to our modern world, more on those later) is called to the palace and discovers the aftermath of the coup. The leader of the coup, Tamas, asks the investigator to find the meaning of a phrase some of the victims of the coup uttered as they were dying.

The overall plot is fantastic, weaving together several characters’ viewpoints, skills, and faults, to create an utterly compelling and fascinating tapestry. Each character comes with their own misconceptions of the world, and strengths that help them drive past their faults and quirks. While the plot is at times helpfully contrived to reach a specific destination, this actually helps the story, creating a heightened tension for the reader as they wait for the expected to happen – more often than not, at entirely unexpected times. The dangers of powder addiction, which Taniel clearly has, are hinted at but we never see anyone suffering from it. I hope/expect we'll be seeing that in the second book but it seems like a missed opportunity. There is a certain charm to a book that throws you headlong into the deep end and lets you figure it out as you go along, and the author does this very well. We follow the stories of three main characters. Tamas himself, the leader of the coup and a Field Marshal in the army of Adro; Taniel, Tamas’ son; and Adamat, the investigator mentioned earlier, as they deal with the aftermath of the coup, including trying to identify traitors amongst the conspirators and stave off invasion from a neighboring nation. There was one aspect of the story I didn't care for much -- Tamas has brought together people from non-noble leadership roles from across the city. Overall, I think they're a nice mix with precisely the talents and areas of influence that would be needed for an effort such as his. But one of them is a religious leader. Some later scenes at the religious leader's compound highlight the excesses in which this leader partakes. While I don't deny that religious leaders have gotten into trouble in the past (either by lavish spending, sexual abuse, etc.), I think this particular character's excesses go so far as to veer into caricature territory. The man doesn't end up having any redeeming qualities and he's completely one-dimensional. The other members of Tamas's group are more complex and easier to sympathize with. I don't know him Brian McClellan personally but I am definitely going to be watching his career and reading what he puts out.In January 2021, Joseph Mallozzi announced that he would be writing and producing a television series based on the books with No Equal Entertainment and Frantic Films. [4] Plot and setting [ edit ] I like badass characters. Tamas and Taniel definitely fit the description as well as Ka-Poel later on. But it felt like the characters were just badass for the sake of badassery. There weren’t many consequences to their actions or it seemed like everyone just forgets their actions—specifically Taniel’s and even Tamas’ at times. Taniel has been away for awhile to other lands and has finally returned to his home. He has brought with him Ka-Poel one of the savages from that land. She is mute and seems to have magic of some kind but even Taniel doesn’t understand the extent of it. I did like these two together, they have a nice bond and it was cute to see a small girl acting much like a bodyguard for Taniel

The use of gunpowder, the abilities the Powder Mage’s have, and the way that they conflict with other magic users, makes this story even more captivating. The overall concept of magic in Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage world is one that I cannot wait to return to, hopefully again and again. Add to that the overarching plot that has been set up, and my own tendency towards disliking monarchies, and Promise of Blood is a book I can easily recommend to anyone.Brian's novels include the Powder Mage Trilogy (Promise of Blood, The Crimson Campaign, and The Autumn Republic), Gods of Blood and Powder (Sins of Empire, Wrath of Empire, and Blood of Empire), and Valkyrie Collections (Uncanny Collateral) Brian McClellan is an American epic fantasy author from Cleveland, Ohio. He is known for his acclaimed Powder Mage Universe and essays on the life and business of being a writer. Written by Brian McClellan, Promise of Blood introduces guns into my fantasy. To be fair, it’s a lot of musket and one-shot pistols, canon balls, and whatever else can be fired using copious amounts of gunpowder, but it’s still a technology I’m not normally fond of in my fantasy.

I like that while we get a clear resolution to many of the plot lines for this book specifically there is just the foundation for the other arcs that will go through the entire series. At the end of this book I was ready to jump into the next one right away to find out how the people who made it through would fair. I’m pretty sure there are some bloody times coming soon and we are in for some hard deaths to come. I enjoyed this book. It’s nice to find a new author. Powder snorting musketeers, Sorcerers, gods, battles, politics, what’s not to like? And apart from the violence, the book was quite wholesome. No smut. No gritty, moping misery. The main characters are thoughtful, and noble.Field Marshal Tamas, commander of the Adran Army, has just committed a brutal coup against Adro's monarchy. When he kills every single member of the Royal Cabal, they all utter the same mysterious phrase: "You can't break Kresimir's Promise".