Steel Gods: the Sunday Times bestselling epic fantasy series of gunpowder, arcane powers and dark prophecy

The Great Silence #2

by Richard Swan

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION BECKONS. SPIRITUAL CATASTROPHE LOOMS.
AND THE EMPIRE OF THE WOLF TEETERS ON THE BRINK

The true horror of the Great Silence has been revealed. As nation after nation succumbs to the mind-plague and Sova scrambles to enlist help from across the globe, Ambassador Renata Rainer has been given a simple save the world.

While she travels to the Principality of Casimir to enlist the help of the Empire's oldest enemy, Lieutenant Peter Kleist returns to the haunted forests of the New East to search for ancient answers - and finally confront the terrible fate that awaits him. In their wake, a task force of engineers, soldiers, and arcane experts will try and unpick the final secrets of the Great Silence - on both sides of the mortal plane.

But time is running out. Count Lamprecht von Oldenburg has returned to the capital, armed with a terrible vision and enough madness to see it through. Those who stand in his way face a simple join the revolution, or die.

As the world tips towards chaos, all paths converge on the Eye of the Sea, where the fabric of reality wears thin - and where the Empire of the Wolf must confront the most terrible enemy it has ever known.

Steel Gods is the second novel in the Great Silence trilogy from Sunday Times bestselling author Richard Swan - a dark flintlock fantasy filled with epic adventure, arcane mysteries and creeping dread

Praise for the series

'Dazzling and immersive epic fantasy' Publishers Weekly (starred review)

'An absolute treat . . . crammed with imagination, horror, epic scale, and characters I simply could not put down' Grimdark Magazine

'A truly remarkable page-turning, flintlock fantasy horror' Fantasy Hive

The Great Silence
Grave Empire
Steel Gods

The Empire of the Wolf
The Justice of Kings
The Tyranny of Faith
The Trials of Empire

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Epic Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, High Fantasy, Adult, Science Fiction Fantasy

435 pages, Kindle Edition

Expected publication March 31, 2026

About the author

Richard Swan is a critically acclaimed British genre writer. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Empire of the Wolf and Great Silence trilogies, as well as fiction for Black Library and Grimdark Magazine. His work has been translated into ten languages.

Richard is a qualified lawyer, and before writing full time spent ten years litigating multimillion pound commercial disputes in London. He currently lives in Sydney with his wife and three young sons.


For updates follow him at stonetemplelibrary.com.

Reviews

[ivanareadsalot]

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

and also

PETERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

there's absolutely nothing coherent coming out of my mouth after seeing the majesty that is this book cover

supremely ready for "creeping dread" 2.0
let's fkin gooooooooo

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much Orbit Books and Net Galley for one of my anticipated arcs of 2026!

Following Grave Empire, Steel Gods is
total havoc and chaos ensuing. There is some lore drop, the political maneuvering is becoming more grand, and most importantly... characters become so unhinged! As a reader, we literally feel the world on the brink of annhiliation as the mind rot continues to plague the nation forcing many of our protagonist and antagonists alike to confront the dilemma of apocalypse.. or salvation.

There were so many epic scenes and action sequences that had me gasping out loud quickly turning pages. Richard unrelentingly puts his characters through their BRUTAL arcs as we read their journeys and cant help to compare its relevance to present day.

As a character-driven reader, I do wish we spent more time with our characters and their internal struggles to increase the emotional stakes for me. I also feel the constant foreboding tension I felt from Grave Empire was less so in Steel Gods. But again, this is more so a preference as a reader. I love the slow burn subtleness of books. If you are more of a plot-driven reader, this book will absolutely be a reccomondation for you!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

One word. Ambitious.

And also. Awesome!

This book is so large in scope and our cast has a lot of ground to cover and I believe Richard Swan succeeds for the most part in balancing plot and character development.

I love multiple pov books and this book has a full cast you follow and get to know. It’s a tough balance because you gotta have each plot line, line up and be interesting. Imbalance in favorite characters and limiting their page time can be very difficult but I genuinely enjoyed every plot line and pov. I never felt bored or found pacing issues. I will revisit this later though as one minor complaint.

This book is visceral also in its descriptions. Swan succeeds massively in going into extreme detail about more eldritch and gruesome aspects. Some of the best parts of the books are the fight/battle scenes or when the horror is happening.

This world feels fresh, massive and unique. I love we are still continuing to learn more even now.

I also really enjoyed swans prose. It’s just got some quality that it’s straight forward but also his vocabulary range is wide and invokes vivid imagery for me personally. Especially when we get into the darker aspects of this book. Truly gripping descriptions. Some even making me squirm over.

I do have a couple “cons”.

I do think that with how large scale this book is. I feel like these books need to be a bit longer. I don’t usually say this. But I do feel like scenes and characters need to breathe at times. It’s tightly written but it almost feels too fast. And I feel like a couple characters needed more screen time to get me more invested and care for them. This may not bother others but this is also extremely minor but I’d love to get some more development from them and getting some slower parts that can really build these characters to be a bit more well rounded.



A huge thank you to net galley and Orbit books for this eArc. My reviews are always honest about my books.

[Lila]

It seems that every century or so a mad man with a vision and access to demonic powers will march on Sovan capital.

[Elizabeth Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Orbit and Netgalley for providing the e-ARC of Steel Gods.
Steel Gods builds upon the conflicts introduced in Grave Empire, presenting elevated stakes, expanded world-building, and a multifaceted cast of characters contending with war, power dynamics, and evolving alliances. The narrative broadens its scope by exploring regions beyond Sova, particularly highlighting tensions with Casimir and the Stygion, resulting in world-building that feels more expansive than Richard Swan’s previous works.

The story is characterized by intricate political intrigue and conflict, underscored by larger forces at play. Increased emphasis is placed on the development of the afterlife and spiritual domains, as well as the role of the gods in influencing events. Swan demonstrates his expertise in integrating eldritch horror into the fantasy genre, especially as entities from the afterlife encroach upon the living realm.

While action was present in Grave Empire, it primarily served as preparation for future developments. In contrast, Steel Gods features several dynamic battle sequences, predominantly naval engagements. Although some of the technical terminology may challenge general readers, the battles are clearly depicted and reflect the depth of research undertaken by Swan.

Character development is a notable strength of Steel Gods. Whereas Grave Empire focused more on the world itself, Steel Gods provides deeper insight into the cast, examining their motivations and biases to further enrich the world-building. Lamprecht von Oldenburg emerges as a compelling antagonist whose behavioral parallels to real-world figures enhance his complexity.

Overall, Steel Gods is a strong successor to Grave Empire, elevating narrative sophistication, character exploration, and thematic resonance. I highly recommended this installment for fans of the series and look forward to reading the final installment.

[Ryan Bartz]

Can’t wait to get my hands on this book!

[Vanessa Hermanns · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars — Just As Good As The First!

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for the ARC!

So as you know Grave Empire was an unexpected banger for me. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I’m enjoying this story.

Steel Gods picks up immediately where Grave Empire left off, and since I received this ARC as soon as I finished it, I was able to dive straight back into the chaos. *Blessings were counted.* I hope the ARC approver over at Orbit for this book gets front row parking for a year.

Once again, Richard Swan absolutely nails the voice and atmosphere. The prose feels distinctly 1700s-inspired, right down to the spelling and linguistic choices, which somehow manages to feel both historically grounded and completely original. I love how Swan uses familiar cultural references influenced by French, Japanese, and Saxon, yet reshapes them into something entirely his own. It’s immersive in that rare, “I forgot what century I actually live in” kind of way.

The characters remain sublime (truly no notes), and the action might be even better than in book one, sharper, darker, and more relentless. And that ending???!!! The gasp I guspeth. A full-on, unhinged cliffhanger. Help me. I am not well.

I am completely invested in this series now and desperately awaiting the conclusion. If The Great Silence trilogy keeps escalating like this, we are in for something really special.

Highly recommend!

[James Morpurgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steel Gods has been one of my most anticipated books releasing in 2026 following what was one of my most favourite reads of last year, Grave Empire and set many years and generations after the events of the Empire of the Wolf Trilogy.

Middle books of a trilogy are notoriously the weakest entry of the three and can sit awkwardly between the excitement of something new and the satisfying conclusions of the finale. My experience with Richard Swan so far from the EOTW Trilogy was to expect a swift ramping up of pace together with greater inclusion of higher, darker forces at play and the title of this book more than hints that this would be the case here too. Armed with this expectation, it was less jarring this time and helped by better set up during Grave Empire. Yes, with Steel Gods Swan decides to go all in with the otherworldly, eldritch horror elements and is at his very best when his characters encounter these entities or differing planes of existence.

As with my review for Grave Empire, I feel that the use of multiple POVs in third person gives Swan much better freedom to expand his story telling and show much more of his world which despite progression to industrial revolution and flint locks is still limited by horseback and sailing to physically travel between locations. Throughout there will be cliffhanger moments at the end of a chapter followed by a change of POV which can be frustrating but you are never left for too long before returning back to that character, readers of John Gwynne or Joe Abercrombie will be more than familiar with this approach. Events did also become a little more nautical in nature this time around - I am not usually a fan of this in fantasy fiction but did enjoy where this eventually concluded and was an opportunity for some bonkers action beyond the stereotypical canon fire and boarding raiders that you would usually find.

With Steel Gods, we have all the returning lead characters but there was certainly more of a spotlight on the antagonist, Count Lamprecht von Oldenburg. I anticipate many reviews and ratings will hinge on reader experience with this character who is completely insane and chaotic and was certainly one of the most unique and unusual POV characters that I have ever read. We also get some additional characters and species. Whilst I am completely here for more perspective from antagonists and a growing cast of POV characters, possibly we did not get enough development or time with Renata or Peter and with Swan's prose and writing style I don't think that another 100 pages or so would have felt too bloated.

Continued praise for how Richard Swan can quickly write and get books published, as he becomes more ambitious and expansive with his storytelling I would still appreciate a recap or dramatis personae to aid getting back into the series but on this occasion it didn't take too long to get familiar with everything again. Once things got going it was quite the ride and the final third was filled with fast paced action, shocking twists and revelations. Just knowing that it can only get bigger and better in book three has me eagerly awaiting its release hopefully early in 2027...

Many thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group for providing an eArc in exchange for an honest review. Steel Gods is expected to be released on 31st March 2026.

[Lit Wizard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot stress enough how strong of a 5-Star Read this book was for me. Too often books suffer from middle-book syndrome whereas this one is somehow even better than Grave Empire.

There’s an excellent recap at the start of the book if it’s been a hot minute since you read book one, and then we’re right back into the thick of things. More politics between the powers at be and more struggle to stop the afterlife and mortal realm from being consumed.

We get even more of our favourite characters along the way, they really come into their own. I left book two loving them all even more, even the ones I’m supposed to hate.

There’s fantasy, existential horror and dread, interwoven with moments that genuinely made me laugh at loud, all building to an incredible avalanche at the end, just like we saw in book one.

Just enough questions answered and new questions asked to leave us with the perfect cliff hanger as we await book 3.

Richard Swan knocked it out of the park again. A crackin’ good time.

[brayden king · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, a huge thanks to Orbit Books US for the e-ARC of Steel Gods. My most anticipated book of the year, and I’m already impatiently waiting for the third.

Steel gods was amazing. Full of spine chilling terror and ectoplasm, just as I expect from Richard Swan. Uncovering more mysteries of the afterlife, and delving into the hierarchy, politicking and deceitful nature of the various entities therein was gripping the whole way through.

The development of every character, new and returning, became more fleshed out, always feeling natural and true to their natures, not forced or surprising.

Swan’s grasp of writing true insanity and torment is masterly and terrifying, and when mixed with body horror and supernatural elementals, is truly something to behold. His ability to capture huge, bloody battles sets the heart racing, and the sheer shock I felt at some of the revelations were enough to make me put the book down, remind myself to breathe, and sit in silence.

An absolutely incredible book, start to finish. I can’t recommend Steel Gods, The Great Silence series, and Richard Swan’s work as whole enough.

[Tracy Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Swan elevates the Great Silence trilogy to staggering new heights with *Steel Gods*, delivering a sequel that not only matches Grave Empire but surpasses it in scope and ambition. The horrifying reality of the mind-plague now fully revealed, Swan splits his narrative brilliantly between Ambassador Renata Rainer's desperate diplomatic mission to the Principality of Casimir and Lieutenant Peter Kleist's haunting return to the New East's cursed forests. What could have felt fractured instead creates a mounting sense of global catastrophe, as Swan weaves together political intrigue, arcane horror, and the ticking-clock urgency of a world on the brink of spiritual annihilation.

[LambchoP]

Loved book one, even more than I enjoyed the original trilogy. I can't wait for book two, look at that cover;) !

[Sarah SG]

Temporary break

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a kind of fantasy novel that arrives disguised as spectacle – cannonsmoke and salt spray, empires and insurgents, monsters the size of weather – and then, once you have given it your attention, begins to behave like something else entirely: a meditation on administration, belief, and the terrifying ease with which a society can persuade itself that cruelty is merely procedure. “Steel Gods” is that kind of book. It has the outward velocity of a naval campaign and the inward gravity of a theological argument, and it is hard to think of another recent epic that marries its page-turning appetite to such stern philosophical intent.

Swan’s world is not simply built; it is managed. The reader moves through an ecosystem of treaties and fleets, ecclesiastical hierarchies and mercantile appetites, magical doctrines and the moral loopholes they enable. Nations posture and bargain; churches refine their liturgies like weapons; “certainty” is sold as a civic virtue and “chaos” as the name of evil. This is fantasy that understands, with an almost sociological chill, that the real engine of history is not the sword but the committee – and that the committee will happily borrow the sword when it needs to.

The novel’s central anxieties are announced early and kept in view: who gets to define salvation, what power looks like when it can launder itself through ritual, and how quickly a civilization will embrace metaphysical disaster if the paperwork is convincing enough. These are large, unglamorous questions, and Swan has the confidence to keep them unglamorous. He does not romanticize faith or sneer at it. Instead he stages faith as a human technology – consoling, coercive, sincere, cynical, and, in the wrong hands, catastrophically scalable.

If the book sometimes feels like it is dragging its chain-mail through the corridors of a chancery, that is part of its effect. In Swan’s imagination, apocalypse is not a comet streaking toward a hillside. It is a multi-step process. It is a meeting in a hospital chamber. It is a conversation about the “precise nature of the sacrament.” It is a man deciding, between sips of water and opiates, that he will “seize the organs of government” and call the public blood ceremony something respectable. There is a particular horror in watching a villain with an injured hand and a splitting skull still think in bullet points.

Lamprecht von Oldenburg – or the fractured, avataric version of him that haunts the book’s later movements – is not a charmer. He is worse. He is managerial. He is petulant in the way of people who believe the world owes them compliance. His obscenity is not merely personal; it is systemic, expressed as an entitlement to rearrange institutions around his appetites. He is the kind of tyrant who does not only want obedience – he wants consecration. He wants the state to mirror his interior life so perfectly that even morality becomes a logistical detail.

And yet Swan’s novel is not only, or even primarily, his villain’s showcase. The book’s emotional center is more dispersed, carried by characters who move through catastrophe with varying degrees of agency and astonishment: Renata Rainer, diplomat in the most literal sense, navigating a war that is also an argument about metaphysics; Jason Laine, a naval captain whose competence becomes a kind of secular prayer; the onmyoji Kaito Kuroda, conduit and cost; Sina and the wounded Stygion polity, forced into the humiliating realization that even ancient fortresses can be outmoded overnight. Around them move thralls and vacants, politicized bodies made into ammunition – and Swan is careful, in his bleakest passages, never to let the reader forget that the great moral crisis of the book is what happens when personhood becomes a resource.

The climactic sequence at Maka – the Jade Sea churning with men-o’-war, mind-rotted soldiers, Stygion defenders, and the horrific improvisation of underwater explosives – is the sort of set piece that many fantasy writers attempt and few sustain. Swan sustains it not only through choreography, though the choreography is superb, but through consequence. Every explosion changes the strategic field. Every magical intervention has a cost. Even the language of command – shouted, signed, telepathically blasted – becomes part of the novel’s argument about what it means to direct human life at scale.

When the breach opens in the roof of Maka and the contingency awakens – I’Vakatawa, the slumbering guardian of the Eye of the Sea – the moment lands with genuine mythic awe. But Swan immediately complicates awe with dread: the guardian itself must be warded, or it can become the instrument of the very catastrophe it exists to prevent. Safeguards, the novel suggests, are never neutral. A system designed to protect can be turned, with enough pressure, into a system designed to destroy. It is an insight that resonates uncomfortably in a world where our own “contingencies” – political, technological, epidemiological – often reveal their sharp edges only when activated.

The leviathan battle that follows could have been mere spectacle, a flex of imaginative musculature. Instead it reads like an indictment of hubris. The kraken is not evil in the moral sense; it is vacant, turned by forces that outrun intention. Stygio’s arrival, too, is not the clean comfort of deus ex machina but the exhausted appearance of a power that is both necessary and destabilizing. Even divinity here is subject to logistics: bodies hauled onto beaches, lungs forced to relearn breath, fleets reduced to salvage. Swan is unusually attentive to the aftermath of myth – to the paperwork, the burning piles of dead, the lack of a “formal command structure,” the way survival immediately becomes administration.

If all of this sounds severe, it is. But the novel is also funny in a harsh, human way. Laine’s vocabulary of blasphemy is a kind of music, the sailor’s liturgy of complaint. Characters swear not to relieve tension but to acknowledge it – language as ballast. Swan’s humor is rarely cute and never winking. It is the humor of people trying to remain themselves in circumstances designed to erase them.

The book’s prose suits its ambitions. It is richly textured without becoming florid, and it has a gift for the tactile: the sting of spray, the press of depth, the creak of ships, the wet nightmare of the “Temple of the Divine Mouth.” Swan’s sentences often carry the weight of a world that is, by design, overcrowded with meaning – political meaning, theological meaning, bodily meaning. He trusts the reader to keep up, and he does not soften his metaphysical vocabulary for accessibility. There are times when this density becomes a kind of drag, especially when multiple factions and doctrines converge in rapid sequence, but it also creates the novel’s distinctive authority. The reader is not being told a story by an entertainer; the reader is being briefed by a historian of an invented catastrophe.

What makes “Steel Gods” feel particularly contemporary is not a one-to-one allegory but a set of shared pressures. Swan’s empires are obsessed with stability, and their obsession has a familiar ring. “Certainty,” as one regent puts it, is safety, taxes, temple attendance, permitted speech – a definition that is less comforting than it sounds, because it frames civic life as a series of transactions overseen by institutions that reserve the right to redefine “undue reprisal.” Chaos becomes a moral category used to justify control. Public health becomes a metaphor for political purity. War is treated not only as violence but as contagion. Even the language of “consumption” – blood as sacrament, flesh as symbol – echoes the way modern politics so often turns the body into a battleground for meaning.

The novel also understands, with grim clarity, the seductions of emergency. Once the world is on fire, almost anything can be framed as necessary. In Swan’s hands, catastrophe is not merely what happens to characters – it is what characters learn to use. That feels relevant in an era when crises pile upon crises and every institution insists it alone can manage the fallout, so long as you hand it a little more authority, a little more privacy, a little more time.

For readers looking to place Swan’s achievement among peers, the kinships are suggestive. There is something of “The Traitor Baru Cormorant” in the way institutions are treated as predatory organisms, something of “The First Law” in the refusal of moral comfort, something of “The Black Company” in the grime and fatalism of soldiers doing their jobs at the edge of comprehension. The nautical terror and baroque strangeness may remind some of “The Scar,” while the looming metaphysical architecture – the sense that reality has seams and those seams can be pried open – nods toward the ambitious cosmologies of “Malazan Book of the Fallen.” Yet Swan’s voice remains his own: more legalistic than many of these, more interested in the machinery of legitimacy. If other fantasies ask who wins the throne, “Steel Gods” asks what the throne does to everyone who believes in it.

Still, the book is not perfect, and its imperfections are, in a way, the price of its seriousness. The novel can be emotionally cool. Swan is so adept at handling systems that some characters occasionally feel like emissaries of ideas rather than fully unpredictable people. Renata, for all her vivid fear and courage, sometimes functions as the reader’s witness rather than as a figure whose interior life surprises us. Von Oldenburg’s mind is rendered with lurid intensity, but that very intensity can flatten him into an embodiment of appetites – repellent, fascinating, but rarely tendered the kind of psychological nuance that might make him even more frightening. (Monsters are scariest when they are also plausible.) And in the late movements, when the narrative splinters outward – to the Fort at the End of Time, to chessboard interludes of cosmic observation, to the epilogue’s bleak couriered failure – some readers may feel the story’s momentum briefly dissipate into mythic tableau.

But these are not failures of craft so much as symptoms of ambition. Swan is doing something difficult: writing an epic that wants both to entertain and to condemn, to deliver the dopamine of battle while keeping the reader’s conscience awake. When the novel turns to its epilogue and lets a small creature – a red-faced godwit – become the bearer of tragic irony, it is not merely showing off a literary trick. It is underlining the book’s bleakest thesis: history is often determined by banal breakdowns. The message goes undelivered. The right person is already dead. The system is too loud to hear its own warning.

The final image of Olwin, the Spear, and Yelena’s gold-faced revelation is the kind of ending that reconfigures what came before. In a genre that often closes with restoration, Swan closes with escalation – not because he is addicted to sequel bait, but because his moral imagination does not permit easy closure. If the afterlife is real, why do we keep destroying one another? The epigraph asks the question plainly, and the narrative answers it with a kind of bitter tenderness: because certainty is profitable, because chaos is useful, because institutions are hungry, because people are afraid, because power loves the shape of ritual.

The highest praise one can give “Steel Gods” is that it leaves the reader not only impressed but implicated. It is an epic that refuses to be merely an escape hatch. It wants to be a mirror – warped, briny, full of monstrous silhouettes – held up to a civilization that keeps insisting it is rational even as it prepares, with careful spiritual preparations, to do something unforgivable.

For all its density, for all its occasional emotional remove, it is a major work – bristling with intelligence, saturated with dread, and written with the confidence of a novelist who believes fantasy can carry the full weight of the real. My rating: 89 out of 100.

[Hannah Grimm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steel Gods carries on the spectacular legacy of Grave Empire, expands on it, refines it, and produces a phenomenal story of good and evil. Filled with our colorful cast of characters from the first book (with some new additions), the stakes have never been higher and Richard Swan rose to the occasion. Some exciting references back to the Empire of the Wolf and horrifying future prophecies made this an incredibly enjoyable read with an ending that has me excited for book 3.

[Saif Shaikh | Distorted Visions · Rating 3 out of 5]

Advanced Review Copy provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley.

Score: ☠️☠️☠️💀

Since this is an ARC, the review aims to be as Spoiler-free as possible.

The Great Silence series continues with Steel Gods, continuing the story laid out in Grave Empire. Richard Swan’s sequel trilogy forges on, taking readers deeper into the depths of the hellish landscape of the afterlife. When powers beyond the realm of living imagination surge into the mortal plane, the machinations of man are brought to its knees!

After taking the deep dive into Swan’s Empire of the Wolf trilogy, I was excited to hear that he planned another trilogy in the same universe, albeit centuries after the climactic events of The Trials of Empire. Against the backdrop of those events passing into near mythological legend, the world as boldly forged into the future, borne off the fires of human innovation. The flames of industry and trade expand the Sovan Empire Arising from the shadows of imperial conquest and mortal greed, rumblings in the plane of the afterlife herald the emergence of the looming threat, the Great Silence.

The sequel to Grave Empire, Steel Gods continues the efforts of the afterlife-task force headed by Renata Rainer, along with her compatriots, Ozonlish, Lyzander, and Glaser, all nursing their wounds, physical and spiritual, following the climax of Grave Empire. Their manic attempts to thwart the Great Silence, both in the mortal plane and in the afterlife forms the major thread of Steel Gods. The sequel also follows the journey of Peter Kleist, now thoroughly inhuman, an undead golem as he struggles to maintain the last vestiges of his humanity, along with his partner, as they navigate their own mystical journey to find the magical Spear to stave off the undead horde.

On the side of villainy, we follow the descent into insanity of Count Lamprecht von Oldenberg. In my review of Grave Empire, I remarked that I enjoyed these chapters the most, and looked forward to seeing where Oldenberg’s story took him next, undoubtedly into maniacal directions. In that regard, Steel Gods delivers quite well! Author Swan pens down the gradual unraveling of Oldenberg’s psyche as he is slowly consumed by the infernal demons beyond the veil of mortality, gradually losing his grip on reality. His scheming, more mustache-twirling and humanly germane in Grave Empire, reaches unhinged levels in Steel Gods, as Oldenberg is ready to sacrifice friend and foe alike, burn down cities, and bring the empire of Sova to usher in the dynasty of the psychic vampires of the afterlife, the dreaded Vorr. Assisting him is Yelena and Captain Astanov, both reeling from their own experiences with the afterlife and the undead hordes unleashed by Oldenberg, as they navigate their own association by their quickly-devolving lord.

However, Swan was not content with merely pulling the same threads laid out in the first entry. He successively expands the worldbuilding, introducing the reader to more facets of the rival Casimir empire, with whom Renata must exercise every diplomatic muscle to move beyond petty human squabbles and unite against the demonic invasion. Swan also introduces new characters to flesh out the world. New to Steel Gods is Captain James Laine of the ship Hyena, tasked to escort the mystic Kuroda, a key player in the fight against impending doom. While I enjoyed watching Oldenberg’s descent into madness, it was Laine’s chapters that brought me most enjoyment in Steel Gods. An everyman sailor, dragged into a war far beyond his comprehension, Laine’s prowess to rise up to the occasion and his budding friendship with the esoteric Kuroda, were my favorite sections of this book. Special praise must be laid at the feet of author Swan for his deep research into naval procedures. His descriptions of the minutiae of naval operations, battle, down to the vocabulary and nuance showed the depth of effort he put into the research of these scenes, and impressed me greatly. I think the seafaring passages in Steel Gods are the best naval descriptions I have read in the Fantasy space since Red Seas Under Red Skies.

I enjoyed the sense of growth of Swan’s word from Empire of the Wolf to The Great Silence. The leap from medieval trappings to industrialized empire mirrored the evolution seen in Joe Abercrombie’s First Law world and his Age of Madness sequel trilogy. I also enjoyed picking up the easter eggs and references to events/characters of the Empire of the Wolf timeline, now mythologized in the era of The Great Silence. However, many of the issues I described in my review of Grave Empire unfortunately persist in Steel Gods. Peter’s evolution from craven spoiled brat to his new iteration of dealing with his quickly dwindling humanity was well crafted. While I liked Oldenberg’s mania and Laine’s prowess, the character and plotting of the major characters, Rainer and the rest, still pale in comparison to the author’s older works.

In addition, Steel Gods is unable to escape the mire of “middle book syndrome”. While pivotal events do occur in the final sections of the novel, much of the sequel is spent in expanding the world, and moving the characters around, setting the stage for the final showdown, in the mortal plane and in the afterlife. Steel Gods also heralds an even further expansion of Swan’s world in the next entry in the series. Unfortunately, with additional moving parts, Swan will have to continue his rampage against his own characters, killing them off with reckless abandon, to create space for new ones.

While Steel Gods is not the victorious sequel that was The Tyranny of Faith, it expands the world, plot, characters, and cements the otherworldly eldritch threat in meaningful and severe ways. I continue to have faith in Swan’s craft and look forward to what horrors he has in store for us in the Great Silence.

[REMEMBER ME?]

[I AM THE KNACKERMAN.]

[I RETURN.]

Read this review and more on my Medium page: Distorted Visions

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[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 I received a copy of this book on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Definitely some middle book syndrome. I do have some whiplash reviewing this as I was pretty whelmed but not blown away by the first half of this book and then the second half is a big improvement and made me question how I felt about the first half (in a good way) even at the point where it was overwhelming how cool some of the stuff happening was and it felt like a tidal wave of crazy stuff that was hard to keep track of.

For the first half, the writing was good and there were some flashes of horror and interesting bits that reminded me of the strengths of Grave Empire. There's a lot of council meetings and international politics in the first half of the book and I just don't think that's Swan's strength.

The second half is really quite good however, I do have some reservations for just how wild it's getting, the amount of things that come a little out of left field, and the amount of magic artifacts that drive the plot, but some really epic moments and some cool ideas, I do just worry there's too much going on and not enough breathing room for everything packed in here.

Swan seems to struggle a bit with book 2s, Tyranny of Faith is my least favorite of his, I still rated it a 4/5 but there are definitely pacing issues with it as well as one of the big main mysteries falls flat by the end and is unsatisfying. I like this one more than Tyranny of Faith, but I'm going to opt for a 3/5 because I have higher expectations after Grave Empire and I hold Swan up to a higher standard after enjoying his books quite a bit.

Grave Empire was such a hit for me because I felt like the stories began at a smaller scale and progressively built up at a good pace before they all simultaneously dialed up the stakes and levels of horror. Steel Gods has more pacing issues for me. I sort of feel like the time jump should have been farther in the future to skip over some of the less exciting events and set-up. For some of the characters it does feel like they loop back around to rehash some elements of book 1 which sort of makes it feel like we're not making progress.

The pace is a big issue for me in this one, some of the character moments didn't really land for me, there wasn't much breathing room to get connected to the characters and some of the moments felt a little unearned or sudden.

World building is definitely a weakness for the series and this one relies the most on it to make the book interesting. One of the nations is basically just France and not that interesting. The pantheon of the gods and the lore there I was hoping to see it be a bit deeper and more interesting, feels a little barebones at times. The schism of religion parts of the book are compelling but again I don't think we really see a lot of depth here beyond kind of the surface level differences.

The world building definitely tends to go wide instead of deep which is not usually my preference, book 1 set up a lot of cool elements and was hoping to dive more into them, instead we get even more piled on here with varying levels of success, it can feel a weird combination of both overwhelming but also some parts seem a little underdeveloped.

Cool climax, awesome use of necromancy and zombies at a large scale. I'm a big zombie and necromancy fan so this is a big plus for the series for me. Swan has hinted at the ways this might be used in the last book and really curious to see where it goes, hoping for big things here.

The best POV in book 1 is a bit more restrained here and the build up is less exciting, but still a really good character and interested to see where he goes for book 3, lots of things set up that will be interesting to explore. The new characters and POV didn't do a lot for me and I had a lot more of a hard time connecting with the characters in this book in general than in book 1.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this, I just had pretty high expectations for it. I will be reading book 3 either on release or as soon as I get an ARC.

[Nick Borrelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book Description:
The true horror of the Great Silence has been revealed. As nation after nation succumbs to the mind-plague and Sova scrambles to enlist help from across the globe, Ambassador Renata Rainer has been given a simple task: save the world.

While she travels to the Principality of Casimir to enlist the help of the Empire's oldest enemy, Lieutenant Peter Kleist returns to the haunted forests of the New East to search for ancient answers - and finally confront the terrible fate that awaits him. In their wake, a task force of engineers, soldiers, and arcane experts will try and unpick the final secrets of the Great Silence - on both sides of the mortal plane.

But time is running out. Count Lamprecht von Oldenburg has returned to the capital, armed with a terrible vision and enough madness to see it through. Those who stand in his way face a simple choice: join the revolution, or die.

As the world tips towards chaos, all paths converge on the Eye of the Sea, where the fabric of reality wears thin - and where the Empire of the Wolf must confront the most terrible enemy it has ever known.


My Review:
There's simply no better fantasy writer going right now than Richard Swan. This is my own opinion of course but I believe I can back it up now after having read five of his books. His previous trilogy, The Empire of the Wolf, absolutely blew me away with its lush worldbuilding and riveting characters. Not to mention it had one hell of a magic system as well. And now Swan has given us a brand new series to relish, taking place some time in the future from the events of the opening trilogy. And it's a winner in all respects, I have to say.

I find that when I read a Richard Swan book I have no idea where the time went. And then suddenly, I'm at the end of the book, because time is a blur when I am enmeshed in one of his stories. Steel Gods just continues the saga of these characters and ratchets up the danger and suspense to a dizzying level. Sova is definitely embroiled in some backstabbing and double-dealing, and whether or not it comes out on the other side intact is wholly up for grabs.

As there is at least another book to come I will stay away from spoilers, suffice to say, this is just another stunning triumph of a story from Swan. He really knows how to draw you in gradually and then hit you in the throat with something you had no idea was coming. Kudos to him as he never fails to keep me enthralled.

All in all, this is a brilliant book, but then again I'm not surprised as it's coming from the best in the business as I stated in the opening of my review. Richard Swan can do no wrong in my book and I just know that when this series ends it will end thunderously and leaving me in awe yet again. The only downside to Swan is that he doesn't write fast enough for someone like me who craves more! Bring on the next book, I'm more than ready.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC of this book. I was super excited to receive the ARC for this book since I loved the first one. I did try to start this then realized I really need to reread the first one, which I did. I enjoyed my reread of Grave Empire and it helped going into Steel Gods. The beginning of Steel Gods did have a little bit of a refresher, but so much happened in Grave Empire, I needed the reread.

While I loved Grave Empire, I was not as excited about Steel Gods. This is the second book of the series, so it is more so leading into the next book, but there is a battle at the end but it is a battle, not the ‘war’.

The story’s main focus is Count Lamprecht von Oldenburg and his continual corruption. I will be honest, he gets extremely disturbing. He is obsessed with enthralling people, killing any slight opposition and getting sexual thrills from his disturbing ideas. I liked the horror elements of the first book but this took it another step. It wasn’t the most fun to read and I didn’t enjoy reading his point-of-view. It was interesting to see his madness growing and essentially his possession.

The story also follows Renata but she is mainly in the center of events so the reader knows what is happening, she is treated as the main character (everyone needs her) but she is not really needed for the story to progress. She is forced to travel to Casimir, which allows the reader to know what is happening with Casimir and Oldenburg’s plans for them. In order to continue to know what is going on Sova, the story now brings in Lyzander’s point of view as well, which I do like Lyzander.

Also you get a few point of views from Peter as well. He has his own mission of revisiting the Kato and I found these scenes interesting, but they were short.

Similar to Justice of Kings, the more the story progress the more involvement of the afterlife and gods. Steel Gods whole plot and story revolve around religious nuances and what is happening in the afterlife and the gods involvement on the mortal plan. The characters feel more like moving and expendable pieces rather than important to the story. I started becoming un-attached to everyone.

We do also get introduced to some new species, which seems to be leading into book three.

Overall, I did not necessarily enjoy this as much as Grave Empire. I missed the focus on the characters but the focus has shifted to strictly spiritual matters. If book three was out now, I likely would continue to know what happens, but in another year or so, I doubt I will have the need to know what happens and probably will not continue.

[Bri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit for the advanced digital copy! I quite enjoyed Grave Empire, so I was very excited to get approved for the sequel and see what would happen next!

This was probably one of the most chaotic books I’ve read in a while! As with the first book, the violent imagery and creepy nature were the highlights! However, where Grave Empire felt very subdued as the delicately crafted facade was peeled away, Steel Gods exploded in chaos and insanity almost to the point of being absolutely ridiculous and somewhat comedic (but in the best way). I would say that this is more plot relevant compared to being character driven, which works given how grand the scale is. The dissonance in scale between that and how small our taskforce was, everything felt quite hopeless, especially as the story progressed and everything just exploded up in flames. At the same time, all of this felt so avoidable which really gets into the messages regarding the selfish motivations of these “great” empires. When it comes to sequel books, I usually don’t like when new character storylines are introduced, but I really enjoyed what Laine and Kaito brought here. They were both likeable, and their storyline added more dimension to the worldbuilding and how far the reveals of the first book reached.

One thing that I was both entertained by and frustrated by was the ease by which Oldenburg got what he wanted no matter how crazy it was. It kind of bordered on ridiculous. It really did showcase how self centered and thus incompetent the nobility and leadership was no matter what country it was. Because of the desire to gain and wage war against other countries, no one could band together to even try to work towards fixing the issue. In the end, they paid for it before they could even react. Leadership failed, and I swear, the main cast were the only ones with any kind of common sense. It all just kept getting worse and worse, but it felt so preventable.

Overall, this was an insane read that I was thoroughly entertained by! So much going on that it’s hard to fathom how this will end! I feel like it doesn’t feel as carefully crafted as the first book with how fast everything is expanding, but still is something out of this world. I am very excited to eventually read the next book and see how this trilogy concludes!

[Jensen McCorkel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Swan delivers another 6 star read for me.

Steel Gods is everything I hoped for and more. Picking up seamlessly where Grave Empire left off, it drags the reader back into a brutal world teetering on the edge of annihilation. The Great Silence, a creeping mind-plague, continues its relentless spread, leaving hollowed shells in its wake and forcing heroes and villains alike to confront threats that feel truly apocalyptic. This book is definitely complex, its a story that is rich and layered with so many characters and intertwining storylines. The tension simmers and steadily tightens, finally cresting at the enigmatic Eye of the Sea where the danger stops feeling theoretical and starts feeling truly world-ending.

The worldbuilding is one of the book’s biggest strengths! You can feel the collapse happening around you. The Great Silence isn’t just a background threat. Swan’s writing reshapes politics, religion, war, and daily life. Nations, alliances, and historical grudges feel real. Yes the world building is dense with a lot of new concepts, fractions and histories being thrown out quickly and often. So if you are not a regular reader of epic fantasy it may feel about overwhelming which can slow reading momentum. But as a lover of epic worldbuilding I was completely immersed.

Character development is more intellectual than emotionally driven. Swan focuses less on making his cast immediately likable and more on exploring how people react when meaning itself begins to collapse. The result is a roster of characters who feel grounded, strained, and morally complex, even if they don’t always invite easy emotional connection.

Overall, Steel Gods is a dark, gripping epic that expands the scope of The Great Silence trilogy with high stakes and unforgettable tension. It’s a strong and challenging edition to the series that deepens the series and raises the stakes.

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book in the Great Silence series, Grave Empire, was one of my top books from a couple of years ago which is why I was so excited and greatful to receive an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley of the sequel, Steel Gods. Did it live up to the expectations that were set after book 1? I'd say it mostly did and I had a great time with it.

Book twos in series often haven what people describe as "middle book syndrome" where book 1 really hooked you and the second book seeks to expand the story and world and set up everything for the finale sometimes at the expense of an interesting story. For a bit I thought Steel Gods might be a quintessential example of this. It opened up the world with more lands, characters, and POVs and for a bit I thought the story was treading a bit of water and lacked direction. But when I got to the 50 percent mark of the book things kind of settled in and our characters and their missions were better defined and it marched onward to what was a banger climax and conclusion. The thing in this book and series that always had a choke hold on me and propelled me forward was the fact that it has one of the most insane (literally and figuratively) villain POVs I have read in fantasy. That POV is completely unhinged and I could not get enough. It is such a wonderful mix of in-world magic, sociopathy, and psychosis it really made this book for me. Beyond that I really started to enjoy the other POVs as well particularly Peter and Captain Laine. There were several chapters in this book that are more or less hardcore age-of-sail naval fantasy and it can become a bit tiresome (Swan clearly loves this naval stuff), but I even got into that after a while. Renatta is the main character and continues to be maybe the least interesting POV. The climax was insane and there are some interesting revelations at the end. Overall, the experience was very enjoyable and very much looking forward to book 3.

[Library Mouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, wow. Swan's writing is just as vivid and visceral as it was in Grave Empire, and if anything he's even more ruthless in what he's willing to put his characters through. No one gets an easy ride. The world feels brutal and lived-in, and the characters are constantly pushed to (and past) their limits.

For the first quarter or so, it felt like a lot of pieces were being positioned without much obvious forward momentum. Renata was tangled in imperial bureaucracy, Lamprecht was steadily descending into full mad tyrant mode, Peter was… well, slowly becoming a tree (as one does), and a new POV character was introduced - a ship's captain with a crucially important (yet frustratingly vague) mission. It was clearly important groundwork, but not always gripping in the moment.

I found parts of the story difficult to follow, although I think that's more a fault on my part than the author's! There were a lot of names, places, religions, factions, and political manoeuvres in play, and I felt like I should've been taking notes. Some threads weren't initially clear in how they connected, which added extra confusion, and I had to keep referencing previous chapters because I couldn't remember if I'd heard names somewhere before or not.

Around the half way mark, the pace really kicked in - and when it did, wow! Mounting tension, sky high stakes, and some incredibly gripping action sequences. The second half of the story was INTENSE.

The book accelerated from slow and methodical to absolutely breakneck by the end. In the final few chapters, multiple major developments hit in rapid succession and the scope of the story widened dramatically. It sent me into an overwhelmed "oh god what now, surely it can't get any worse?!" spiral that I couldn't look away from.

Overall: a slow, methodical start that erupts into utter chaos, with ambitious scope and some incredible action sequences.

Thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for the ARC!

[sarai · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh. man.

it's been some time since i read grave empire and also before i picked this one up i didn't even know that these were set in the same universe/timeline as justice of kings, which is still on my tbr. all that to say that at the beginning of this i had Extremely little idea of what was going on besides the extreme basics. once i got going, though, this one really enthralled me.

(ha.)

steel gods is less about the mystery and more about the despair (although there is still some mystery with new character captain jason laine and whoever the hell he's got on his ship.) swan does an excellent job building up the narrative tension, both when the protagonists split up without the full picture and when we get a glimpse into the sadistic, insane, corrupted mind of von oldenburg. towards the end some of the gore gets /gory/ (like scp body horror gory) but it somehow never feels over the top for just what in the shit is happening in von oldenburg's head.

the action in this is excellent, too. the big battles (three, if i'm counting right) are fast-paced but not too confusing (save for a few lines where swan goes a bit overboard with the naval terminology) and the disaster scenes are incredible in their desolation. even when characters get transported from place to place or plane to plane, none of it is particularly confusing (which is more than you can say for their in-universe experience.)

i'm very appreciative of how easy it was to keep the characters straight, somehow, despite again retaining little to none of the details of the first book and knowing the grand scope of this one. they were distinct, memorable, and easy to get attached to.

all in all an excellent second entry. dying to know what happens next

thanks to netgalley and orbit for the e-arc!

[Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steel Gods by Richard Swan ARC Review- First off thanks so much Orbit Books and NetGalley for the ARC. I fell in love with Swan’s Empire of the Wolf trilogy last year and it quickly became one of my favorite series of all time. I also enjoyed Grave Empire, the first book in his Great Silence trilogy. Both series have a shared world but are several hundred years apart. I strongly recommend you check out Empire of the Wolf first because while you can read them separately I think some reveals in this book in particular will hit harder for you if you read it second. As for the book itself, it was everything I loved about book one but plussed. If you love horror mixed in with your fantasy, this series is for you. We last found our cast of characters in a dire situation and it just continues to get more dire. There’s so much I want to say but can’t because of spoilers, but I’ll say this: if you love swashbuckling adventures, eldritch horror, and grimdark fantasy this will be up your alley. I also LOVED all of the POVs. There’s several in here and I didn’t tire of anyone. Swan does great character work but my favorite chapters were usually Peter (oh Peter….my beloved) and…Von Oldenburg. Can I just say obviously Von Oldenburg is a despicable character but I love being in the main antagonists head? I love a good villain and he’s everything you want in a villain who just wants to see the world burn. There’s also a lot of twists and turns throughout the story and the ending was particularly unpredictable. Over 500 pages flew by and I think I liked this over book one. I’m so excited for the final book hopefully next year! So yes, Steel of Gods was amazing. Please go check out Sean’s work as he’s severely underrated in my opinion. I need to see more people posting about his work!

My Rating: 5/5⭐️

[Nicole Pardus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grave Empire was one of my favorite books of 2025, so my expectations for Steel Gods were sky-high… and for the most part, Swan absolutely delivers.

One of Swan’s greatest strengths is his command of character and dialogue. Even in a sprawling, ambitious story, the people on the page feel sharp, distinct, and compelling to follow. I especially loved returning to the multiple POV structure that began in Grave Empire, the shifting perspectives widen the world while keeping the tension constantly moving forward.

And the horror. Swan is doing something in fantasy horror right now that feels genuinely singular. The dread that crept through Grave Empire deepens here into something more visceral, more grotesque, and at times truly unsettling. There are images in this book that will absolutely stay with me.

Speaking of unsettling, one of the villains is phenomenal. Monstrous, fascinating, and deeply disturbing. Easily one of my favorite elements of the book.

That said, this one didn’t hit me quite as powerfully as Grave Empire. At times the story felt a little messy and rushed, and I found myself wishing the book were actually longer so we could spend more time with the characters and let certain emotional beats fully land. I tend to love Swan most when he leans into the character-driven depth, and here the scale occasionally pulled focus toward plot instead.

Still, this is an ambitious, dark, and gripping continuation that expands the scope of the trilogy in exciting ways and leaves me extremely eager for the finale.

Huge thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the advanced copy.
Swan remains one of the most interesting voices working in dark fantasy right now and I will absolutely be here for whatever he gives us next.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steel Gods was one of my most anticipated releases of 2026, and I was so excited to receive an ARC via NetGalley.

"There is no such thing as coincidence when we are dealing with matters such as these."

Steel Gods is the second book in The Great Silence trilogy. It picks up right after the events in Grave Empire and mostly follows the same cast of characters. This book is ambitious, to say the least. It sets a wider scope than the other books set within the empire and (to my delight) expands upon some of the interdimensional players. As a huge fan of Swan’s Empire of the Wolf series, my favorite parts of these books are some of the more cosmic elements, and it’s exciting to see the larger stage being set. I feel like we are just touching the surface of what he has in store.

The multiple POVs kept the fast pacing up throughout the story. Grave Empire really sets this book up for lots of big moments, and I found it to be a wild ride from start to finish. I do, however, wish we had spent a little more time with some of the characters. I personally enjoy more character-driven plots, and this book felt the most plot-driven out of his other works. The characters are not forgettable, though; I can't recall ever reading a villain POV quite as unique as the one presented in this book. Speaking of villains, Swan’s way of writing visceral horror shines well in this book. There are a couple of select scenes that I will never be able to scrub from my brain, and by Nema, the blood!

This book ends on some interesting cliffhangers, and I can't wait to see how it all ends in the final book.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit for the ARC!

Steel Gods picks off right where Grave Empire left off, plus a fun new POV. I don't want to get too much into the plot for spoiler reasons.

If you've read Grave Empire, you should know what to expect here. Great characters, interesting plot, and a little bit of witty banter thrown in from time to time.

I think I enjoyed this on par with my enjoyment of Grave Empire. I think the plot of this one is faster paced, which I liked, but honestly some of the supernatural stuff got a little complicated and confusing for me at points. It was just a lot of little moving parts with the after life and the Vorr, and they were constantly making new discoveries and it just got to be a lot. That was probably the ONLY thing I didn't enjoy about this book. Everything else was fantastic.

I felt like we really got to grow closer to our main characters. I love Renata, Lyzander, Peter, Olwin, and our new POV character Laine. I felt like I got to know all of them even better than the first book and I really enjoyed that. I am already chomping at the bit for book 3. I am so invested in these characters and them saving their world.

I also loved to hate Von Oldenburg and his descent into madness. I think a lot of what he was actually doing was the crazy spirit stuff that just kinda confused me, and I think a large part of that is because he's simply insane.

Overall, fantastic second book! If you enjoyed the first you will absolutely enjoy this too!

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book the Great Silence triology continues to follow Renata, Lyzander, Glaser, and Ozolinsh in their mission to prevent the Vorr from consuming the souls of the dead. Renata is sent away by the Empress to Casamir. There she is swept up into the heart of a main battle in preventing the opening of the eye. The others stay in Sova to work on maintaining support from the government and to discover possible reasoning for the Vorr being released in the afterlife. They discover Yelena’s betrayal and the reasoning for who released the Vorr and what the end goal is.

Von Oldenburg continues his mission to create vacants and push Sova into a new era of industrialism. In this book we get to see his descent into madness and connect him to the goal of beings in the afterlife.

I enjoyed reading this book and seeing how these characters continued working toward their goals. They really were widely spread across this world. We get more info on the religion and mythology of this world. We are also shown just how easy it is to stir up a religious civil rebellion in a country. Von Oldenburg I thought was more tolerable this go around, still terrible but more tolerable. I thought the battle scenes were good and drew you in. I also liked how at the end of this book we really dont know who has the upper hand. You could argue for one side more than the other, but with the new characters introduced at the end it really could go either way. I am excited to see how this story wraps up in the last book.

[Luisa Portugal · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Thank you to Orbit and Netgalley for providing the e-ARC for this book!)

Steel Gods picks up a month or so after the events of Grave Empire, with (now Ambassador) Renata Reiner leading an arcane task force trying to prevent the Vorr to seize the Afterlife, while von Oldenburg continues on his mission of creating an army of thralls to dominate the living world.

Fans of Richard Swan will find all the hallmarks of his previous work here: epic fantasy, political intrigue, and a healthy doses of eldritch horror. In the same way that Empire of the Wolf used these elements to tell a story about the fall of Absolutism and the rise of constitutionalism, this new series uses the collapse of the Afterlife as a not-so-veiled metaphor for the Industrial Revolution.

While Grave Empire took its time setting the stage and introducing its theme, Steel Gods moves in a much faster pace. The world feels bigger and the stakes feel even higher, but with new characters, new nations, and more POVs being introduced to the narrative, I sometimes felt myself missing some of the more contemplative and eerie moments of the first entry.

The main characters remain a strong selling point for the series, with Peter Kleist's POV and its claustrophobic body horror being a highlight. I disliked the directions in which the book took some of its side characters (the Empress, in particular), but never enough to affect my enjoyment.

Steel Gods is a solid sequel for one of my highlights of last year, and I look forward to reading the conclusion of the series sometime next year.