The Shattered Lands

Product Information

On the surface it’s everything I wanted from a sapphic YA book. The quotes shared seemed well written as did the general tone of the story. The worldbuilding is also another rich facet as the world is focused on a Mediterranean setting and the author presents us with several nations and regions with their own norms and cultures. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about each new culture and facet in every story and one can easily draw some conclusions about where they might have arisen from. There’s also magic present in this world and while it’s not high fantasy kind, we get a distinct sense that there’s more to this world. There’s monsters, magical beings and possibly gods but not everything is laid bare in this volume. In classic sword & sorcery style, this is a fix-up novel: Most or all of the individual chapters had previously appeared as short stories in Tales from the Magician's Skull and suchlike venues, and they've now been assembled, lightly edited & polished, and given a bit of connective tissue so that they lead one into the other, although by its nature it remains more of an episodic book rather than a single narrative.

It finally ditched the badly written mystery tropes from the previous book for better written ones. The plot, unlike other fantasy books, isn’t front loaded at the start but drip fed throughout the narrative and forming an expertly woven tapestry that leaves you wanting more. Lord of a Shattered Land is filled with action, but it is married to themes that are far more adult, more ambitious and thought-provoking, than sword & sorcery is usually credited with. Hanuvar is a man of deep feeling and thought; an aging man who has grown children and a lifetime of allies and enemies spread across his world. We are meeting him at the twilight of his career, and yet his determination burns like the fires of the lighthouse of Alexandria. This first volume is a roller-coaster of wildly different adventures that leaves Hanuvar on the cusp of a major decision, and we the readers clamoring for more.This wonderful work put me in mind of the stories I read when I was editing the Baen’s Robert E. Howard library." —David Drake, best-selling author of the Hammer’s Slammers series, Redliners , Vettius and His Friends and the RCN series. the side characters also hold a special place in my heart. Evera is the best friend we all need. Kaian is brilliant. he exceeded my expectations because i thoroughly doubted him at every twist and turn yet he did not falter. Sapphire’s mother was another character i fell in love with she is the ultimate book mother and i cannot wait to see more of her in the next book. understood well the emotions (or "passions") of the statue’s subject. The memory of those emotions survives "stamped" on the lifeless statue, even though both the sculptor and his subject are both now dead. On the pedestal of the statue appear the

Against the might of a vast empire, he had only an aging sword arm, a lifetime of hard-won wisdom, and the greatest military mind in the world, set upon a single goal. No matter what the Empire musters against him, no matter what man or monster stands in his way, from the empire’s festering capital to its furthest outposts, Hanuvar would find his people, every last one of them.

SparkNotes—the stress-free way to a better GPA

This is everything I wanted to read as a queer teen looking for YA fantasy. While I think the setting and relationships could definitely be more developed (hopefully in book two), it was such an exciting and addictive read. The author just knows how to build up so much tension between Sapphire and Ashes, I was pretty much bursting by the end. On top of that, the magic system was interesting and I can see it going so much further in a sequel as our characters get to know their power.

Dive deep into British Raj politics with 100+ political leaders and 650+ political advisors across six ideologies: Monarchist, Nationalist, Democratic, Communist, Religious (Islamic), and Religious (Dharmic). The one error i have made when reading this book is reading it now. i don’t think i can wait an undecided amount of time for book two with that ending. i’m going to be ripping my hair follicles out by the time it is released. i cannot wait to see where this story goes next. To start with you need to actually take on the Challenge: The Shattered bounty. Fast travel to The Dreaming City and head over to Petra Venj. Grab the bounty from her inventory, and you can get on to the hard part. The challenge card will give you a small hint as to what you have to do to find Toland, but it’s not much help. You do know that you need to enter the Ascendant Plane, though, so let us start there.

Featured Reviews

The world itself, based on the Roman empire is steadily built throughout the stories, and as we move through the variety of episodes the blanks are filled in about both the Dervan society and the country of Volanis. A lot of this book is an endless series of the characters getting captured at various stages of their journey, then getting saved by some new character that pops up with some new agenda. The characters rarely think things through or prepare, rushing headlong into situations and trusting the wrong people. The main character wakes up over and over again in darkness, trapped in either some mental or physical prison, and trying to escape. It makes the novel very difficult to follow. She is soon accosted and taken to the Queen and King where her true lineage is discovered - she is the lost princess of Eriobis. One good thing is that you easily connect and understand the characters and bond with them. There's not much more to say about the book. Howard Jones writes not-to-be-missed epic fantasy with immersive world building and the highest stakes for the characters, fighting for personal survival and the survival of their world.” —Martha Wells, Hugo, Nebula and Locus award-winning author of the Murderbot series