The Sword of the South

War God #5

by David Weber

#1 in a NEW EPIC FANTASY SERIES by 28-times New York Times and international best seller David Weber, set within his Bahzell Bahnakson/War God universe. A swordsman who has been robbed of his past must confront an evil wizard with a world at stake.

Know thyself. Its always good to know who you are, but sometimes that's a little difficult.

Kenhodan has no last name, because he has no past . . . or not one he remembers, anyway. What he does have are a lot of scars and a lot of skills some exhilarating and some terrifying and a purpose. Now if he only knew where he'd gotten them and what that purpose was . . . .

Wencit of Rm, the most powerful wizard in the world, knows the answers to Kenhodan's questions, but he can't or won't share them with him. Except to inform him that he's a critical part of Wencit's millennium-long battle to protect Norfressa from conquest by dark sorcery.

Bahzell Bahnakson, champion of Tomank, doesn't know those answers and the War God isn't sharing them with him. Except to inform Bahzell that the final confrontation with the Dark Lords of fallen Kontovar is about to begin, and that somehow Kenhodan is one of the keys to its final outcome.

Wulfra of Torfo doesn't know those answers, either, but she does know Wencit of Rm is her implacable foe and that somehow Kenhodan is one of the weapons he intends to use against her . . . assuming she can't kill both of them first.

But in the far northern port city of Belhadan, an eleven-year-old girl with a heart of harp music knows the answers to all of Kenhodan's questions. . . and dares not share them with anyone, even the ancient wild wizard who loves her more dearly than life itself.

It's not easy to face the future when you can't even remember your own past, but if saving an entire world from evil sorcerers, demons, devils, and dark gods was easy, anyone could do it.


About David Weber's War Bahzell Bahnak series:
"Irresistibly entertaining."– Publishers Weekly

fun adventure full of noble steeds, fierce female fighters, dark sorcerers, serious swordplay, and plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor."– Locus

About David Weber and the Honor Harrington series:
"Weber combines realistic, engaging characters with intelligent technological projection and a deep understanding of military bureaucracy in this long-awaited Honor Harrington novel...Fans of this venerable space opera will rejoice to see Honor back in action."–Publishers Weekly

“. . .everything you could want in a heroine …. Excellent … plenty of action.”–Science Fiction Age

“Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!”–Anne McCaffrey

“Compelling combat combined with engaging characters for a great space opera adventure.”–Locus

“Weber combines realistic, engaging characters with intelligent technological projection . . . Fans of this venerable space opera will rejoice . . ."–Publishers Weekly

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Audiobook, Magic, Epic, Adventure, Science Fiction Fantasy

546 pages, Hardcover

First published August 4, 2015

About the author

David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1952.

Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles.

One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander . Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.

Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work).

http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidw...

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great story, about old friends, Bahzell and Wencit in particular, and new friends too. I totally enjoyed this. 5 stars are not enough. 7/30/17 reread.

[Choko · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this series! I am fond of the individual characters and was looking forward to reading this new beginning of an established story. And it all worked great until, for no reason whatsoever the author resorted to a cheap trick which I hate in all of its reincarnations. Now, this book is set something like 60 or 70 years after the end of the previous book and this is why I am so baffled as to what made DW resort to what I call the "how to magically grow a child of 10 or 12 into a biological woman in order for her to be old enough to be set up as a possible love interest of a much older man so it wouldn't creep us out" trick!!!! Why not just make her the right age to begin with??? She is a newly introduced character, there is 70 year span in which she could have been born, and she is supposed to be longer lived than most races yet look young and vibrant... So why the F@#$ does she have to be a kid, meet a dude, decide she should be older to deal with stuff, and find a magical way to make herself lnsta-grow!?!?!?!? What is wrong with every body these days? A ton of wonderful authors who create engaging series and we fall in love with them, seem to have conspired to put this scenario in aforementioned series and think we could just say "Hey, that's cool! This little girl who might have had a rough time in life and is possibly mature for her age, but is still mentally and emotionally a child, magically turns into a hot woman. It's all good, because if she is physically grown, that makes her mature in all the ways that count, right?! After all, the experience and knowledge that occur during the years that it takes a girl to become an adult are totally overrated!!! As long as she looks legal... Yea!"

Once I chilled out after reading this very unexpected event, the book got back to the typical for traditional fantasy quest of finding the spelled sword which will be needed to fight dark forces and meet danger in the name of good and the light... The author is a very good storyteller and it is easy to emerse in the world of magic and intrigue, though this is a set up book for a new trilogy arc, and the rehashing of everything that happened in the previous 5 books becomes a bit tedious... If not for all the reminiscing, the book would not have been more than 300 pages, as opposed to the 554 or so it is now. However, it makes it possible for a newcomer to start with this book and not have a problem understanding everything relevant.

I would have given the book 4 stars, but the Moning like trick pissed me off just enough to explode one of the stars... *** 3. ***

[Liviu · Rating 3 out of 5]

80's style fantasy when the best in the field moved far beyond that; while DW is still my #1 sf writer of today, fantasy is not his strong point and the Safehold series first three volumes are so much better read as epic fantasy with an AI wizard (the following volumes move into sfnal territory as technology starts evolving, but those first 3 are as close as top fantasy as DW has written so far)

I really hoped this would be different from the previous Bazhell/Wencit volumes and would align closer with the best in contemporary fantasy, but sadly while the pages turn, the content verges on boring, repetitive and very, very simplistic (reading about Wencit repeating his ritual calling of enemies before destroying them for the nth time, or Bazhell's musings/talks with Tomanak that are straight 80's fantasy gets tiresome quickly, not to speak of the ending which is as cliche as it goes, veering into parody)

Unless a huge DW or Bazhell fan, this is skippable and I intend to stay out of this series from now on, maybe browse the next volume just in case it gets better

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dang it. Non of my suspicions were confirmed or denied - when is the next book due?
Good addition to storyline, Bahzel was a full member of the team and not just a cameo to link to the prior books. (My initial fear.)
Really curious about what will happen in the next 7 months and the family reaction probably not a good one .

[sardit · Rating 3 out of 5]

My opinion of this book keeps varying between augh this is so frustratingly bad and but I'm having so much fun, and I still haven't decided which is winning.

There's a lot of bad about this book. The only book I've read that did foreshadowing worse is the one where I literally figured out the climactic reveal in the first paragraph of the book, and the foreshadowing kept increasing from there. (Mira Grant's Parasite, everyone.) And you don't need that much foreshadowing for something that's a ginormous cliche! Throw in just enough so that the ending came as a legit oh huh, so that's who he was and it would have been a thousand times better book. The foreshadowing in this book can probably be seen from space, writing YEAH OUR HERO REALLY IS SPOILER in flaming letters across the continents.

And speaking of cliches, this book is basically made of them. A hero, a wizard, and a reborn king leave a bar to go fetch a McGuffin could only get more cliched if they added a bard and a rogue. OH WAIT. They do! Sort of. There's dragon attacks! There's a sideplot of a brilliant and precocious child (Bahzell's daughter) going to a new school and making all the other students jealous of her brilliance and literally being so brilliant she's aging herself extra fast so she can grow up faster and that is presented as a good thing that the ten year old girl is ultimately right in choosing to do. And if that means she starts dating the fully adult reborn king at the age of 13 or something I am going to have words, and they are not going to be polite ones. And that is a million times more sincere than the rest of the griping in this review.

But going back to more trivial problems, the worship of the characters! Weber is seemingly incapable of letting a single opportunity pass to extoll the virtues of his characters. I am fairly tolerant of that kind of thing in general - I like fiction where the characters are larger than life, and some praise can add to the effect - but sheesh. After a while I just started craving the one non-particularly-heroic POV for the taste of a character who isn't unsufferably noble, even if they do occasionally fall prey to the urge to think about everyone else's unsufferable nobility. That is definitely part of why I missed Brandark being a full-time party member. (Although to reassure fans of the previous series, he does appear.)

All that said, the first Bahzell book has always been one of my favorite comfort reads because it's just such pure adventurous fun, and in a weird way, I feel like this is closer to the spirit of the first book than the last two books have been. It's not really the same genre at this point; I'd classify the first Bahzell book as adventure fantasy while this is really more epic fantasy. But one of the reasons I started losing interest in the Bahzell series is it felt like it was getting more and more serious and less, well, fun. But here, the author's indulging himself and yeah, it's often bad writing, but there's an underlying sense of fun to it that got me to enjoy more than the writing really deserves.

[Cedar Sanderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had really been looking forward to this book, because I have loved the Bahzell and Brandark stories from the beginning. It had been a long wait, and I feel I was well rewarded by that. Sword of the South opens decades after the action in the last book, War Maid’s Oath. Just how long, you aren’t sure until somewhat later in the book. But we are introduced slowly to this through the eyes of the new main character. The prologue harks back to the dark days of a dying empire, 1400 years in the past, and the connecting persona is one of my favorite wizards, Wencit of Rum.

Right away, you are plunged into action. The Bahzell series is unlike Weber’s other work, in that it is usually fast-paced and there are few scenes without some purpose in advancing the plot. What you have to keep in mind with this book is that there are layers of plotting. We’re reading this story, but also the over-arc of a trilogy which this tale opens up. And of course, the backstory which was the previous trilogy (I think. Or was it four books?).

The foreshadowing is very heavy. Or as a friend commented while we were talking about the book, ‘his foreshadowing was so heavy I got out my umbrella.’ I knew who the main character was almost from the beginning, having narrowed it down to two people while reading the prologue. This didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the story. Knowing who he was, Weber makes it clear through the telling that keeping the hero’s identity a secret is vital to the success of the mission. And by secret, in a world where wizards can stroll around inside your head stealing all your secrets, the hero couldn’t even know, himself, who he was.

[Ted Bade · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was a well written adventure full of monsters, evil sorcerers, and other evils along with some very powerful heroes. In the time line of the series, this tale takes place many years after the last one in the series, but it does include many of the characters from the original stories. Sadly, one aspect of the tale, that of Bahzell's daughter, it left only partially written. It was as if the author was intending to write another novel about this new and interesting character but never got around to it.

Overall, I liked this novel and enjoyed the read.

[Kal Spriggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Weber’s new Epic Fantasy novel, Sword of the South, is up on Baen’s websubscriptions and I picked it up last week for some ‘light’ reading. I thought that I’d do a review of it, to give my impressions. I’ll preface this by saying that I read an eARC of this book. It’s not the complete version and it still has some editing to be done. Therefore I’m not going to nitpick grammar and such.

I’ve been a long time fan of David Weber’s fantasy series, starting with Oath of Swords and then leading into The War God’s Own, Windrider’s Oath, and culminating in War Maid’s Choice. If you haven’t read the series, you should. It’s excellent. The stories are, much like most of Weber’s, rich and interesting with detail, well orchestrated, and while the good guys don’t always get a happy ending, the bad guys generally come to bad ends.

The Sword of the South is, as far as I am aware, the start of his main epic. The other four books were designed to be the opening act, as it were, much like Tolkien’s The Hobbit was to Lord of the Rings. The clash between the powers of Light and Darkness is begun. From the very first pages, you get the feeling that the stakes are higher and that the costs may be far higher than the previous books. Since the previous books saw the deaths of beloved characters, this generally means that no one is safe. The Sword of the South is also written so that a new reader, someone unfamiliar with the series, can start here without issue, while still rewarding long-time readers with inside jokes and references to events in humorous fashion.

The premise of the book is simple enough, retrieve a powerful weapon from an evil sorceress and defeat her minions along the way. In execution, there are a number of complications, with master assassins, arch-wizards, demons, and dragons all getting involved. This book gives a much broader picture of the world in some ways, filling out some of the details that the reader might have been interested in from the other books. In some ways, though, this book feels… incomplete. Almost as if this were a sideshow in the larger overall events that David Weber has scripted to come later. The mission is, without a doubt, essential, in more ways than one. Indeed, in many ways the journey seems as important as the mission, but while I came away eager to read the next installment, I also came away at the end with a feeling that a little too much remained unresolved.

Characterization is excellent. Several characters from the other books are here, to lesser or greater extent. Some time has passed (I won’t say how much, because that’s part of the plot, actually), and it is good to see how characters have grown or matured from their experiences. As a reader, I found it wonderful to see the payoff of how characters had progressed and grown (and also to see some guesses confirmed). The new characters held their weight, none of them overshadowed by the stories and personalities of the others. David Weber did an excellent job of making even some of the villain’s motives and motivations understandable… even while showing that they had gone too far.

Later on in the book, however, I did have a few issues with changes of perspective. At times the perspective in a scene will change from one character to another from one paragraph to the next and then back. This left me with a sense of whiplash, trying to figure out who was thinking what. This might be something they’ll edit before the final release, but in one particular case it was not only hard to follow, but left me feeling as if I had missed something. Very slight spoiler: In some scenes there is a character who is under another guise. The other characters knew this character by a different name, but in the changes of perspective it would go from the disguised character’s actual name and thoughts, to another character who didn’t know the character’s true identity, and back, sometimes multiple times in a scene.

In all, I enjoyed the book and I’m eager to read the next. It was excellent to get to see some of the promises made in the earlier books finally fulfilled and I can’t wait to see how the further books in the series progress. If you haven’t read any of David Weber’s fantasy series, you should get started!

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always enjoyed David Weber's science fiction a little bit more than his fantasy, and this volume reminded me of why. Wencit of Rume is like an annoying cross between Merlin and Dumbledore in too many ways, and the payoff for his secrecy was...um...just really weird. He's still lying about his real powers to the other characters, but the author is clearly concealing them from the reader as well, which can get old.
I still enjoy Bahzell, but the stuff with his daughter was too blatantly setting stuff up for the next book. If her actions later in this book are setting things up for what I think they are, there may be some morally squidgy moments in the next volume. Physical, mental and emotional age all count, and the author has created a serious disconnect between the three for this character, right as she hits puberty.
Still, if you want an old-school sword and sorcery novel, this is one written by an extremely talented author. A couple of scenes leading up to the final battle seemed a tad forced, but the action was generally good, and worth reading.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this as part of the Baen monthly bundle and started reading it the next day. The Sword of the South takes place many years after War Maid's Choice when Leeana and Bahzell have a daughter and run an inn in a port city. Wencit follows Kenhodan who lacks all conscious memory of his past into the inn. Of course there are complications of wizardly attacks, puns, mysterious harping, pirates, dragons, not to mention assassins mucking about. But in the end we find out why the book has its title during the final battle. Now we have to wait for the next book to find out the reaction of the bad guys to the manipulation of Wencit!

[Windwalker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wont post spoilers until it officially comes out. I will say it is as well done as the rest of the series. You can get the EARC on Baens e-book site.

[Ron Nurmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

a new book in the Bahzell Bahnakson/War God universe

[Jack Kuhn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a high-fantasy story, clearly the start to a new series, but set in the world of Norfressa that was developed in earlier books by Weber (Oath of Swords, The War God's Own, Wind Rider's Oath and War Maid's Choice). At a very high level, the story is establishing the characters who will participate in the final apocalyptic battle between Good and Evil. This first book largely centers on the character Kehodan and his quest (assisted strongly by the wizard Wencit, as Kehodan has forgotten his past) to acquire a magical sword. Characters from the earlier books (Bahzell, Walsharno, Leeana, Wencit, and Brandark) are included at various levels of participation. New characters, in particular Kenhodan and Gwynna, are introduced. In general, readers who like high-fantasy with strong world building and significant action will like this.

As I mentioned, this book is a start of a new series, and does not have the same flavor as the earlier four books. In a nutshell, it is quite a bit grimmer than the earlier books. While the earlier books certainly had significant battles against evil people and creatures, these were balanced by streaks of humor; including, most specifically, irreverent banter between Bahzell and his God Tomanak, between Bahzell and Brandark, and to a large extent between Bahzell and just about every other character in the stories. While there is still some hint of that humor here and there, much of (most of?) the cheerful banter and irreverence of the earlier books is missing.

The book is also quite formulaic. Now, in all fairness to the author, the genre itself can be quite formulaic, virtually requiring elements such as “the aged wizard” (Wencit), “the wicked witch” (Wulfra), “the magical sword” (the Sword of the South), the “once and future king” (Kenhodan), and so on. That being said, the earlier four books are substantially less formulaic than this one. It is unclear if this is purposeful (in trying to create a more “classical” type of high fantasy than the earlier works) or is simply the natural progression of the series.

Additionally, the book spends significantly more energy on describing the travels of the characters than the earlier books. In a lot of ways, the book is structured as “description of traveling somewhere”, “battle”, “description of traveling somewhere”, “battle”, description of traveling somewhere”, “battle” … anyway, you get the idea. While the travel descriptions are very well-thought through (as are the battle descriptions) this approach can get somewhat monotonous from time to time. That being said, there are some genuinely creative scenes. In particular, the crossing of the Bellwater is imaginative, creative, and perhaps the best scene in the story. Weber also reveals his historical expertise in sailing ships in the battle on the Wave Mistress. Similar characteristic “Weber-style” writing is shown with the extensive details on fortification design for the various castles, most specifically for South Keep.

Character development is, well, mixed. The characters from the earlier book (with the possible exception of Wencit) are not further developed. Wencit is perhaps the only major character who is expanded beyond their role in the earlier stories (through additional background and information on Wencit’s role in the Fall of Kontovar). The two new main characters (Kenhodan and Gwynna) are not as strongly developed as one might hope, particularly given their anticipated importance in the larger story. In Kenhodan’s case, his amnesia does make for difficult character development. In Gwynna’s case, most of the character development seems to be laying the foundation for her role in later stories. Chernion (the assassin) is perhaps the most well developed (and most interesting) of new characters, (even though Chernion appears to be a secondary character in the larger picture).

Another characteristic of the book that may (or may not) be appreciated by readers is the heavy foreshadowing. (Now, of course, until the other books come out, the foreshadowing is speculative!) However, at this point, Kehodan is being established as the “once and future King” and Gwynna as his wife and Wencit’s successor. Both of these threads are very strongly drawn in this book. To be honest, I’m actually hoping this is a feint on the part of Weber, and that the subsequent books will reveal different and less formulaic roles for these characters.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fifth book in the War God series by David Weber. This one takes place many years after the events in the last book. Bahzell and Leeana have opened a tavern and settled down and had a daughter named Gwynna. They are visited one night by a stranger named Kenhodan and Wencit of Rum. Kenhodan has no memory of his past and only Wencit of Rum and the War God, Tomanak, know who he may have been. Thus starts an adventure which will lead Bahzell out of his retirement and on an adventure with Kenhodan and Wencit of Rum which will determine the very future of the land of Norfressa. Several new characters appear in this book and several of the old ones have only small parts. There are several background stories going on simultaneously with the main story, which Weber readers will know is very common in his books. This may be the last book in this series but Mr. Weber left plenty of room for more stories if he so chooses. I for one hope he does write more books in this series.

Note: I took a side journey while reading this book. About 60 or so pages in Bahzell meets Kenhodan for the first time and seems to think he has met him before. He asks Wencit of Rum about it but he assures him he has not met him but he is somewhat evasive about it. Later Bahzell is having a talk with Tomanak who tells him that although he isn't Sergeant Kenneth Houghton he is a Sword Brother nevertheless. This name strikes me as very familiar but I have just finished reading the first four books of this series and I knew I hadn't seen it in any of them. I did some checking and found that a short story called "Sword Brothers" appeared in a collection of short stories by David Weber called "Worlds of Weber". I had read it several years ago but I had forgotten it in most part so I stopped reading this book long enough to go back and re-read Sword Brothers. I'm glad I did because besides being a very good story it has a bearing on this book and explains more than one of the new characters. I recommend reading it before reading this book but is not necessary to read it to enjoy this book.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5
This is definitely one of my favorite installments in the War God series though I do have a soft spot for 'Wind Rider's Oath.' What makes this book so enjoyable is one, the mystery behind Kenhodan's identity and two, that we are getting to see character's further along their journey. So many stories and series focus on one particular time period in a character's life, typically surrounding one event or a series of events. I always appreciate when we get to see our favorite characters in a different setting or as the secondary characters in a new series. We get to learn more about them through this new set of events and a different cast of characters.
I hope that in the next book in this series, presuming that there is one, we get more of Gwynna. One of my favorite things about this series is all of the incredible women and I was excited that we were introduced to another one in this novel. I would follow an entire series about Gwynna herself and I hope that we get to hear more about her in the future.

[g-na · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I bought this book there was nothing at all to indicate it was part of a series, so I purchased it thinking it was a single-volume novel. But as I began reading, the history and details within made it obvious that this was only part of a much larger story. Goodreads tells me this is book five of a series, so my three-star review is based on me coming in at the middle of a story, and I'm sorry that happened.

Weber is a good and descriptive writer, and he has created a richly detailed world here. I enjoyed the volume I read, but probably not nearly as much as I would have had I started at the beginning. We follow amnesia-sufferer Kenhodan as he teams up with super-mage Wencit and champion Bahzell on an important quest. They battle with assassins and an evil sorceress as Kenhodan struggles to remember his past. And, of course, I wonder if clues to his past are found in prequels?

[Robin Cruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, Weber proves his mastery of the art of story-telling. This one required more setup than the earlier books in the series...after all, it takes place some 75 years after War Maid's Choice! Expecting life to not have happened in the interim is like expecting the sun to rise in the West...and is just as unreasonable.
The story starts with action, and ends with it as well...and there's plenty to occupy you in between. Don't expect all the characters to be there from the start; they will come (and go) as needed for the story to proceed as it needs to, and enrich the story as they do.
I just wish I knew when the next one is due; I've re-read everything he's written at least once thru (some of them a couple of times from beginning to end) since my first reading of this...and this is the third time I've gone through this series since my first reading of Sword of The South...and well worth it, too!

[Chris Gillies · Rating 2 out of 5]

So so gutted about this book. The storyline is starting to approach its zenith, and you spend at least half the book navel gazing - here's some tips to enjoy this book:

- if someone starts musing to themselves, skip a few pages
- any chapter that has the evil wizard musing to himself, skip the whole lot, as it's all irrelevant
- in chapters where things ARE happening, you may want to skim a lot of the guff

The frustrating thing is that Weber writes the action sequences so well you race through them at pace, but the bits in between are just painful reading, as you hear the inner and pointless musings of various characters, some of who die within pages, others who are bit parts and others who are main characters, but the inner musings are simply them making the plots which you can see coming anyway so it's all wasted pages. The 6th book is welcome to take its time if this is what it is going to be like - I think I'd enjoy finishing off the Dune series more than finishing off this one!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is a little difficult to write a review on. I love David Weber.... he is one of the best sci-fi writers around. I also really like the War God series, and Bahzell Bahnakson. That being said, I had a rough time reading this book. The time-frame between this book and the previous one was too long. Also, there were quite a few new characters to meet in this story. I think because of those things, it took me a while to like the story. I did not start to really care about things until about half way through the book. Fortunately, it ended in a good note and was full of action. The book did end a bit too abruptly for me though. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about some characters. I can only hope this was meant as a cliffhanger, and that there is another story to follow.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like a lot of Weber's books, but this one is disappointing. Hard to like a main character with amnesia, who just magically does the right things at just the right time without knowing how or why. Does he have good character or is he being manipulated by others? How did he get his skills (or maintain the skills)? This book is missing the humor of Brandark that lightened the previous books. The point of view changes frequently between characters and is confusing to follow due to multiple names/nicknames that several characters have. While the cover says it's a new trilogy, it's much easier to understand if you have already read the prior four books. This does have a darker feel than the other books.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

You read this because you don't want the series to end.
But I'll admit to some frustration that it appears the series is finished, the character story felt incomplete and discounted the previous antagonist from super cool to, oh he's just a good hero but not much more then a great, fallible swordsman with great strength
And never looped in the daughter.
Frustrating
Still solid writing but should've been better

[Desiree Roune · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is so terrible. How can a man write over 40 books and learn nothing about story pacing and dialogue or character development?
The only thing he is "good" at is horrible gore. The heroes in this book are indistinguishable from the villains. Nobody tells anybody anything that they need to know, so nobody can make informed decisions about what they are doing. This book is just plain bad.

[Andrey Lukyanenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new book in one of my fost favorite series!

Really wanted to read it and wasn't dissappointed. Well, there were some things like magical growth of the girl, but otherwise everything is great.

The book is different from most of the modern fantasy... and this makes it even better :)

[Howard Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not put it down.

This is an excellent read I read it through in one day. The characters in the story her very well developed. There were a few plot twists in the story. This is an excellent introduction to the series to come.

[Jdy Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable visit to the land of HorseStealers and War Maids. Vol. 5 of the War God's series. Not the best of the series, but worth the read with familiar characters and a plot point that reminds of the The Riyria Revelations series.

[bsholtz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing-

Amazing! So much blood and gore, graphically described- yet the story behind the gore predominates. And he'd better write the whole story before it's too late; He not getting any younger.

[Anne V · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant

There’s something to be said for stories where good and evil are clearly delineated. Even though this one contains some surprising shades of grey, it’s a deeply satisfying read.

[Julie S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic fantasy at its best

Definitely read the War gods own series which is what this book follows. I loved the first series and this is a great continuation set quite a few years in the future. It promises to be epic .

[LinHigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a story ! I've only dreamed of it.

The misery and glory of a good story is an amazing reward in the pages of this book. The anticipation of the coming battle is a joyful worm twisting away looking for release. I can wait but it will be hard.

[Randy Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

👍👍👍