Bared Blade

Fallen Blade #2

by Kelly McCullough

From the "inventive, irreverent" ( Green Man Review ) author of Broken Blade comes a new Fallen Blade novel featuring Aral Kingslayer.

Former temple assassin Aral Kingslayer has a price on his head and a mark on his soul. After his goddess was murdered, Aral found refuge in the shadow jack business, fixing problems for those on the fringes of Tien’s underworld. It’s a long step down from working for the Goddess of Justice, but it gives Aral and Triss—the living shadow who is his secret partner—a reason to get up in the morning.

When two women hit a rough spot in the tavern Aral uses for an office, he and Triss decide to lend a helping hand--only to find themselves in the middle of a three-way battle to find an artifact that just might be the key to preventing a war. And with so many factions on their trail, Aral and Triss are attracting a lot more attention than anyone featured on ten thousand wanted posters can afford…

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Dragons, Mystery

308 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 26, 2012

About the author

Kelly McCullough was raised and educated by free-range hippies. Later he received a degree in theater and worked in improv. That combination was the perfect preparation for his current career as author and cat herder. He lives and writes in the Midwest with his physics-professor wife, Laura. He enjoys hiking and biking and his role as self-heating cat furniture. He is the author of the WebMage and Fallen Blade series.

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent second instalment in Kelly McCullough’s Fallen Blade series. The series is a decent small scale action/intrigue fantasy story.

I felt the second book was a tiny bit better than the first. We learned a bit more about both the fantasy world and the magic and creatures that inhabit it than we did in the first book. I felt liked that added more depth to the worldbuilding and was pretty interesting.

Aral was back for a new adventure in this one. He was hired for a new job which got him caught up in more dangerous intrigue.

The story worked well enough. It is not great but it does enough to hold my attention and has some fun things going for it.

All in all an OK fantasy adventure story. I’ll move onto the third book for sure.

Rating: 3.5 Stars. A solid fantasy tale. Small in scale but interesting enough.

Audio Note: As always the Graphic Audio production was excellent. Like a regular audio but with full cast, dramatic music, and sound effects.

[Judith Brivulet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eine gelungene Fortsetzung und eines der wenigen eBooks, bei denen ich mir überlege, sie auch in gedruckter Version zu kaufen. Kelly Mc Cullough schafft es in beneidenswerter Art, den Leser mit den ersten Sätzen in die Welt von Aral, den Schattenlöhner zu versetzen. Die Verbindung von Aral und seinem Finsterling Triss wird, ohne hier spoilern zu wollen, enger. Das Abenteuer, das die beiden zu bestehen haben, ist spannend erzählt und die Wesen, denen sie begegnen fand ich sehr überzeugend. Fazit: High Fantasy die sehr unterhaltsame Lesestunden garantiert.

[Bpaul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Screw all this science and responsible reading in my "reading" shelf... more schlocky fantasy!!! Eating these page turners up.

[Bryan Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book two has Aral recovering from his adventures in book one when he is hired by a client new to the city to help recover a missing piece of jewelry. Unfortunately for Aral his client is not the only party looking for it, and is by far the least scary of the other groups looking for the pretty bauble.

To compound that issue Aral is still dealing with the consequences of his previous alcoholism and trying to find out who he is in a world where his Goddess has been murdered and there is a price on his head as one of the last remaining agents of Namarah. And to make things even worse he might be falling for his client and mixing pleasure and business in his line of work can be deadly.

I really enjoyed the fact that Aral is still growing from his realizations of the first book and finding ways to improve his relationships with Triss and the people around him. And also working on deciding what kind of man he wants to be known as. The Goddess of Justice is dead but Aral is a firm believer in Justice and can a principle really be killed? His efforts to understand his place in the world is really satisfying and his continued growth in book too was enjoyable.

The other thing that made this book fun was the continued expansion of the lore of the world. Older races become revealed, with their inhuman mysteries hinted at. The relationships of some of the other Gods are revealed, as well as more detail in the nations existing in the world. The magic system is fleshed out more and even Aral discovers new abilities he never knew he had. Did they come from his dead Goddess or from stretching his abilities? Even more enticingly, more of Arals history is revealed and a potential new ally discovered.

All in all I'm really enjoying these books and have recommended them to others.

[Elwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Way better than #1, with lovely character development and an amazing cast of new creatures.

[Mars · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*
Dieser Band hat mir etwas besser gefallen als der erste Band.

Was ich mochte:
- der Autor hat eine schöne Fantasie und erweckt interessante neue Wesen und Figuren zum Leben
- Reyna: eine neue junge Klinge die hoffentlich, wie angedeutet, von Aral unter seine Fittiche genommen wird

Was ich weniger mochte:
- die Koketterie von Hera war anfangs noch ganz witzig aber dann irgendwann plump und nervig

Ich glaube, der Geschichte (und der Figur) würde es gut tun, wenn Aral und Triss ein Buch lang völlig alleine ggf. nur mit Reyna/Faran als Schützling agieren würde und nicht wieder jemand an die Seite gestellt bekommen würde.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bared Blade, the second installment of the Fallen Blade series, sends us once again to the streets of Tien as Aral, once known as Aral Kingslayer, ekes out a meager living as a shadow jack, an informer, courier and all-around thief. A former member of a secret temple brotherhood, he was trained in the art of assassination and, at the behest of his goddess, he and Triss, his shadow familiar, would dispense justice to noble and commoner alike. Now, however, he spends most of his time in the tavern, years after the Son of Heaven tore down the temple and slaughtered all but a few Blades. It has now been a year after his encounter with the turncoat Devin and it looks like Aral is finally getting some control over himself. But life is never simple, and when a sacred artifact is stolen from one of the old races, he and Triss are soon swept up in a current of events that will change their lives forever. Bared Blade is a phenomenal sequel to Aral's first adventure as Kelly McCullough once again delivers a masterpiece of fantasy writing.

[BQ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much like the first book I went back and forth about putting this book on my favorites list. There were some cool concepts and deferent types of fantasy races that were unique and imaginative. This book continues to have too much foul language for my taste, but was overall entertaining. I hope the next book further expands out into the broader world and adds more fantasy creatures and other fantasy elements, and that it expands on a relationship between the main character and a new character that was introduced toward the end of the book. If the next book does these things it will probably make my favorites list too, but if it just does more of the same as the first two books it won’t make the cut.

I revised this book rating down to 3.5 stars and put it on my average-to-good list after thinking about it for a while. Still entertaining though.

[Trevor Buckner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Summary:

"I don't like it either, but it's our only option."
"Hold on, I think I missed a step. What have we been doing for the last three hours?"
"I'll explain later. First let me tell you something unrelated."
"Luckily, I have this ability I forgot to mention earlier."
"This makes me want some some alcohol."
"Remember that person from the last book? Yeah me neither."
"We have to do A and B. It doesn't really matter the order, but lets discuss that for a while anyway."
"I really need some alcohol this time. Triss keeps saying it's bad but so far nothing has come of it."
"Luckily, I have this secret item I forgot to mention earlier."

Yeah... I'll give it one more chance....

[Dave Ricchiazzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I managed to make it through this one because I didn't want it to become a waste of money, but this book was annoying on a few different levels. Does every female character he works with have to become enamored with the main character? His powers and abilities seem to have grown by leaps and bounds from book one and I just could not maintain the same level of interest I had in book one. I like the overall setting, the different cultures with different magical abilities is neat, but this book did not even entertain me enough to open the third book in this series even though I bought it.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Action Packed & Full of Surprises

The 2nd installment of A Fallen Blade series was filled with action, plot twists & lots of serious fun. Our self-doubting hero is clawing his way from the bottom of a bottle to reclaim , not only who he was, but figuring our, who, he will become.
A very enjoyable story with a few missteps in over used idioms & repeated storyline, but it did its job & I anxiously await book 3. Thank you Kelly for sharing your magic.

[Tammie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first book in this series and was looking forward to this one. Unfortunately the story in this one just didn't keep my interest. I was also annoyed with the fact that yet again the female client (or one of them in this case) is attracted to Aral, and it seemed like it was just another cheap throwaway romance of the moment. I ended up abandoning this one at 59 percent, so it could have gotten better, but I was just too bored to find out. It's a shame because I enjoyed the world.

[Thoaium · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Empfehlung gilt für die ganze Reihe (1. Die zerborstene Klinge, 2. Die Klinge von Namara, 3. Krieg der Klingen. Man merkt die Reihenfolge beim Lesen, da sie chronologisch spielen, aber sie bauen nicht aufeinander auf. Ich habe erst Teil 2 gelesen und nur auf der Suche nach einer Fortsetzung bei Amazon den Vorgänger entdeckt.

Aral Königsmörder war früher ein Tempel-Assassine. Sein Orden wurde zerschlagen, und nun ist auf ihn ein hohes Kopfgeld ausgesetzt. Daher verdingt er sich möglichst unauffällig als Dieb. Eines Tages eilt er zwei Fremden zu Hilfe, die in einer Taverne in Bedrängnis geraten, und gerät dadurch unfreiwillig in einem Krieg um ein magisches Artefakt. Was ihm mehr Aufmerksamkeit beschert, als gut für jemanden ist, dessen Gesicht landesweit auf Steckbriefen zu sehen ist ...

Ich liebe diese Welt und die Figuren. Die Gespräche sind klasse und Aral und Triss sind ein tolles Team. Die Welt kommt ohne Orks, Elfen und Zwerge aus. Für unbekannte Begriffe gibt es einen Anhang. Aral erzählt seine Geschichte auf eine recht humorvolle Art. Als wenn man zusammen in einer Kneipe/Bar bei einem Bier sitzt und er erzählt die Erlebnisse der letzten Wochen. Spannung, Aktion, etwas Humor und eine Prise Liebe. Wirklich nur eine Prise.

[Nirkatze · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the Graphic Audio--more than I thought I would--though I do wish they would tone back the music. It made it hard to understand the narration. I actually followed along with the first chapter in my text book because I was worried about this being abridged--but most of the lines that were cut were ones describing the sound effects used in the background, or "he said" "she said" descriptive lines, which made me feel a lot better about it in general.

The opening scene had me a bit disoriented--isn't this the same place we started last time? Drinking in a bar, getting a Jack job? Haven't we moved on from this? Did this somehow take place before the previous one? But about a chapter in we got a refresher and I felt much better. This is another fun action-packed and tightly-knit entry, with a formula fairly similar to the last. In fact, the formula rather reminds me of a Bond story--especially with the arc relating to the female characters. Will every book have a "damsel in distress" who loves him and leaves him? Still, the reveal in the last quarter of the book or so has me excited for the next one--it introduced one of my favorite tropes and I really want to see how it plays out.

[Patrick Swanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 out of 10 stars

I got the same amount of enjoyment from this book as the first in the series. Its just a simple cloak and dagger assassin fantasy. These books are very self contained stories, not much carry over from first book. I was hoping for a little more backstory and character development, but it was more of an assassination of the week book.

The plot was well paced and the prose is easy to read so I'm going to continue on to the next book in the series. It seems there is more of a setup leading into the third book so I'm hopeful we get more character development and the stakes are a little higher.

[Kari Chapman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. This wasn't really much like the last book at all. The personalities of Aral and the shadow seemed very different. For a second book way too much time was spent talking and world building. There was almost no forward progress on the plot in the first 25%. Instead it was Aral being talked at by various people. The written wasn't as good as the first book. Did not finish.

[Adam Coe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book two is definitely better than book one in this Fallen Blade series. The main character Aral Kingslayer continues to develop and recover after the death of his goddess and Triss is a great shade familiar. There are some cool new characters to really like and really hate. Some good action and a very good story. Definitely look forward to grabbing book three off of the bookshelf at home.

[C.H. Knyght · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a solid read. I am excited to track down the next one to read. The diverse types of species that population the world in this series is very interesting. Water dragons, mages, and elementals are only the base of them.

[Melinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great story of Aral Kingslayer! A very enjoyable adventure involving Aral and Trisd, and some new characters who are trying to recover a very special ring. Lots of adventure and also some soul searching as Aral tries to find his place in the world.

[Fietspomp · Rating 3 out of 5]

7- nice reading, quick action, sufficient depth, single story line

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 good and entertaining would recommend

[T M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent, not amazing assassin/shadow-mage/thief fantasy book.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, the plot thickens! Some of the same themes/retrospective thoughts as first book, but fun character development.

[Heather Turiello · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this series a while ago and am really glad I finally dug into it. I'd classify it as one of those fast and fun reads. This review is for the series (I'm done with the first 3 books at this time.)
I don't outline the plot or introduce any characters in my reviews as a rule since so many people do, so if you're looking for that info, keep scanning the reviews. I will tell you how I classify the book and what I thought about the story.
The story line is solid enough, though I wish there were more background offered up front. There isn't a lot of world building, and you learn the magic "rules" as the story unfolds. I will say that I really like the main character and his bonded shadow familiar and find their relationship touching. He's definitely one of those perfectly imperfect characters, with the skills of an assassin with a kind heart and a drive for honor, justice and integrity.
The magic and magic beings he encounters are interesting, but there's more focus on the characters and their personalities, rather than the type of beings they are and what they can do or where they are from.
What I do really like, is Aral and Triss. I like them as characters and the stories are interesting and engaging. I rate them between a 3-4 because I really do enjoy the stories, but they aren't phenomenal or really stand out. I do recommend them for people who like the Iron Druid and sequences like that.

[Gwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes your first impressions are wrong. I'm not talking about simply judging a book by its cover: I'm talking about reading a book, selling it back to the bookstore because you feel no particular desire to read it again (let alone the next in the series), and then finding yourself so struck with remorse, so desperate to read more, that you spend several hours desperately scouring the bookshelves of Powell's because you can't remember the title or the author and you can't find it but you want it really really bad.

That was me with Bared Blade and the previous novel, Broken Blade. Although I enjoyed the first, I initially just wasn't motivated to continue reading the series. Yet I kept returning to Aral and Triss in my head, wondering what happened to them. Finally, I broke down and picked up Bared Blade.

The second in the series, while still enjoyable, is not quite on par with first. The Dyad is a really neat idea that was not executed neatly. McCullough resorted to info-dumps to explain it, and by the end I still felt it had not been explained adequately or well. There were some problems with pacing, too: most of the book is spent skulking around the city and gathering clues, and the conclusion comes suddenly and more than a little rushed--continuing a bad habit developed in the first. The flow is further hampered by the long, awkward internal (and sometimes external) soliloquys Aral delivers about the death of his goddess and the nature of justice. Finally, I'm seeing a definite pattern in McCullough's female characters. Overall they're good characters, but right now we're two-for-two with the damsel-in-distress-comes-to-the-bad-part-of-town-for-help-and-falls-in-love-with-her-rougish-rescuer trope. So far I'm reserving judgment, but if the trend continues I'm gonna get pretty annoyed.

Again, as with the first in the series, I really appreciate seeing a non-European-esq setting in fantasy, and I really enjoy the blend of gritty noir-type characters and plots with a very non-noir setting. This is also probably the only book with an assassin main character that didn't make me role my eyes and throw the book back on the shelf after reading the back cover (urban fantasy and paranormal romance, I'm looking at you). I think McCullough has created something fresh and unique, and I look forward to seeing where he takes it.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

2025 Update:
The magic in this one is still really strong, and this does a nice job of broadening out Aral's world without getting lost in the details. Really good books, was fun to revisit.

****************
Excellent second outing for our fallen blade Aral Kingslayer, and introduces a second wild magical concept for this world in the Dyads, a magically bonded pair that forms a 3rd consciousness uniting them both into something else, while also continuing to be two individuals. It’ll make your head hurt, but it a good way.

There’s a good plot going on here, appropriately twisty, and it definitely has Aral & Triss in over their heads at various point, partly because they have so few allies they can count on. McCullough is doing a nice job developing these two especially as Aral claws himself out of the bottle he drank himself into and tries to find a new purpose in life with his goddess murdered.

The magic is great, the action is excellent, and the application of both to sneaky shadow moves is a delight. These are fast reads, because McCullough is keeping his plots tightly focused, and it’s a fine thing. It’s a nice contained read, working well as a chapter in a longer saga but also as a stand-alone story.

Yeah. I went out and bought the remaining 4 in this series halfway through this book. They’re great fantasy reads and I’m going to devour them all, I think.

[Campo · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's pretty straight forward. Like the "Rock" beings introduced into this one and what the resolution means to Aral.

[Fantasy Literature · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bared Blade is the second book in the FALLEN BLADE series. Kelly McCullough continues the story of Aral Kingslayer, survivor of the destruction of the Goddess Namara turned petty thief and spy.

Aral is still struggling with the revelation that other members of his cult survived the fall of his goddess. His experiences in Broken Blade have started to give him an inkling that there may be more to look forward to than alcoholic oblivion. The relationship between Aral and his familiar/partner Triss has been an interesting twist on typical sword and sorcery tropes.

When a couple of oddly matched women are suddenly attacked in front of Aral, he chooses to get involved. The women have powers and skills far beyond the ordinary, which changes everything immediately. As further evidence of Aral’s re-orientation away from self-destruction via Kyle’s whiskey, .. Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in a series. While it stands on its own as a story it helps to fully understand the main character if you read the first book. Aral, the main character, is still crawling out of his addiction to alcohol caused by the destruction of his Goddess, his family (the temple) and his former life. The growth of the main character from simple action/reaction to actually thinking about the consequences and ramifications of all of his actions. The story revolves around Aral having to choose, again and again, the best side in a complex constantly evolving situation. He chooses right some times, wrong in others and ends up dealing with the ramifications. I'm interested to see if the third installment (due out in late 2012) continues the growth and evolution of the main character.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Bared Blade" is book # of the Fallen Blade series. I think it is better than book #1 of the series, Broken Blade.

The story: Aral Kingslayer tries to help two women who come into his regular bar, but their mission is greater than he could have imagined. Aral must stop a war.

Any problems? Well... it has at the same level of sexual tension in the story as one has seen in the previous book. The F-word is used. A child is in deadly danger, but for the most part the child seems powerful enough to protect itself. Nevertheless, if you don't like to read about children in deadly danger, then skip this book.

I'd definitely read this book again.