A good, if flawed start to a new series
Once a fabled Blade of Namara, Aral Kingslayer fought for justice and his goddess alongside his familiar, a living shadow called Triss. Now with their goddess murdered and her temple destroyed, they are among the last of their kind. Surviving on the fringes of society, Aral becomes a drunken, broken, and wanted man, working whatever shadowy deal comes his way. Until a mysterious woman hires him to deliver a secret message-one that can either redeem him or doom him.
I’d been looking forward to reading Broken Blade for a while, ever since I stumbled across it through Twitter. It falls squarely within the new wave of assassin- and thief-related fantasy, which I’ve been rather enjoying, but at the same time offers some interesting twists on what have become the tropes in that sub-genre. The novel is a good beginning to a new series, with plenty going for it, but it nevertheless did not meet all my expectations. It is, however, probably perfect for fans of Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series.
