McLean's writings! A strong voice in gritty military fantasy!
Priest of Lies (War for the Rose Throne #2) by Peter McLean
Tomas Piety had thought the war was over. He'd returned to Ellinburg to rebuild his gang holdings and his soldiers on the streets, The Pious Men.
He'd returned, along with his cohort of survivors who'd seen more atrocities than one could contain. Some didn't. Always the words Messia and Abingdon drew memories and fellow feelings that need never be explained. Much is forgiven the survivors. It's a byword that survivors don't talk about, they just nod and get on with things. Tomas is also a priest. A somewhat different priesthood with a very different way of operating. The trappings of his priesthood may seem strange but in the darkness that has been his and his fellow soldiers' lives, this is all the more appropriate.
At one stage Tomas describes his people to the Governor of Ellinburg in a throwing down of the gauntlet action, "We survived Messia, and we survived Abingon while you sat here on your arse and drank wine. You can hurt us, you can even make us bleed, but you can never make us fear.”
Tomas had been a spy for the Queen's Men and they do not let people go. Along the way Tomas has acquired a wife. His wife Ailsa is a Queen's Man. Of course this relationship is not simple.
Ailsa and Tomas go to Dannsburg, the royal city, where Tomas is introduced into the ways of high society. Dannsburg is a city of undercurrents where all is not as it seems. Here Tomas learns to "play the game of society manners. It was a vicious, deadly game where barbed insults took the place of daggers, but the damage done could be every bit as bloody."
And then there's the Magicians who have asked Tomas via the Queen's Men conduit to send people of 'cunning' to them for studying. Tomas did not send Billy. There are many things Tomas comes to understand. Billy is family and is growing in his cunning abilities daily.
A complex and intriguing novel that still has me thinking of the atmosphere so present in Steven Erikson's works--dark, gritty and without pretence, alleviated by pure moments of humanness and understanding.
A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley
*****
He'd returned, along with his cohort of survivors who'd seen more atrocities than one could contain. Some didn't. Always the words Messia and Abingdon drew memories and fellow feelings that need never be explained. Much is forgiven the survivors. It's a byword that survivors don't talk about, they just nod and get on with things. Tomas is also a priest. A somewhat different priesthood with a very different way of operating. The trappings of his priesthood may seem strange but in the darkness that has been his and his fellow soldiers' lives, this is all the more appropriate.
At one stage Tomas describes his people to the Governor of Ellinburg in a throwing down of the gauntlet action, "We survived Messia, and we survived Abingon while you sat here on your arse and drank wine. You can hurt us, you can even make us bleed, but you can never make us fear.”
Tomas had been a spy for the Queen's Men and they do not let people go. Along the way Tomas has acquired a wife. His wife Ailsa is a Queen's Man. Of course this relationship is not simple.
Ailsa and Tomas go to Dannsburg, the royal city, where Tomas is introduced into the ways of high society. Dannsburg is a city of undercurrents where all is not as it seems. Here Tomas learns to "play the game of society manners. It was a vicious, deadly game where barbed insults took the place of daggers, but the damage done could be every bit as bloody."
And then there's the Magicians who have asked Tomas via the Queen's Men conduit to send people of 'cunning' to them for studying. Tomas did not send Billy. There are many things Tomas comes to understand. Billy is family and is growing in his cunning abilities daily.
A complex and intriguing novel that still has me thinking of the atmosphere so present in Steven Erikson's works--dark, gritty and without pretence, alleviated by pure moments of humanness and understanding.
A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley
*****
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