Ratings82
Average rating4.3
(I'm not great at writing reviews)
Another great book by Michael J Sullivan.
He just keeps churning out high quality stories. Looking forward to reading Age of Legends!
This book was so good!! Oh my god!
This has been a trend with me and MJS's series... They start off okayish imo but they get better and better as they go and oh my goodness did I love this book! I think it's my favourite of his works so far!
The character arcs were outstanding. Every single character in this volume was amazing.
I was hooked to the story the whole time! The pacing, the writing, the dialogue, the politics, the action sequences, the romances, the suspense phew! I loved everything!
The world has suddenly taken a dark turn and it just got so so epic!! I can't wait to read the next one!
Dang, every addition to this series just gets better and better. I love all of these characters so much, and this book ripped my heart out at the end. We keep expanding this world and learning more about the political machinations at work and it's all so fascinating. The plot was slower in the beginning, and then really picked up as the war started. I felt the desperation and the helplessness that so many of these characters felt. All of the character development that we got was so well formulated by Sullivan. I truly felt that all of the character arc were superb, and their emotions and decisions they made during these tough times all felt very realistic and devastating. I would recommend this series to all fantasy fans. Sullivan gets how to make you care about a character.
TW: ableism, amputation, anxiety, attempted murder, blood, bones, death, gore, misogyny, racism (fantasy), violence, war
Best of the series so far. I can't wait for [b:Age of Legends 22819354 Age of Legends (The Legends of the First Empire #4) Michael J. Sullivan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1434746431s/22819354.jpg 42370596].Beautiful characters who have to struggle through impossible situations. Death is all but inevitable in the [b:Age of War 18052169 Age of War (The Legends of the First Empire #3) Michael J. Sullivan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1516720471s/18052169.jpg 25336191].
Executive Summary: I thought this one started a bit slow, but once things got going it was really hard to stop listening. That makes it a pretty easy 5-star for me.Audiobook: Tim Gerard Reynolds is one of the main reasons I like Michael J. Sullivan so much. I love his narration so much that I pretty much don't want to read any of Mr. Sullivan's books simply because I like having Mr. Reynolds read them to me instead.Full ReviewI've been enjoying the First Empire books quite a lot. I miss Royce and Hadrian but this series has a huge cast of great characters that make it easy to love. I thought series started off with a bang in [b:Age of Myth 26863057 Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire, #1) Michael J. Sullivan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507307691s/26863057.jpg 24657657] and had a solid continuation in [b:Age of Swords 32337902 Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire, #2) Michael J. Sullivan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1481987017s/32337902.jpg 25336186].I was initially set to put this book in same category as Age of Swords, but as it went on it sucked me in more and more. The best books always make it hard to put down. When you do as much audio as I do, that often results in staring at walls or sitting in your car longer than you should just to squeeze in some extra time.This book had me find an extra 90 minutes of time yesterday because I refused to stop for the day without knowing how it ended. That's a lot of wall staring!With so many great characters, it's hard to pick a favorite. I think that's one of things that endears this series to me so much. A lot of the characters are broken in one way or another, but they persevere because honestly they don't have much choice.I think my favorite part of this book was the interactions between Raith and Suri. Raith had some really great one-liners, and they usually came during a conversation with her.As someone whose loved/roleplayed Elves for a long time, I struggle at times with Mr. Sullivans interpretation. Most of them are downright awful. I miss the idea of more playful/wise elves. That isn't to say they are all unlikeable, but this book fits well into the idea of “don't meet your heroes”.The world building continues to be interesting. Despite being a prequel to Riyria it's so far in the past that we basically know almost nothing. There are some pretty big mysteries I want answer to, and so far we haven't gotten much. We did learn a lot more about one character in particular, but it was one of those things where now I have a whole bunch of new questions rather than satisfaction at what I discovered.Of course this is book 3 in a now 6 book series, so there are a lot of pages for me to get some answers. I'm ready for [b:Age of Legends 22819354 Age of Legends (The Legends of the First Empire #4) Michael J. Sullivan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1434746431s/22819354.jpg 42370596] right now. Especially since I know it's already been written (along with books 5 and 6). I know those all need additional editing/revision (and not to mention time for Mr. Reynolds to record the audio) but that doesn't make the waiting any easier. At least I can be happy knowing it won't be more than maybe a year until the next installment.