Tower Lord Book Review

by The Wanderer

Author: Anthony Ryan
Publisher: Ace
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Series: A Raven's Shadow Book Two
Pages: 624

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(Spoilers for Blood Song are below).

It’s hard to believe this is by the same author that wrote Blood Song. Tower Lord isn’t just a sophomore slump, or the second part of series that struggles to capitalize on what made the first book so good, it’s a catastrophe that’s avoided by the slimmest of margins which only results in this book being just plain bad.

Blood Song Book Review

by The Wanderer

Author: Anthony Ryan
Publisher: Ace
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Series: A Raven's Shadow Book One
Pages: 575

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Anthony Ryan’s debut novel Blood Song is impressive. Following the adventures of a boy who grows into a man under the tutelage of a religious order that’s reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition provides a lot of interesting opportunities to explore religion and growing up. At the same time, it feels like the novel doesn’t really explore some of the more controversial aspects of these ideas.

There is a potential for this story to go in a less traditional route, but at the end it really just stuck to the basics. The novel’s major character Vaelin al Sorna and some of the accompanying secondary characters are developed pretty well but there aren’t any real standouts.  What you have here is a well written book – impressive as a debut for sure – but it needs a little something extra to place it as a top tier fantasy novel.