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The Obsidian Path #4
The Lord of the Empty Mirror
THE FINAL STEP ON THE OBSIDIAN PATH.
Disgusted by Khraen’s weakness, She Dreams in Blood has gone in search of the fragment that understands power, the shard that drove the Demon Emperor to master his world.
She found it.
Disgusted by Khraen’s weakness, She Dreams in Blood has gone in search of the fragment that understands power, the shard that drove the Demon Emperor to master his world.
She found it.
- GenresFantasyDark Fantasy
353 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 2026
About the author
Michael R. Fletcher
54 books1,364 followersMichael R. Fletcher lives in the endless suburban sprawl north of Toronto. He dreams of trees and seeing the stars at night and being a ninja. He is an unrepentant whiskey-swilling reprobate of the tallest order and thinks grilled cheese sandwiches are a food group.
His novels include the Manifest Delusions trilogy (BEYOND REDEMPTION, THE MIRROR'S TRUTH, A WAR TO END ALL), the Obsidian Path trilogy (BLACK STONE HEART, SHE DREAMS IN BLOOD, AN END TO SORROW), the City of Sacrifice trilogy (SMOKE AND STONE, ASH AND BONES, SIN AND SORROW), and the standalone novels, SWARM AND STEEL, GHOSTS OF TOMORROW, THE MILLENNIAL MANIFESTO, NORYLSKA GROANS (co-written with Clayton W. Snyder). He also has a short story collection A COLLECTION OF OBSESSIONS.
http://michaelrfletcher.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelRFlet...
Twitter: @FletcherMR
Instagram: fletcher_michael_r
His novels include the Manifest Delusions trilogy (BEYOND REDEMPTION, THE MIRROR'S TRUTH, A WAR TO END ALL), the Obsidian Path trilogy (BLACK STONE HEART, SHE DREAMS IN BLOOD, AN END TO SORROW), the City of Sacrifice trilogy (SMOKE AND STONE, ASH AND BONES, SIN AND SORROW), and the standalone novels, SWARM AND STEEL, GHOSTS OF TOMORROW, THE MILLENNIAL MANIFESTO, NORYLSKA GROANS (co-written with Clayton W. Snyder). He also has a short story collection A COLLECTION OF OBSESSIONS.
http://michaelrfletcher.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelRFlet...
Twitter: @FletcherMR
Instagram: fletcher_michael_r
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
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February 11, 2026Ooh, sexy cover art!
The book will be released in ebook and on Kindle Unlimited April 13th.
Just for the hell of it, and because it amuses me, the paperback will be available on April 1st.
In the meantime, the Amazon pre-order page is live if you're so inclined.
The book will be released in ebook and on Kindle Unlimited April 13th.
Just for the hell of it, and because it amuses me, the paperback will be available on April 1st.
In the meantime, the Amazon pre-order page is live if you're so inclined.
May 21, 2026
Ties in the various myriad plot threads together leaving things ending on a whimper of a big bang! I loved it, and a must read for fans of the first book! Highly recommended.
April 23, 2026
The Lord of the Empty Mirror at last completes our trilogy of four books.
If you struggle with that statement then perhaps this series is not for you. 😉
This continues one of the most convoluted love stories of our time. And the dissolution of that love. It’s also about friendships built on trust. And cherished memories. Or is that terrible memories?
Of becoming a better version of oneself.
Unless one becomes worse.
Confused? You don’t know the half of it. Thankfully your lead will be just as lost.
It does definitely have dragons though. That’s about the only certainty I can provide. 😂
If you are familiar with Michael R Fletcher this mind boggling adventure will be a Tuesday for you. Which is a crazy fun Grimdark five star read.
If you struggle with that statement then perhaps this series is not for you. 😉
This continues one of the most convoluted love stories of our time. And the dissolution of that love. It’s also about friendships built on trust. And cherished memories. Or is that terrible memories?
Of becoming a better version of oneself.
Unless one becomes worse.
Confused? You don’t know the half of it. Thankfully your lead will be just as lost.
It does definitely have dragons though. That’s about the only certainty I can provide. 😂
If you are familiar with Michael R Fletcher this mind boggling adventure will be a Tuesday for you. Which is a crazy fun Grimdark five star read.
April 25, 2026
4.5/5 but I'll round it up.
"Once we were the Death of Suns, the dark before the dawn. Now, we are a mirror smashed, the sharp slivers put back together wrong, the reflection splintered and distorted. We stare at ourselves, recognizing the face and yet knowing something is missing."
That line pretty much sums up what The Lord of the Empty Mirror is doing, and what Khraen is at this point. Not a man so much as a collection of pieces arguing with each other.
I loved the original Obsidian Path trilogy, so I went in with high expectations and this didn’t disappoint. Khraen is hunting the shards of his heart but also he's against one that represents the worst (or maybe most honest) version of himself. The part that understands power, control, conquest. Which means you get two Khraens. Sort of.
One is trying to fix things and unite the world, stop a god, and maybe do a bit less mass murder along the way. The other version is much more focused on conquering everything, trusts no one, and absolutely don’t let feelings get in the way.
Bringing in another POV, especially one tied so closely to Khraen himself, works surprisingly well. It allows to dive into one of the series’ core ideas of how memory shapes identity. Who you are, what you remember, and what you choose to become aren’t cleanly separated here. Fletcher really digs into that, and it pays off. If you take a man, break him into pieces, and then put him back together… which version is real? The one trying to be better, or the one who remembers how effective being worse used to be?
Plot-wise, there’s always something happening and it never drags. I liked the twists, but I won't spoil them for you.
Also, it’s properly grim. Every solution costs something awful. There’s a moment where Khraen casually weighs how many souls something is worth, and it doesn’t feel out of place. That’s the level we’re operating on.
Khraen himself is, well, still Khraen. Powerful, determined, and capable of making deeply questionable decisions with full confidence. There were a few “why would you do that” moments, but they always track. He’s not stupid, he’s just very committed to his own logic, which is sometimes worse.
The ending is going to split people. If you didn’t like how the original trilogy wrapped up, this won’t fix that. It follows the same idea and you get no neat closure or the sense that everything is finally “done.”
For me, it was perfect since it fits the series. But if you’re looking for clear answers and everything tied up nicely, you won’t get that here.
TL;DR: I loved it.
"Once we were the Death of Suns, the dark before the dawn. Now, we are a mirror smashed, the sharp slivers put back together wrong, the reflection splintered and distorted. We stare at ourselves, recognizing the face and yet knowing something is missing."
That line pretty much sums up what The Lord of the Empty Mirror is doing, and what Khraen is at this point. Not a man so much as a collection of pieces arguing with each other.
I loved the original Obsidian Path trilogy, so I went in with high expectations and this didn’t disappoint. Khraen is hunting the shards of his heart but also he's against one that represents the worst (or maybe most honest) version of himself. The part that understands power, control, conquest. Which means you get two Khraens. Sort of.
One is trying to fix things and unite the world, stop a god, and maybe do a bit less mass murder along the way. The other version is much more focused on conquering everything, trusts no one, and absolutely don’t let feelings get in the way.
Bringing in another POV, especially one tied so closely to Khraen himself, works surprisingly well. It allows to dive into one of the series’ core ideas of how memory shapes identity. Who you are, what you remember, and what you choose to become aren’t cleanly separated here. Fletcher really digs into that, and it pays off. If you take a man, break him into pieces, and then put him back together… which version is real? The one trying to be better, or the one who remembers how effective being worse used to be?
Plot-wise, there’s always something happening and it never drags. I liked the twists, but I won't spoil them for you.
Also, it’s properly grim. Every solution costs something awful. There’s a moment where Khraen casually weighs how many souls something is worth, and it doesn’t feel out of place. That’s the level we’re operating on.
Khraen himself is, well, still Khraen. Powerful, determined, and capable of making deeply questionable decisions with full confidence. There were a few “why would you do that” moments, but they always track. He’s not stupid, he’s just very committed to his own logic, which is sometimes worse.
The ending is going to split people. If you didn’t like how the original trilogy wrapped up, this won’t fix that. It follows the same idea and you get no neat closure or the sense that everything is finally “done.”
For me, it was perfect since it fits the series. But if you’re looking for clear answers and everything tied up nicely, you won’t get that here.
TL;DR: I loved it.
April 14, 2026
The ending it needed
You have no idea how relieved I was to see the announcement that this was coming out - even more so that I saw it a week ago and didn't have long to wait.
I blazed through the first three books in this 'trilogy' in as many days. They're fun, they're immense, they're packed with magic and cool shit and intrigue and a real bastard for a PoV protagonist, even if he is trying his best.
This delivers more of the same, in many ways. The stakes are as high; the magic and mayhem is just as wild; the violence is as brutal and unforgiving as Michael 'Sir Grimdark' R. Fletcher knows how to paint on the page. I definitely think that the writing, already very good, shows improvement. There were one or two things that niggled a bit when I read the trilogy, little stones in the shoe that would occasionally make their presence known. I didn't find that this time around. From the moment I started reading I was hooked and not let go.
To be honest, if you're reading this it's because you've read the first three books. In many ways the only thing that matters is if he sticks the landing. Is this fourth book the conclusion the inaccurately named Obsidian Path trilogy deserves?
You're godsdamned right it is. I imagine that some people might smart at some of the narrative choices, or the split PoV (is it split PoV when they're both sort of the same person? interesting quandary that) but each step felt right to me. The story beats felt natural, character driven, justified. Even the really fucking dumb ones because oh my god Khraen why are you such an IDIOT? All of the time!
I'm also absolutely fascinated that this series is linked to the Manifest Delusions series, and have now moved the rest of the trilogy up a lot of places on my TBR list.
You have no idea how relieved I was to see the announcement that this was coming out - even more so that I saw it a week ago and didn't have long to wait.
I blazed through the first three books in this 'trilogy' in as many days. They're fun, they're immense, they're packed with magic and cool shit and intrigue and a real bastard for a PoV protagonist, even if he is trying his best.
This delivers more of the same, in many ways. The stakes are as high; the magic and mayhem is just as wild; the violence is as brutal and unforgiving as Michael 'Sir Grimdark' R. Fletcher knows how to paint on the page. I definitely think that the writing, already very good, shows improvement. There were one or two things that niggled a bit when I read the trilogy, little stones in the shoe that would occasionally make their presence known. I didn't find that this time around. From the moment I started reading I was hooked and not let go.
To be honest, if you're reading this it's because you've read the first three books. In many ways the only thing that matters is if he sticks the landing. Is this fourth book the conclusion the inaccurately named Obsidian Path trilogy deserves?
You're godsdamned right it is. I imagine that some people might smart at some of the narrative choices, or the split PoV (is it split PoV when they're both sort of the same person? interesting quandary that) but each step felt right to me. The story beats felt natural, character driven, justified. Even the really fucking dumb ones because oh my god Khraen why are you such an IDIOT? All of the time!
I'm also absolutely fascinated that this series is linked to the Manifest Delusions series, and have now moved the rest of the trilogy up a lot of places on my TBR list.
May 21, 2026
Book 1: ★★★★
Book 2: ★★★★★
Book 3: ★★★★★
Novella: ★★★★★
Book 4: ★★★★★
Michael R. Fletcher’s The Obsidian Path is not just grimdark. Grimdark is too tidy a label for what this series becomes by the time the blood dries and the ash settles. This is ruin fantasy. Soul rot fantasy. A four-volume descent into identity, monstrosity, empire, memory, and self-justification where every book sharpens the knife a little more carefully before pressing it deeper into the ribs. Beginning with 'Black Stone Heart,' 'She Dreams in Blood,' 'An End to Sorrow,' and 'The Lord of the Empty Mirror.' Fletcher crafts something that feels less like a traditional fantasy saga and more like a necromantic excavation of a man who should never have existed twice. And somehow, impossibly, you root for him anyway. That is the true black magic of this series.
Khraen might honestly stand among the finest grimdark protagonists written in the modern era - Moorcock had Elric, and Fletcher seems to understands something many dark fantasy authors do not: evil alone is boring. Cruelty without intimacy becomes cartoonish. What makes Khraen unforgettable is that Fletcher writes him from the inside out. The first-person perspective does not merely allow us to observe corruption; it shackles us to it. We become unwilling accomplices to rationalization itself. Every atrocity arrives wrapped in logic, necessity, grief, longing, ego, hunger, or fractured memory. Fletcher never asks us to forgive Khraen. He simply makes understanding him unavoidable. In Black Stone Heart, Fletcher begins with near-feral innocence.
Khraen awakens broken, fragmented, literally scattered across the world in pieces of obsidian heartstone. He remembers little. He knows only that he has been divided. The setup is elegant in its simplicity because the retrieval of memory becomes the retrieval of horror. Every recovered shard drags another truth screaming back into existence. Fletcher weaponizes identity itself. Most fantasy protagonists seek destiny or redemption; Khraen seeks recognition of the monster he once was. And the reader keeps whispering: maybe it won’t be as bad as they say. Then it gets worse. Then somehow worse again.
Yet Fletcher paces this descent masterfully. The novel rarely sprints, but it never stagnates. It coils. It breathes. It stalks forward with predatory patience while unveiling ancient empires, demonologies, broken civilizations, and metaphysical nightmares. The worldbuilding is phenomenal precisely because it feels ancient in the truest sense. Not merely old, but sedimentary. Civilizations layered atop atrocities layered atop forgotten gods layered atop older sins. The setting feels haunted by itself. And threaded through all of this is Fletcher’s prose, which has evolved into something genuinely distinct within grimdark fantasy. You can see traces of the same literary DNA shared by Anna Smith Spark and Zamil Akhtar: lyrical brutality, existential fragmentation, violence rendered with almost operatic beauty. But Fletcher’s voice remains uniquely his own. Where Queen Grimmy often feels like fever-poetry collapsing inward and Zamil Akhtar feels mythic and hallucinatory, Fletcher writes with the clarity of a butcher-philosopher. Clean cuts. Then sudden torrents of viscera.
'Swarm and Steel' was a highlight, along with 'Ghost of Tomorrow' were my favorites of Fletcher till this series. The best of them added to this series via bits and parts of epic standards. Not simply aesthetically alone, but philosophically like lighting a forest ablaze when all we needed was a light for our cig. Civilizations reduced to appetite and machinery. Endless conquest. Flesh consumed by systems larger than itself. Demons bound into weapons. Empires fueled by nightmare logistics. Souls treated as infrastructure. These books pulse with this fusion of industrialized horror and mystical insanity until the entire setting feels infected by violence as a governing principle. And yet Fletcher never lets spectacle consume character. That is where he starts to let go of doubt in 'She Dreams in Blood' and with it comes the elevation of the series from excellent to unforgettable.
Book two takes everything Black Stone Heart established and mutates it into something stranger, darker, and more psychologically corrosive. The scale expands, but more importantly, so does the emotional complexity surrounding Khraen’s identity. He is no longer merely uncovering his past; he is beginning to grapple with the implications of being the Demon Emperor reborn. The corruption arc evolves into something almost theological. Can a man outrun the momentum of his own myth? Is identity choice, memory, action, or simply repetition? The jungle we are given in both our characters head and the world he rules is just so well done that when it returns in 'Dogged' - I couldn't help but get very happy. And the horror escalates magnificently too!
And with it somehow these books are also genuinely funny. Or I am just sick - or Fletcher is, or we all are? No matter - its funny how many times I laughed among these pages. Moments like Khraen vomiting after magically forcing himself to drink water only to realize he is still starving are hilarious precisely because they occur amidst cosmic horror. Fletcher grows in his tonal modulation in every book he writes next. Without it, Grimdark becomes a different villian. With it, the series breathes into an effort standardized to Fletcher alone. Anyone can write brutality. Few can write moral erosion this convincingly. Fewer still can make readers emotionally invest in a demon-summoning mass murderer reclaiming fragments of his soul across a dying world. Each book genuinely improves upon the last, which is rare for a series this ambitious. 'Black Stone Heart' hooks you with mystery and corruption. 'She Dreams in Blood' deepens the psychological horror and mythic scope. By the time we get to 'End of Sorrow' and later 'The Lord of the Broken Mirror' we are led from the top of the 'demon world' to its end, to its start all in one grasp of power. 'Dogged' is the best, but to a level and difference left to its own review..
I have not mentioned many characters besides our lead as it is his relationships that shape the story. However its his lady, Henka - or this world's 'Lady Frankenstein' that highlights so much of the tension, love, and of course drama of the books. I would encourage when reading these to believe all thoughts our lovely POV offers despite our own emotional standards for such things. If you allow yourself to - you will find an immersion of obsession for her that makes me get the goosbumps with what quality Fletcher writes this out as. Never have I felt a need to hate, while love, and yet love to hate and hate to love so much than our protagonist's partner of Henka. She is what brings the soul of the story together and without her inclusion I am not sure we would have success for our character, but and with it no consequence to failure. If you like GrimDark with a standard that holds very little back - get to reading. This is the best of Fletcher's efforts as of yet.
Book 2: ★★★★★
Book 3: ★★★★★
Novella: ★★★★★
Book 4: ★★★★★
Michael R. Fletcher’s The Obsidian Path is not just grimdark. Grimdark is too tidy a label for what this series becomes by the time the blood dries and the ash settles. This is ruin fantasy. Soul rot fantasy. A four-volume descent into identity, monstrosity, empire, memory, and self-justification where every book sharpens the knife a little more carefully before pressing it deeper into the ribs. Beginning with 'Black Stone Heart,' 'She Dreams in Blood,' 'An End to Sorrow,' and 'The Lord of the Empty Mirror.' Fletcher crafts something that feels less like a traditional fantasy saga and more like a necromantic excavation of a man who should never have existed twice. And somehow, impossibly, you root for him anyway. That is the true black magic of this series.
Khraen might honestly stand among the finest grimdark protagonists written in the modern era - Moorcock had Elric, and Fletcher seems to understands something many dark fantasy authors do not: evil alone is boring. Cruelty without intimacy becomes cartoonish. What makes Khraen unforgettable is that Fletcher writes him from the inside out. The first-person perspective does not merely allow us to observe corruption; it shackles us to it. We become unwilling accomplices to rationalization itself. Every atrocity arrives wrapped in logic, necessity, grief, longing, ego, hunger, or fractured memory. Fletcher never asks us to forgive Khraen. He simply makes understanding him unavoidable. In Black Stone Heart, Fletcher begins with near-feral innocence.
Khraen awakens broken, fragmented, literally scattered across the world in pieces of obsidian heartstone. He remembers little. He knows only that he has been divided. The setup is elegant in its simplicity because the retrieval of memory becomes the retrieval of horror. Every recovered shard drags another truth screaming back into existence. Fletcher weaponizes identity itself. Most fantasy protagonists seek destiny or redemption; Khraen seeks recognition of the monster he once was. And the reader keeps whispering: maybe it won’t be as bad as they say. Then it gets worse. Then somehow worse again.
Yet Fletcher paces this descent masterfully. The novel rarely sprints, but it never stagnates. It coils. It breathes. It stalks forward with predatory patience while unveiling ancient empires, demonologies, broken civilizations, and metaphysical nightmares. The worldbuilding is phenomenal precisely because it feels ancient in the truest sense. Not merely old, but sedimentary. Civilizations layered atop atrocities layered atop forgotten gods layered atop older sins. The setting feels haunted by itself. And threaded through all of this is Fletcher’s prose, which has evolved into something genuinely distinct within grimdark fantasy. You can see traces of the same literary DNA shared by Anna Smith Spark and Zamil Akhtar: lyrical brutality, existential fragmentation, violence rendered with almost operatic beauty. But Fletcher’s voice remains uniquely his own. Where Queen Grimmy often feels like fever-poetry collapsing inward and Zamil Akhtar feels mythic and hallucinatory, Fletcher writes with the clarity of a butcher-philosopher. Clean cuts. Then sudden torrents of viscera.
'Swarm and Steel' was a highlight, along with 'Ghost of Tomorrow' were my favorites of Fletcher till this series. The best of them added to this series via bits and parts of epic standards. Not simply aesthetically alone, but philosophically like lighting a forest ablaze when all we needed was a light for our cig. Civilizations reduced to appetite and machinery. Endless conquest. Flesh consumed by systems larger than itself. Demons bound into weapons. Empires fueled by nightmare logistics. Souls treated as infrastructure. These books pulse with this fusion of industrialized horror and mystical insanity until the entire setting feels infected by violence as a governing principle. And yet Fletcher never lets spectacle consume character. That is where he starts to let go of doubt in 'She Dreams in Blood' and with it comes the elevation of the series from excellent to unforgettable.
Book two takes everything Black Stone Heart established and mutates it into something stranger, darker, and more psychologically corrosive. The scale expands, but more importantly, so does the emotional complexity surrounding Khraen’s identity. He is no longer merely uncovering his past; he is beginning to grapple with the implications of being the Demon Emperor reborn. The corruption arc evolves into something almost theological. Can a man outrun the momentum of his own myth? Is identity choice, memory, action, or simply repetition? The jungle we are given in both our characters head and the world he rules is just so well done that when it returns in 'Dogged' - I couldn't help but get very happy. And the horror escalates magnificently too!
And with it somehow these books are also genuinely funny. Or I am just sick - or Fletcher is, or we all are? No matter - its funny how many times I laughed among these pages. Moments like Khraen vomiting after magically forcing himself to drink water only to realize he is still starving are hilarious precisely because they occur amidst cosmic horror. Fletcher grows in his tonal modulation in every book he writes next. Without it, Grimdark becomes a different villian. With it, the series breathes into an effort standardized to Fletcher alone. Anyone can write brutality. Few can write moral erosion this convincingly. Fewer still can make readers emotionally invest in a demon-summoning mass murderer reclaiming fragments of his soul across a dying world. Each book genuinely improves upon the last, which is rare for a series this ambitious. 'Black Stone Heart' hooks you with mystery and corruption. 'She Dreams in Blood' deepens the psychological horror and mythic scope. By the time we get to 'End of Sorrow' and later 'The Lord of the Broken Mirror' we are led from the top of the 'demon world' to its end, to its start all in one grasp of power. 'Dogged' is the best, but to a level and difference left to its own review..
I have not mentioned many characters besides our lead as it is his relationships that shape the story. However its his lady, Henka - or this world's 'Lady Frankenstein' that highlights so much of the tension, love, and of course drama of the books. I would encourage when reading these to believe all thoughts our lovely POV offers despite our own emotional standards for such things. If you allow yourself to - you will find an immersion of obsession for her that makes me get the goosbumps with what quality Fletcher writes this out as. Never have I felt a need to hate, while love, and yet love to hate and hate to love so much than our protagonist's partner of Henka. She is what brings the soul of the story together and without her inclusion I am not sure we would have success for our character, but and with it no consequence to failure. If you like GrimDark with a standard that holds very little back - get to reading. This is the best of Fletcher's efforts as of yet.
May 16, 2026
I don't think I've rooted so hard for a protagonist to not become a better person.
April 13, 2026
I was fortunate enough to be a beta reader for this. Just a great read and progression of a fantastic arc. Strongly recommended
April 21, 2026
Underwhelming
After enjoying the first 3 books, I was looking forward to this one heavily and started reading as soon as it was released. To say I am disappointed in an understatement.
What attracted me to this series in the first place was the world building. Fletcher’s spin on fantasy and magic was unique enough to keep me intrigued and the characters, while not great, were good enough to be entertaining. Demons, gods, alternate realities, and magic that is tied to the use of souls, the author manages to put a fun spin on these otherwise overused tropes and bring something exciting to his story. And then just…barely uses them. Throughout 4 books all of these magical systems and ideas are heavily mentioned but rarely demonstrated in practice. The author adopts a “tell not show” approach when it comes to world building and the story feels flat as a result, like wasted potential.
The characters in this 4th book also feel like something is missing. The protagonist khraen, is essentially the same person he was in books 1-3. He does not want to become the Demon Emperor and spends his time self-sabotaging in ways that are honestly baffling. His wife and supposed friend lie and manipulate him throughout yet it’s swept under the rug without consequence because it’s for his own good. I also must say, the constant self-doubt and pity got a bit annoying, especially when you hear about it every other chapter.
The antagonist hardly much better. He hates Khraen for being weak( the author practically beats you over the head with this point) and wants to become the Demon Emperor. He also hates his wife Henka and sees friends as a weakness. He is cold and calculating yet feels as flat as the protagonist and ultimately loses in a horribly predictable way.
The main criticism here is that the author explains these themes to you through long thought-monologues instead of showing them through characterization. Everyone in this book/series stays the same as they were when first introduced.
Overall I give the book 1/5 because of the over-explaining of its themes, lack of subtlety, annoying tropes, and wasted potential. Really disappointing part of the series and honestly sours the previous books for me.
After enjoying the first 3 books, I was looking forward to this one heavily and started reading as soon as it was released. To say I am disappointed in an understatement.
What attracted me to this series in the first place was the world building. Fletcher’s spin on fantasy and magic was unique enough to keep me intrigued and the characters, while not great, were good enough to be entertaining. Demons, gods, alternate realities, and magic that is tied to the use of souls, the author manages to put a fun spin on these otherwise overused tropes and bring something exciting to his story. And then just…barely uses them. Throughout 4 books all of these magical systems and ideas are heavily mentioned but rarely demonstrated in practice. The author adopts a “tell not show” approach when it comes to world building and the story feels flat as a result, like wasted potential.
The characters in this 4th book also feel like something is missing. The protagonist khraen, is essentially the same person he was in books 1-3. He does not want to become the Demon Emperor and spends his time self-sabotaging in ways that are honestly baffling. His wife and supposed friend lie and manipulate him throughout yet it’s swept under the rug without consequence because it’s for his own good. I also must say, the constant self-doubt and pity got a bit annoying, especially when you hear about it every other chapter.
The antagonist hardly much better. He hates Khraen for being weak( the author practically beats you over the head with this point) and wants to become the Demon Emperor. He also hates his wife Henka and sees friends as a weakness. He is cold and calculating yet feels as flat as the protagonist and ultimately loses in a horribly predictable way.
The main criticism here is that the author explains these themes to you through long thought-monologues instead of showing them through characterization. Everyone in this book/series stays the same as they were when first introduced.
Overall I give the book 1/5 because of the over-explaining of its themes, lack of subtlety, annoying tropes, and wasted potential. Really disappointing part of the series and honestly sours the previous books for me.
Review of advance copy
If i change so much you don´t recognise me,you can break me back to the man you first met
This book was an insane finish for the Series,i cant really say anything without spoiling something for readers that maybe didnt start the series (if you love Grimdark you shouldve started this series already waaaaay back) or are waiting to start this book on Kindle,while at the end i still had some hope here and there,with the things that were said,that we might get more,but after that sentence i quoted in this Review,it hit me,that it is really the end.
I am really happy that i didnt wait until the book came to the Kindle Unlimited and bought the paperback directly on day first to read it,i couldn´t wait and i wasnt disappointed,but broken!!
This book was an insane finish for the Series,i cant really say anything without spoiling something for readers that maybe didnt start the series (if you love Grimdark you shouldve started this series already waaaaay back) or are waiting to start this book on Kindle,while at the end i still had some hope here and there,with the things that were said,that we might get more,but after that sentence i quoted in this Review,it hit me,that it is really the end.
I am really happy that i didnt wait until the book came to the Kindle Unlimited and bought the paperback directly on day first to read it,i couldn´t wait and i wasnt disappointed,but broken!!
April 24, 2026
This was an enjoyable series overall, even if this final one underwhelmed a bit. The memorable narrative voice of Khraen was well crafted throughout and probably the highlight of the series along with some interesting world-building. I liked how it concluded at the end even if I was somewhat bored reading most of this book. I think the series peaked in the first half of the first book and I definitely longed for that feeling I first had when starting Black Stone Heart. I still recommend checking this out though if you like grimdark fantasy!
May 22, 2026
As much as I enjoyed this series… I cannot fully enjoy that ending unless there are follow up books.
I was hoping for so much more! So much left unanswered.
I pray for some kind of follow up, it can’t end there 🥲
I was hoping for so much more! So much left unanswered.
I pray for some kind of follow up, it can’t end there 🥲
April 15, 2026
That was an ending
That may be one of the worst endings I have ever read I thought we were setting up an epic series instead it's whatever the heck that was uh no thanks.
That may be one of the worst endings I have ever read I thought we were setting up an epic series instead it's whatever the heck that was uh no thanks.
April 29, 2026
Average
Love this series as well all the authors works. But this one felt a rehashing of book two. Just not very original to me, but this won't deter me from future books.
Love this series as well all the authors works. But this one felt a rehashing of book two. Just not very original to me, but this won't deter me from future books.
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