A Sword Named Truth

Rise of the Alliance #1

by Sherwood Smith

Untested young rulers must cooperate to protect their world from the magical threat of the mysterious kingdom of Norsunder in a new epic fantasy trilogy set in the same world as the popular Inda series.

The first installment of a trilogy, A Sword Named Truth launches readers into a story of non-stop action, politics, and magical threats leading to Norsunder's return. Our heroes span continents and cultures, ambitions and desires, but share one characteristic: they are young leaders. Many are rulers of unstable nations, growing into their power and their identities, but they seek ways to trust and bind themselves together--and find the strength to defend against a host that has crushed entire worlds: Norsunder.

With incredible powers only hinted at and enigmatic characters who appear in strange circumstances, the magical empire of Norsunder has loomed as the ultimate villain in Sartorias-deles, portending a battle to come, with the very highest of stakes.

Set in the complex world of Sartorias-deles, Sherwood Smith returns readers to the enthralling saga begun with the military action of the Inda series and continuing in the magic-based cultural drama of Banner of the Damned, bringing together deadly high politics, engaging worldbuilding, and nuanced examinations of power, love, and betrayal.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, High Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy

656 pages, Hardcover

First published June 11, 2019

About the author

I am a writer,( Patreon here) but I'm on Goodreads to talk about books, as I've been a passionate reader as long as I've been a writer--since early childhood.

I'm not going to rate books--there are too many variables. I'd rather talk about the reading experience. My 'reviews' of my books are confined to the writing process.

Reviews

[Sherwood Smith]

For readers familiar with Crown Duel, more especially with its prequel A Stranger to Command, this first entry in the Rise of the Alliance arc covers what was going on at the end of the latter. It launches the main story arc in modern times, connecting of course to the past (Inda, Banner of the Damned, Lily and Crown and the forthcoming A Time of Daughters).

The story arc is already written, split into three parts. I hoped they'd come out close together, but I don't have control over publisher releases. A lot depends on reader interest!

In this one the reader meets the core group I follow all the way through this arc and the Norsunder War arc (also already written). Most are young. Some are on the good side, some think they're on the good side, others . . .yeah, it's complicated. (Which is why this book is about the young allies before we get to the young enemies, in the next book.)

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 3 out of 5]

On sale now! Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:

Sherwood Smith has been writing fantasy novels and stories in her Sartorias-deles universe for over fifty years, since she was a child. The result is a literary edifice of incredible detail, scope and imagination, which has a large wiki (including several lengthy timelines) devoted to it. Sartorias-deles is a magical world in a different solar system, but there are gates between Sartorias-deles and our world that allow people (with the help of magic) to cross between the worlds. The prior novels are a mix of children’s, young adult and adult fiction.

A Sword Named Truth takes many pre-existing characters from Smith’s prior novels, particularly her children’s novels. Readers familiar with characters like Senrid, CJ, Clair, Liere, Puddlenose and Lilah will have a huge leg up. Several of the countries in Sartorias-deles are ruled by young teens, including Senrid (who has precarious rule over the military country of Maroven Hess), Atan (queen of Sartor, which is just emerging from a century of an enchanted stasis imposed by Norsunder), and Clair (queen of Mearsies Heili and gatherer of a tightknit band of young girls, including the feisty CJ). Jilo, once the enemy of Clair and CJ’s group, unexpectedly ascends to leadership of the benighted country Chwahirsland when its tyrannical king Wan-Edhe, a practitioner of dark magic, is abruptly abducted away to the even darker magical empire of Norsunder.

Most of these young rulers are dealing with troubles in their countries. Atan feels helpless against the iron will of the council and courtiers that surround her; Senrid is attempting to bring the rule of law to his country after deposing his usurper uncle, but the jarls (local lords) and the older students who exert power in the famous military academy of Marloven Hess are rebellious and disinclined to follow Senrid’s leadership. To make matters worse, Norsunder is once again on the move, and its combination of military might and incredibly powerful dark magic strikes terror into the hearts of many.

These youthful leaders are also using a “Child Spell” to prevent themselves from physically aging for a time, out of a combination of reasons, including distrust for adults and the belief that doing this will somehow give them protection against enemies from Norsunder. (It seems like a highly questionable call to me, but it’s a long-established part of the Sartorias-deles canon, and you just have to roll with it.) Given their suspicion of adults, it seems natural for these young leaders to band together and form an alliance to help each other out, and in fact that’s what’s proposed by some of them quite early in the novel, but their insecurities, personality clashes, and prior conflicts are making it difficult to effectively band together.

I first fell in love with Smith’s Sartorias-deles world when I came across her YA novel Crown Duel many years ago, a truly charming mix of adventure, romance and court intrigue. Since then I’ve read many of her Sartorias-deles novels; I consider myself a fan and reasonably well-educated in Sartorias-deles history and its timeline. A Sword Named Truth was a challenging read for me, though, as I think it will be for most readers who aren’t familiar with Sartorias-deles lore generally and, in particular, aren’t conversant with the stories and plots of the children’s and YA novels that directly precede A Sword Named Truth in this universe’s timeline. The one part of the Sartorias-deles books that I’ve skipped over are these children’s novels, including (but not limited to) Fleeing Peace, Senrid, The Spy Princess, and the CJ’S NOTEBOOKS series, and it so happens that those are all fairly directly tied to the plotline of A Sword Named Truth and lay the groundwork for what happens in this new novel.

It’s possible to engage with this world and with A Sword Named Truth without being familiar with the plots and characters of those prior books, and Smith does provide enough information about what has previously happened that readers who are newcomers won’t be completely at sea. But it does make it a distinct challenge. A glossary, list of characters, and a map would have been greatly helpful, though you can find these things and a wealth of other information on the aforementioned wiki and on Smith’s website. Following so many different characters also results in a fragmented and often confusing plot, with a lot of jumping from head to head and country to country. Some of the plotlines, like Jilo’s and Senrid’s, were much more intrinsically interesting than others, and I enjoyed their adventures and character development. On the other hand, I never was able to really effectively distinguish the main Norsundrian villains, Detlev, Siamis and Kessler, from one another.

A Sword Named Truth also stands at a somewhat uneasy crossroads between Smith’s children’s novels and her adult ones. The main characters are mostly teenagers and tweens, though only CJ ― by far the most immature and annoying (to me) character ― acts in a truly childish way. There’s some violence but no language or sexual content. But the length of this novel (almost 650 pages), its slow and deliberate pacing, and the writing style are much more adult in nature. The final quarter picks up the pace, but I thought that overall the novel would have benefitted from losing a hundred or so pages.

A Sword Named Truth is the first book in the new RISE OF THE ALLIANCE series. It isn’t the best entry point for this world for readers who are new to or relatively unfamiliar with the world of Sartorias-deles. I’d recommend starting with the INDA series (beginning with Inda, set about 900 years earlier) for more mature readers, or Crown Duel (set about 10 years after A Sword Named Truth) or Sasharia En Garde (originally published in two parts as Once a Princess and Twice a Prince, and set a few years after Crown Duel in a different country) for young adult readers. If you enjoy children’s fantasy, start with the children’s novels mentioned above. But dedicated fans of Sherwood Smith will find A Sword Named Truth a fascinating step forward in the lives of many familiar characters.

I received an ARC of this book for review from the author and the publisher. Thank you!

[wishforagiraffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I've been waiting for this book for years. I'm a giant fan of Inda and the subsequent books, and Banner of the Damned was more of the same. Great characters, lots of politics, interesting magic and worldbuilding. A Sword Named Truth is set many centuries after both previous installments, and Sartorias-Deles has changed with the centuries. This is excellent. Fantasy worlds staying static bothers the heck out of me, and Smith does a great job of showing culture and magic advancing, political boundaries shifting, etc, and even lampshades this trope by having an entire nation that was stuck in time for 100 years have to deal with the world moving on without them.

Many of the worldbuilding hints of the previous books are outright confirmed and expanded on in the text with ASNT. Norsunder's motivations also become clearer, although it's maybe clear as mud since Norsunder has a lot of competing motivations, and we finally get to see some of that through those characters' perspectives as well.

There are a LOT of viewpoint characters in this book. Several complaints from Inda that people often have, head/perspective jumping and individual characters having too many names to keep straight, are much less of an issue. But there are a lot of characters, most of whom I didn't end up forming much attachment to because we're not with any of them enough. There are several books that take place immediately before this that Smith self-pubbed that would help with keeping characters straight and having more backstory for what's referenced throughout this book, but it's not necessary to have read them. I like Senrid, because he reminds me quite a lot of a mix of Inda and Evred (and strangely not much of his ancestor Fox), due to some of his academic tendencies and the isolated nature of being a Marloven monarch, but he's also hard to relate to in some respects. The Marloven tendency to not trust anyone is still strong, and does Senrid little good. Atan is smart and kind, but is too easily overruled by her courtiers. Hibern is earnest and forges a lot of great connections.

Overall, it's a book with a lot of plot to get through, and there's a lot of perspectives to get that plot through, but the outcome is solid. You don't need to have read any of the previous Sartorias-Deles books to understand what's going on or feel invested in the outcome (especially with how grey a few things end up looking by the end of the book).

Good for people who like politics, complex plots, world-spanning consequences, or young characters (they're young, and nothing inappropriate really happens, but it's not a YA book).

Review copy received from the publisher at my request.

[Melissa McShane]

This newest entry into the books of Sartorias-deles marks an ambitious, world-spanning project that is true epic fantasy, blending global conflicts with personal, intimate stories of individuals. It may not, however, be the best entry into the world of Sartorias-deles. While the author does a good job of explaining necessary details and introducing existing characters, and I never felt confused despite not having read several of the other books in the loosely-grouped series that touch most directly on events in this story, I did feel a little like an outsider in places near the beginning. I think I would have felt more comfortable in the world had I read, at the very least, Fleeing Peace. However, in the strictest sense, it’s not necessary.

I will also admit that I am not a huge fan of epic fantasy anymore, which is to say that I don’t seek it out for its own sake. I get impatient with multiple points of view, since usually there are one or two characters I’m more interested in than the others, and I’m more interested in personal stories than world-altering, epic conflicts. What struck me about this book is how well-blended the personal is with the world-altering. The overarching framework of the novel is the growth of an alliance of young rulers facing off against terrible, hyper-powered enemies who control vast, well-trained armies and wield terrible magics. But it’s mostly told through windows into the lives of many of those young rulers, showing not only how they face the global challenge, but how they interact with each other.

While Smith is definitely a master of understanding political and military theory, her great skill here is with characterization, and my dissatisfaction with being forced to switch POVs from someone I’m deeply interested in was tempered by how almost all the POV characters are interesting (with a few notable exceptions). My favorite character is Jilo, a “villain” from some of the other books (this would be where my lack of knowledge hurt my reading) who turns out to be as much a victim as everyone else in his home country of Chwahirsland. When Wan-Edhe, the king of Chwahirsland, is captured/stolen/dragged away from his throne, it’s Jilo who takes on the responsibility of freeing his kingdom, one very slow step at a time, from the evil magic Wan-Edhe has imposed on it. Jilo, who was himself enslaved, serves as a stand-in for every oppressed Chwahir, and his struggles to become a good king and a good person, knowing all the time that Wan-Edhe is probably not gone for good, moved me deeply.

But there are a lot of other people to care about here. Senrid, king of Marloven-Hess, rules over a kingdom where war and conflict are a matter of national pride, and has to prove himself repeatedly despite being too young to be physically imposing. Atan, queen of Sartor, has a ruling council that sidelines her at every opportunity. (I was actually a little frustrated that she never put her foot down and forced them to bend to her will. I don’t know that this was actually possible, but it was what I wanted.) Liere saved the world, but lives with crippling fears and insecurities that even her friendship with Senrid can’t fix. (She is in serious need of therapy.) I even liked Julian, who is a five-year-old brat with a five-year-old’s perception of the world. I find it remarkable that the names have stuck with me despite there being about a million of them and despite my having listened to most of the book rather than reading and visually internalizing them.

There are some unfortunate problems with the book. For one thing, it’s too long. The middle section drags as much of the action is either positioning characters for future action, characters telling each other things, and POV scenes that serve only the individual and not the overarching story. I remember in particular one scene from the POV of Sartor’s chief mage, a woman who failed to defend Sartor from a terrible enchantment before the book begins, that struck me at the time as being interesting character development and later as completely unnecessary. It’s the only scene from this woman’s perspective, and we already knew the mages intended to marginalize Atan, so all it did was slow down the story. As a result, the book becomes dull and dragging in places, and it slowed my reading.

Another issue I had was with a few characters I think I was meant to like better than I did. CJ drove me nuts with her rudeness and bigoted attitudes. I don’t know if the audiobook narrator Joel Froomkin (who by the way was spectacular) did her any favors by making her sound sarcastic, but his interpretation exactly matched how I felt about her. Her eventual reconciliation with Rel, someone I liked who she was jealous of and treated terribly, didn’t really satisfy me.

I also was wary of the revolutionary Derek, who was as bigoted as CJ when it came to his attitudes about the nobility. The old mage Tsauderei (Side note: I would NEVER have thought to pronounce it the way Smith intended; thanks again, Mr. Froomkin) believed Derek would eventually turn on his dear friends Peiter and Lilah, who are royalty, and I think he’s right. I also do not trust anyone who’s so blinded by a cause that he forgets people are individuals, such as when Derek is so stunned when he learns Senrid, a very down-to-earth guy, is actually a king. So when Derek is killed, I didn’t mourn him the way I think I was intended to. The great thing is that even the characters I disliked, I was deeply engaged with, and I think that’s a powerful strength for any novel to have.

But it brings me to what I was most disturbed by, which is the Child Spell many of these young rulers have put themselves under. The Child Spell does what it implies: it keeps someone locked into whatever age they are when they cast it on themselves, specifically in a pre-pubescent state. Though I gather this spell makes an appearance in other Sartorias-deles books, this was the first I’d encountered it. Each of those who’ve used it in this book do so for different reasons. Senrid is afraid of something the evil antagonist Detlev implied once, that Senrid isn’t a worthy opponent yet, and believes that means Detlev will come after him when he’s an adult. CJ hates adults and never wants to be one. Atan wants to put off the day when she’ll be forced into adult responsibilities by her council. Rel likes being able to wander freely without getting suspicious looks from people who don’t know why an adult man is irresponsibly roaming the country. There are others, each with their own reasons.

So the first thing that bothers me is just that: everyone has a different reason for imposing this physiological stunting on themselves, but the overall impression this left on me was that Smith had some other reason for wanting to keep all these kids as kids, some story reason that was opaque to me as a reader. Because what are the odds that ten young people all made the same decision for completely different reasons? An imposed extended childhood would be a very interesting thing to explore, psychologically, but in this situation, it’s simply taken for granted that there are no potential side effects, no mental or psychological drawbacks—you just go on being ten for as long as you want.

But beyond that, I really have to wonder why the Child Spell exists at all. There are very few advantages to being a child and a hell of a lot more disadvantages, specifically with regard to how adults are able to abuse and manipulate children because they’re smaller, weaker, less able to reason, and easy to manipulate. Someone commented on one of my updates for this book that it’s even possible someone under the Child Spell would never develop higher-level reasoning skills, if brain development is a function of physical growth rather than of use. In this world, it seems brain development isn’t hampered by a lack of physical development, and the children using the Child Spell are reasoning at an adult level, but aside from that, there are still any number of times in this story when adults feel justified in dismissing the members of the Alliance because they’re children. Since half of those under the spell have reasons that to my mind are simply fear-based, I have trouble buying into the idea. (There is a more compelling reason given near the very end of the book, but since it’s not introduced until then, it doesn’t change my objections.)

Finally, a spoiler for the ending: It is a very strange ending. The Alliance finally acts, but is given help by adults secretly because they don’t trust the adults (for good reason), which makes them seem ineffective, and the most exciting conflict a) takes place between two of the villains and b) is short-circuited by yet another adult, leaving the Alliance kids to simply watch. It does a really good job of setting up for the next book, but also feels flat.

Despite my problems with the story, I was deeply engaged with a lot of the plot threads. This should not be considered a failing of the book, because it’s epic fantasy and this isn’t what epic fantasy is, but I would have loved an entire book about Jilo and his struggles to free his country from totalitarian oppression. I would also have loved a story just about Atan that covered her coming to power in her own terms. And I want Liere to have a good therapist and possibly a teddy bear. That kid is traumatized. As it is, I have hopes that all those things (well, probably not the therapist and teddy bear) will continue to play out as the series continues.

[Christine Sandquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review and others are available on my blog, Black Forest Basilisks.

Execution: ⭐⭐⭐
Enjoyment: ⭐⭐⭐.5

“Convince her,” Hiber said with deliberate emphasis, “that war isn’t a game.”
He eyed her, recognized the Marloven-to-Marloven irony, and said, “But it is a game. It’s one we play to win until we’re killed.”

A Sword Named Truth (ASNT) is the first in a new series by Sherwood Smith, set in the same world has the Inda Quartet: Sartorias-Deles. Similarly to Inda, ASNT begins with a young cast and will follow them into adulthood in subsequent books. While the characters are children, this book is not YA nor would I necessarily recommend it to younger readers given the dense worldbuilding.

At the time of ASNT, many generations have come and gone since the time of now-legendary Inda-Harskialdna, which is reflected in the many magical and social changes within the world and the cultures inhabiting it. While I found these changes fascinating, there was a lot of information being packed in to a small amount of space which often became overwhelming. Due to this, I would not recommend this book to someone new to Sherwood Smith; in fact, I regret that I jumped into this straight after Inda. I would advise interested readers to have read the Inda Quartet, Banner of the Damned, A Stranger to Command, and Crown Duel prior to wading in to ASNT – I certainly wish that I had done so.

Given my love of Inda, the changes that took place under the Marlovan banner quickly caught my interest. In Inda, women were in charge of defending the home castle. They trained to fight and defend. In ASNT, however, women are no longer allowed to fight at all. Similarly, the kingdom itself has been changed from a collection of city states under the Marlovan Harkvaldr to Marloven Hesea, under a Harvaldr. These small linguistic and titular changes can be seen reflected throughout the novel. It truly made the world feel alive in a way that I rarely see with massive time skips like this.

The cast of characters took a while to grow on me. Where Inda slowly and gradually introduced a large cast, ASNT throws them at you all at once before you have much context for them or particular reason to care about them. Several characters who are introduced early on have little relevance to the plot moving forward, and several who were only briefly mentioned and never featured seemed like the most interesting. This made it difficult for me to become invested in their storylines. However, after a while, I became fascinated by Jilo (king of the Chwahir, an Asian-inspired culture), Senrid (king of Marloven Hesea), as well as Atan (queen of Sartor). Jilo, in particular, was a character I initially did not expect to like much. As his story progressed, he quickly became one of my favorites as he tries to undo the centuries of damage his uncle, Wan-Edhe, did to the people of Chwahir. In a land where culture has been stamped down, Jilo makes it his mission to bring whatever remnants of Chwahir heritage still remain back into the light.

“The two voices splashed through the rhythmic tide of hiss, hiss, hrum, thrum, gradually subsiding into harmonic resonance, and cold showered through Jilo’s nerves when the truth struck him. They were humming.
Absolutely forbidden! On pain of death!”

ASNT sheds a great deal of light on who and what is happening in Norsunder, a threat that was only briefly touched on in Inda. While generally speaking Norsunder’s goal is to reshape the world in their own vision, there are many factions within which are at odds with one another. Each of the players in Norsunder vies for power, both magical and political, and has different views about the strategies which should be used to hold and remake Sartorias-Deles.

Overall, while I did enjoy this book and plan to continue the series, I’d only recommend it with the caveat that potential readers should be tolerant of information-dumps and be prepared to push through the first 30%-40% of the book before reaching the true “meat” of the novel.

THIS ARC WAS PROVIDED by Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW

[Francesca Forrest]

On the one hand, A sword Named Truth takes place on a global—even multiplanetary—scale, and features a huge cast of actively participating characters. On the other, the true drama and all the most meaningful moments are on a very intimate, personal level. But how to become deeply invested on an intimate level when there are so many characters? That’s Sherwood Smith’s genius: she can involve you in a character’s life, get you to care about that character, after just a few short paragraphs. Case in point: 80 percent of the way through the story, we briefly see events through the eyes of a queen whose kingdom is under attack, but whose husband, the king, can’t face or acknowledge that fact. The scene is a brilliant portrait of a person trying simultaneously to do her best for her country in a desperate circumstance, and also for her husband and children:

She intuited with a thrill of sorrow that he couldn't let himself believe [the truth about the attack], because he did not know what to do other than what he had already done … She kissed him again, harder, because he was a man underneath the trappings of kingship, a man enduring as much fear as his subjects.

And then she goes and does what needs to be done to save as many people as possible. We never see her again! And we hadn’t seen her previously. But she leaves a lasting impression.

And that’s what I read A Sword Name Truth for, more so than for the overarching story, which involves dreaded Norsunder’s world-conquering plans and the attempts of young people (and a few older people) throughout that world to come together to foil those attempts.

Different readers will have different favorite characters, but one I liked a whole lot, whom I see others like a lot too, is Jilo, who finds himself suddenly holding the reins in Chwahirsland when his Stalinesque uncle is whisked off to Norsunder. The country is devastated in every conceivable way—imagine North Korea after a famine, but also imagine nuclear poisoning, only instead of radiation it’s dark magic, and with all the paranoia of a fiercely totalitarian government. I think Jilo appeals as a focal character because his struggle is more than just an inner conflict (though Sherwood does a great job with characters going through those), but not so big that it loses immediacy. Hibern, Senrid, and Atan are all engaging viewpoint characters as well, and Liere too, though her intense self-criticism can be oppressive.

In addition to writing great characters, Sherwood deals with big ideas, whether it’s talking about the dangers of a power vacuum after a totalitarian government collapses (“If you give them too many choices after no choice at all … We do not know how to negotiate choices anymore. I’ve seen death struggles over the possession of extra boot ties”) or the nature of art (“Does everyone see art exactly the same way? Art, oh, you could say it’s in the songs, and in movement: the perfect gait of a horse, perfect form in shooting, the rhythms in the drums, the sparks shooting upward in the sword dance”). I love being privy to the characters’ thoughts and insights.

Some have commented that the book moves slowly, and this is true, and the large cast of characters means there’s a diffuseness about the overarching story. But if you read it for interactions among individual characters and become invested in their personal journeys—whether those journeys span the entire book or just a couple of pages—you will find it time well spent.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was given an ARC of this, and life finally calmed down enough for me to finish reading it and write this. I wish I hadn't promised the review, because I hate writing bad ones, and that's what's coming. I enjoyed Inda quite a lot, and from all I've heard Sherwood is a wonderful person, but I just don't have much good to say about this.

Let's start with the title. I have unfortunate associations with fantasy books involving "sword" and "truth" in the name. Smith and her writing are nothing at all like Goodkind and Sword of Truth, but I have a visceral Pavlovian response all the same. Given that Goodkind remains high on the all time best selling fantasy authors list (definitive proof of an unjust world) I do wish Smith had titled the book something different. And the sword in question was a very minor part of the story anyway.

This book is a chonker, coming in at 653 pages according to Goodreads. It felt like it should have been about half that. It took a long time for things to get interesting, and much of it felt pointless.

Thematically, this book couldn't make up its mind if it wanted to be YA or not. I like YA fiction, but it just doesn't fit to have a massive tome with some very dark goings-on with a bunch of kids complaining that all the grown-ups don't take them seriously.

Next complaint: too many charcters to easily keep track of. Given my long, looooong history as a WoT superfan, me saying there are too many characters is saying something. And lots of them have long and complicated histories that are frequently referenced but seldom adaquately explained. To be fair, I never read the Banner of the Damned series, so i want to cut Sherwood some slack on this. But nowhere does it say you need, or even strongly recommend, that you have the have read any of Smith's other stuff.

A related, but minor, yet super annoying point: when Smith switches between characters here, there's often nothing to indicate this. When you're writing in 3rd person limited omniscient, that's a problem.

In the end, I am sorry to say that this book didn't know what it wanted to be, and took way too many pages to figure that out. I do not recommend.

[Jayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really hard book to write a summary/review of...... So this is a fantasy world and all over the world there are young teens/kids who are positions of authority. There is a group of adults who are doing evil things (though they may not all be completely evil) and trying to take over the world. So the kids band together to form an alliance...........see that description doesn't begin to do this book justice.

The great things about this book:
The world building - this is a complete fantasy world with many different cultures/languages/magic systems. Nothing seems copied or cookie cutter and all of the cultures are fascinating and make you want to learn more.
The characters - there are a ton of characters but yet all have distinctive personalities without becoming caricatures. And they have their own backstories- most of which are already published so if you feel like going back and learning more about some you can. (If this is some people's first foray into Sherwood's universe I could see it being a bit confusing- probably best to start with Fleeing Peace).

My personal favorites: Jilo as he tries to fix the evil spells and laws his uncle used on Chwahirland- he was sympathetic and very realistically drawn. And the villains - because they each have their own agenda which we only see glimpses of but you can tell there is lots more to be revealed about their history and their future.

The only bad thing: I went to find out when the next book is to be published and nothing is set yet!! I waited years for this book- I don't want to wait years to get these stories completed :(

[Leigh Kimmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wow. I'd originally started recording my reading here, not realizing it was the Kindle edition rather than the hardcover edition I'd borrowed from the library, and when I tried to fix it, ended up listed as reading both as once.

I'm definitely going to be re-reading this one. There's just so much here, and a lot of it connects with other books in the same 'verse. I'm hoping to have some time this winter to do a thorough re-reading and get a better view of the interconnections.

And re-reading it without a hard deadline to get it back to the library has been very rewarding, as I picked up nuances that had sipped by me the first time around. I'm also glad that I did this re-read shortly after a re-read of Ursula K LeGuin's The Telling, and Jilo's journey of discovery of the old Chwahirsland, before Wan-Edhe the mad king tried to wipe it out, resonated richly with Sutty's journey of discovery of the old Aka, before the Corporation State and the March to the Stars.

When I was younger and books were so much harder to come by, this is a novel that I would have read again and again, savoring every detail of a complex world (actually two worlds in the family of planets of a distant star). I really want to find time to read it again before too long, especially now that the future of the series is uncertain. However, the author has stated that, once she is able to get the rights reverted, she is going to take them indie.

[Leigh Kimmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to read this one slowly, because there's so much to savor, so much detail, so many things that link to other books in the same 'verse. But I'd borrowed it from the library, and there were two more people waiting to read it, so I had to hurry through it so it could go back for the next person in the hold queue.

I'm in an unusual position reading this, because I've read some parts of the overarching storyline in various stages from the earliest rough drafts through various rewrites over the years, including material that has yet to see print and may never. So I know some characters by other (nick)names than the ones used in this novel, and some backstory to certain characters and magical objects that I'm not sure I want to mention, lest I snerk something important in an upcoming book.

The book itself starts with a sudden and dramatic political shakeup, the removal of a rotten dark-magic king to the mysterious place outside of time known as Norsunder, a sort of artificial Hell created as a base and bolthole by the aggressors in a long-ago war known as the Fall of Old Sartor. Suddenly there's a power void in Chwahirsland, but nobody wants to move lest Wan-Edhe (literally, The King, reminiscent of several 20th-century dictators whose titles translated into The Leader) should return and be displeased. Jilo, formerly the heir-apparent to the bad king's brother Prince Kwenz, steps into the breach, trying to maintain some sort of forward motion in a land that has lain far too long under dark-magic spells.

Chwahirsland was not a well-liked country back in Banner of the Damned (events of which are referred to several times in this book), but now it has become a dark-magic horror. The comparison to North Korea is rather apt, although magic enables some horrors that even the worst Primary World police state can't manage (paralleling something I contemplated a couple of years ago when I was writing a story based on a bit of backstory and realized that my villain could hardly be distinguished from any of several Rotten Dictators of History, and I needed to think about just what a tyrant could do in a world with Functional Magic). Things like the energy-sucking spell and time-bindings cast over the palace, or the book that traces the movements of people whose names are written in it.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world of Sartorias-deles, other leaders are responding to the sudden change in the balance of power as a result of Norsunder's decapitation strike on Chwahirsland. It's becoming obvious that, after millennia of waiting and occasionally playing cat-and-mouse games with various countries, Norsunder is on the move, sending its minions wholesale rather than retail. While the older rulers struggle with the concept that the status quo is being upended, a group of youngsters who came to thrones extraordinarily young are forming their own network to defend against these new threats.

And then Norsunder moves, and it's horrifying how fast carefully-laid light-magic defenses are swept away. It's a fight that leaps all over the world of Sartorais-deles, and even to its sister-world of Geth-deles (the two planets are in each other's L3 position relative to their primary, known as Erhal but generally just called "the sun"), where the Norsundrians are trying to steal a different type of transfer-magic after having their old methods forcibly blocked.

And this doesn't even get into the fascinating discussions of morals and ethics, and particularly the ethics of the use of power, or the hint that the original foundation of Norsunder was some kind of eldritch entity of pure hunger for life-energy that came from Outside, and that may have been why the Fall didn't get humanity kicked off Sartorias-deles by its mysterious indigenous inhabitants, who had been ready to do that for far less in the first centuries after humans first settled.

I'm hoping to get it back out once there's no longer a hold queue and read it more slowly and carefully, then write a longer and more analytical review on my book reviewing site.

[Deborah Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fans of Sherwood Smith's world of Sartorias-deles will adore this latest adventure, which follows a host of beloved characters as they deal with the re-introduction of the disappeared kingdom of Sartor into the real world and the growing menace of the mysterious, magical land of Norsunder. Cataclysmic events have left young, untried rulers to counter increasingly difficult situations and challenges both internal and external. They band together in an alliance, lending each other support and strength. The story is long and extremely complex, with a huge amount of backstory and many characters, so it's helpful to have read not only the "Inda" series, but "Senrid," "Stranger to Command," "Sartor,"and the Mearsies Heili books first..This isn't an easy introduction to Sartorias-deles, but will appeal strongly to those already familiar with the world and its history.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some books should just stay as fanonical Grand Unification Theories. This is one of them.

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hard book to review. I really liked the Inda books. This book was harder to like. I felt like I was thrown right into the middle of a story and had missed the beginning.

There's a huge generational divide: us vs them. It seems most striking among the mages and in Atan's kingdom.

For whatever reason, I find the idea of a Child Spell disturbing. Choosing to not grow up seems wrong, but I can't say why.

Tons of world building, long-term villains who toy with people for fun, short-term villains like Wan-Edhe, and a bunch of normal people who get frustrated, mistake other's feelings, feel they can't live up to what people expect, and who are thrust into situations beyond their knowledge.

[Henry Lazarus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sherwood Smith wrote a number of juveniles three decades ago. A group of teenagers somehow broke the magics of Norsunder and eliminated Norsunder’s ability to move armies through rifts. A few years later, the young rulers are settling down, and those with magical ability can visit the friends they made using magical transfer tokens. One of the Norsunder leaders left A Sword Named Truth (hard from DAW). When he retrieves the sword, the various young heroes must join into an alience to thwart Norsunder’s plans, Even if that means transferring to a world on the opposite of the star in the Sartorias-deles system. This is a bit slow, but I’m still waiting for the next tale in the trilogy.Review printed by Philadelphia Free Press

[Wealhtheow]

I started reading this without realizing it was the sequel to a number of other stories. Reading this without reading those first turned out to be confusing, so I'm putting this back on the shelf for now.

[Lekhana Gogineni]

A publication date! I might actually cry from happiness.

[Ay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good. Enjoyable. Bounced right onto the next one.

THE SERIES

There are layers of enjoyment with this series. Smith started writing these stories at around the age of 8 (the 1960s?), and as a teenager. She is still writing stories set in this universe about these people as of 2024.

The entire series, read in chronological order, comprises books written by Smith as an adult, adult Smith working off brief stuff written as a kid, and stories written by 8 year old and then teenager smith, and then back by adult smith.

I started with the book Inda, which she published in 2006, as a very accomplished writer. I was sucked right in, and gobbled that series up within days.

As a middle aged person, it is fine to skip the books written by the kid/teenager. It was an interesting visit by me into the kid/teenager worldview - books written by a kid, for readers just like her. Later books advert to things that happen in the earlier books, but the reader is ably filled in. The books written by kid and teenager smith have little character development.

I suspect that the kid/teenager books might be spectacular reads for kid/teenager girls though.

Having said all that, it is fascinating to enjoy a universe initially created by an 8 year old, and continuously filled in by the teenager and then adult author. There are a bunch of people who do a magic spell to keep them young as they don't want to grow up (grown ups are bad!) and don't want to be messed around by Love Stuff. You can see a girl/teen in the 60s looking at the social expectations of that time and thinking "ugh, no". There is also all the magic to take care of housework. See previous sentence.

With respect to the rest of this series, I will be reading a little more cautiously, checking out the publication dates, how much is the kid/teen written story and character arcs to see whether I am going to read them or not.

THIS ACTUAL BOOK

So in this "Rise of the alliance" books, the sensibility is that of the adult author. The events take place all over the world, with a large cast (and many viewpoint characters). Events progress! A "nuanced examination of power, love and betrayal" as the blurb says, is a fair description. I am delighted by the examination of these people basically growing up and processing, their pasts, the present and the possible future.

I have printouts of the maps and I use them to follow the story. There is a glossary and a wiki page and her website to help out if you start reading these books at this point.

[MAB LongBeach · Rating 4 out of 5]

First in a new sub-series, set immediately after the events of Fleeing Peace and overlapping with A Stranger to Command. This would probably work as an entry point to the series, despite building on what has gone before.

The recent upheavals have a left a lot of young people as rulers in countries across Sartorias-deles. Mage student Hibern suggests forming an alliance among these youths; the beginnings are rocky, but the bonds grow.

A bit disjointed at first, as it follows a lot of widely-scattered characters dealing with a lot of different issues, but it smoothes out later. I enjoyed it.

[Nicole H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

OMG! Yes! So much yes! This book was freaking epic. I loved it so much. You have to read this. I promise, if you like epic fantasies with lots of action, great world-building and fun characters then you'll totally vibe with this. <3

Would I recommend? (insert all the positive curses) YES!

[Colleen Corgel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smith once again expands on the world that she made famous as a YA author with Crown Duel. This starts off about a thousand years after the Inda series and right around the time of A Stranger to Command. For fans of Smith, this is a very promising beginning to yet another epic series. If you're also a fan of darker fantasy, with the focus more on political maneuvering then, this will be right up your alley.

There are a few things that bothered me here, but they are excusable as they smooth out over time. One thing is that it is extremely jumpy in the first third or so of the book. It could be that there's a ton of point of view jumping due to the fairly large main cast that is being introduced. I believe there might be a good five characters who round out the cast for this book, and given that Smith worked so hard to get them introduced, it contributed to a bit of confusion a first. However, that smoothed out as the political games began, which made up for the whiplash I felt in the beginning.

Smith's world building is as intricate as it is beautiful. She does pull a lot from her Inda series, and refers to her books from The Crown Duel, so for those who like the details, I'd recommend finding time for the Inda series and the other books I've mentioned. This is a great stand alone book, but I believe one could get more out of it by going for the previous books.

Highly recommended book by one of the most underappreciated fantasy authors out there. If you're looking for a A Song of Ice and Fire style series without the graphic imagery, then I'd recommend this for you. I'd also recommend it for any fans of high fantasy. Another excellent start from a great author.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was received as an ARC from Berkley Publishing Group - DAW in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I do have to say, this book at first was a little more tougher to understand and have my full interest due to some parts jumping all over the place and the plot being very difficult putting the pieces together. Midway through the book started to make sense and I almost stopped and did not finish the book but I am very thankful that I had the perseverance to finish the book. A Sword Named Truth tells the story of Atan, Senrid, and Jilo prominent forces in the Sartorias-deles kingdom with the rise of the Agents of Norsunder appearing with the dark power and control of their land. As I was reading this book, I have mentioned in many of my reviews that I am reminded of the Red Queen series. This book is Red Queen meets Mortal Instruments and that made this book even more exciting.

We will consider adding this book to our YFantasy collection at our library. Because of the stagger plot at the beginning of the book and the difficult names, we give this book 4 stars,

[Georgie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so excited to read this I ended up not sleeping the night before, throwing off my sleep schedule and ensuring it took me 5 days to read this instead of the three I'd originally planned.

I can't say it was entirely worth it, because I'm old and need my sleep, but I did really enjoy this book! One of the things I love about Smith's Sartorias-Deles is seeing all the different countries and cultures and how they change, and there was a lot of that here. The different POV were fun- I had my favorites (Senrid and Hibern and Jilo), but they were all interesting and added a lot of depth to the story and characters.

I also loved that we got more Chwahirsland! I've read the Inda books a million times, and a good chunk of the modern books, and I always hoped we'd see more of Chwahirsland. I'm looking forward to more Jilo, and gaining more of an understanding of a country that's often presented as 'full of bad people'.

A lot of the themes I loved from the Inda books cropped up here, too, including my absolute favorite: the whims of kings, and how a decision made by someone in power can have greater and more far-reaching consequences than by a "normal" person.

Really, I love this whole world Smith has built up, and I am very excited to read more of this series, and really, anything else in this world.

[Brian Ejike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a mixed bag.

On the one hand -- Jilo's story, easily the most powerful and moving. Man wandering his fallen spirit-crushed country, trying to set things to rights, after ages under the most wicked dictator.

On the other hand -- the most irritating set of brats you'll find anywhere. Some of them ruling nations, if you can believe it. And trying to stay brats forever, with this repulsive "Child Spell". All whining about not being taken seriously by their adult guardians, while doing the most stupid shit imaginable.

Senrid was tolerable, even pretty good for a while, until he met up with the rest of their "Alliance". Apparently, their collective foolishness is greatly amplified by proximity. The one called CJ needs to get deported back to Earth post-haste -- albeit to a better family than the last.

I don't think I'm exaggerating here. Here's a bit of story/spoiler;
------------------------------------

Say, some of their lot -- a boy king Peiter and his sister Lilah -- are basically under hypnosis, along with a bunch of their subjects. Said hypnosis/enchantment was done by the Bad Guys but is known to be practically harmless to the victim -- it was mainly done to neutralize and control.

Now, rather than wait a few days to make a rescue attempt much safer and likely to succeed, despite knowing a trap was very likely considering the profile of the girl being rescued, these kids wheedled their way into staging this rescue regardless, all because they couldn't bear to think their friends are under this enchantment. They got to the location and naturally, the Bad Guys showed up. In the process of rescuing Lilah, the leader of the rescue -- a boy -- got killed.

They all teleport back to their hideout, with much tears and wailing, as they mourn the boy's death. Lilah was very close to the boy who died, so she probably felt it hardest. The very next day, Lilah asks for help to rescue her brother, the king Peiter, from the same harmless enchantment. She asks, "What would it hurt to rescue one more person? Why do you have to wait?". I stare at my screen for a while here, wut-struck.

The adults/others object once again but nobody rebukes her with the obvious. Nobody points out the glaring argument against such a rescue, why she shouldn't even be suggesting it in the first place, something she should know best of all.
------------------------------------

Some of this foolishness is clearly intended by the writer, meant to show the immaturity of her kid characters, but she's failed to strike the necessary balance (not 50/50) to make the story enjoyable.

The adults aren't much better tbh, I didn't get any sense of competence, or often even identity.

Insofar as one exists, the magic system, which was cute in Inda, now appears very superficial here. Talk of "wards", so overused and loaded with ambiguity, it lost all meaning early in the book. The silly light/dark magic rivalry, when "dark" magic isn't really dark at all -- just anything offensive from the looks of it. Considering how much of the plot is driven by magic doings, having the system be this weak is guaranteed to produce a story of similar quality.

I started this series because I liked the Inda series (even if Inda got progressively infantile near the end). I was looking for some more Marloven academy action, hell, maybe even some of the love octagons Smith is great at setting up. Alas, I got little to none of that here. I considered continuing the series anyways, to see what Jilo and Senrid got up to, but there'll likely be just too much dumb stuff to wade through.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

"A Sword Named Truth" is a epic tween/YA fantasy novel. While technically the first in a series, the characters very frequently talked about the events had that just happened. (This is set immediately after "Fleeing Peace" and overlapped "A Stranger to Command.") I haven't read "Fleeing Peace" and I read "A Stranger to Command" 10 years ago, so I felt like I was thrown into the middle of a story and had to sort out who all of these many, many characters were. The story also frequently switched between viewpoint characters and different events, which was disorientating. There were over 12 young royals (ages 10-15) and several young main characters that helped form the alliance, plus assorted adults and bad guys were also viewpoint characters. The story was mostly people talking about things rather than actual scenes where things happen. For example, we had two characters talk about going to learn at a soldier's academy, then about a year later (as the story covered about 5 years) one briefly remarked that they had done so.

The first half of the story (about 280 pages) was telling the reader who everyone was, either by the historian narrator who summarized events or through the characters endlessly talking about what had just happened and their life now. They also occasionally met the other young rulers, often taking an instant dislike to the other because of the (deeply developed) culture differences or because the other didn't like one of their friends. The second half involved the bad guys attacking several of the good guys, providing a few, brief battle scenes. Much of the conflict focus was on how the allied young royals had trouble getting along. Then, finally, we got an extended, daring undercover raid by the young allies to save a foolish friend.

There was no sex. There were 20 uses of bad language. I have greatly enjoyed some of this author's earlier work (like "Crown Duel"). However, I found this slow-paced and with too many characters who do very little "on screen." I ended up wishing it'd been cut into several short books that followed only a few characters at a time rather than trying to stuff everyone into one book.

I received an ebook review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Liz (Quirky Cat) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sherwood Smith is back with a brand new fantasy series, Rise of the Alliance. And it all starts with A Sword Named Truth (I love that name). However, I should mention that this series is set in the same world as Inda and is a bit of a prequel to the Crown Duel series (a true love of mine, please go read!).

Naturally, the second I saw Crown Duel mentioned, I knew I had to read A Sword Named Truth. I loved those books back when they came out (and I really should reread them sometime...). Also, this is a book that fans have literally been waiting YEARS for, as it got stuck in book limbo. Never a fun time, let me tell you that.

“She intuited with a thrill of sorrow that he couldn't let himself believe [the truth about the attack], because he did not know what to do other than what he had already done … She kissed him again, harder, because he was a man underneath the trappings of kingship, a man enduring as much fear as his subjects.”

Honestly, A Sword Named Truth is one of those books that defies standard reviewing. I'm struggling to find the right words to describe how I felt about it, other than saying that I greatly enjoyed this adventure.

It is always something to cherish, going back to a world that we have fallen in love with. I love revisiting this world and seeing new characters come to life within the pages. It was fun and tense and really did a fantastic job of capturing my imagination.

A Sword Named Truth is an epic fantasy through and through, from the setting and plot to the sheer size of it all (570 pages, for those that are curious). It is a hefty read and should keep even the fastest reader occupied for at least a day or two.

Thanks to DAW and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Read more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[Rebekah Conley · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, but slow, gap-filler

I’ve read and adored Sherwood Smith’s Inda series, as well as Crown Duel/Court Duel and A Stranger To Command. This fills in the backstory to the larger universe of Sartorias-deles during A Stranger To Command, and is centered on the child rulers of various countries as well as the Norsundrian bad guys.

I found the first half of this novel to be very slow, and honestly kept going largely for the Senrid/Marloven Hess portions, as I greatly enjoyed getting the backstory to his interactions with Shevraeth. The child characters can be quite irritating at times and I found them less than engaging, since I am not familiar with their individual plot lines.

The enemy threat is complex and interesting, and I enjoyed learning more about Norsunder and seeing familiar faces reappear. By about 3/4 of the way through the novel I was thoroughly engaged and looking forward to seeing what came next. All in all, an enjoyable read, but Sherwood would greatly benefit from a more strict editorial process and a tighter focus.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The narrative POV of this book is challenging and inconsistent: it switches from an omniscient narrator to personal perspectives of the characters frequently, and between multiple characters on a single page. The plot and setting are not explained or explored adequately. Information is thrown out with the assumption that the reader knows what’s happening, which often left me confused.

It was difficult to believe the premise of international/inter-world politics being handled by 12-15 year olds, especially as this is an adult book written for an adult audience. It’s a strange choice to ground the story in teenagers and pre-teens.

I found the book to be dense and difficult to engage with. It also felt very much like an introduction, and 650 pages is a lot for a setup. This is not a new favorite, by any stretch. It was simultaneously wildly confusing and intensely boring.

[Colin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate to do this, but . . . I received an ARC of this book for a review - it took me a while to get around to it, and . . . well, this was terrible. I think it was meant as a prequel to an existing series, but it really seems to assume that one has read the whole series, which is apparently very complex with a cast of dozens of characters, bizarre cultures, unexplained magic systems, etc. And apparently some characters from OUR world, for some reason. This book was a mess. I can only assume it would have made sense if I had read the series. BUT . . . here's the thing . . . they were soliciting reviews from people who hadn't read it. So . . . yeah. Sorry. It was bad. It might have been good under other circumstances, those were explicitly not the circumstances, so . . .

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Masterful storytelling leads a group of young rulers into an alliance against evil forces. Someone’s got to do something. The story switches perspectives across people and countries again and again, but flows together very well. The world building is superb. The text itself was rather wordy and I found myself taking extended breaks from the book for that reason alone. A lot of the context seems to infer previous knowledge. Is this based off Smith’s previous work? I like how it ends with a prologue inferring a next book, though I am unsure whether I will want to read it after how much willpower it took me to swim through this one.

[Sean Reads Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

To start off, there's a LOT of character viewpoints in this book, which doesn't usually turn out great. This is one of those times it didn't turn out great, because by the time I reached the last character and went back to the first one introduced, I'd forgotten what the hell was going on.

HOWEVER, I did like this book. The plot was great, though there was a LOT of it. The worldbuilding is great, the characters are all complex and have different personalities, The book itself starts getting good around halfway in, at which point I was able to stop just simply powering through and actually enjoy it.