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American Craftsmen #3
War and Craft
America, land of the Free...and home of the warlocks.
The Founding Fathers were never ones to pass up a good weapon. America's first line of defense has been shrouded in secrecy, magical families who have sworn to use their power to protect our republic.
But there are those who reject America's dream and have chosen the Left Hand Path. In this triumphant conclusion to Tom Doyle's imaginative alternate historical America, we start with a bloody wedding-night brawl with assassins in Tokyo. Our American magical shock troops go to India, where a descendant of legendary heroes has the occult mission they've been waiting for.
It all comes to a head in a valley hidden high in the mountains of Kashmir. Our craftspeople will battle against their fellow countrymen, some of the vilest monsters of the Left Hand Path. It's Armageddon in Shangri-La, and the end of the world as we know it.
The American Craft Trilogy
#1 American Craftsmen
#2 The Left-Hand Way
#3 War and Craft
The Founding Fathers were never ones to pass up a good weapon. America's first line of defense has been shrouded in secrecy, magical families who have sworn to use their power to protect our republic.
But there are those who reject America's dream and have chosen the Left Hand Path. In this triumphant conclusion to Tom Doyle's imaginative alternate historical America, we start with a bloody wedding-night brawl with assassins in Tokyo. Our American magical shock troops go to India, where a descendant of legendary heroes has the occult mission they've been waiting for.
It all comes to a head in a valley hidden high in the mountains of Kashmir. Our craftspeople will battle against their fellow countrymen, some of the vilest monsters of the Left Hand Path. It's Armageddon in Shangri-La, and the end of the world as we know it.
The American Craft Trilogy
#1 American Craftsmen
#2 The Left-Hand Way
#3 War and Craft
- GenresFantasyUrban Fantasy
352 pages, Hardcover
Published September 26, 2017
9 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Tom Doyle
12 books69 followersTom Doyle is the author of Border Crosser and the AMERICAN CRAFT trilogy. He writes science fiction and fantasy in Washington, DC. He has won the WSFA Small Press Award.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 17, 2017
Here's the grand conclusion to a smart, savvy series: a thriller set on 3 continents featuring intriguing characters who engage in magical warfare on behalf of their country. What can I say, Tom Doyle sticks the landing! If you are a fan of Poe, you'll love this one. For those new to Doyle's series, I recommend starting with "American Craftsman" and then "The Left Hand Way."
January 18, 2021
3.5 stars. Fun, fast-paced, and creative, with pretty solid characters inhabiting an intriguing just-out-of-sight world muddling their way through epic events because, well, reasons to arrive at an all too pat and unsatisfying conclusion. The premise of the American Craftsmen series is that modern-day countries are protected by elite forces that blend special operations military skills with magical powers. In this volume, the principle characters, Scheherazade Rezvani, Dale Morton, Michael Endicott, and Grace Marlow, embark on a world-hopping attempt to prevent Armageddon with stops in Tokyo, India, Italy, and Shangri-La.
The strength of this book is its system of magic, which roots the abilities and sources of power for the characters in the religious, folklore, and mythological history and traditions of the region. Doyle clearly has an expansive knowledge of this subject, cleverly combining Puritanism, Hinduism, the tale of Hachiko the graveyard dog, Roman Catholicism, and many more to create a believable and cohesive framework for his world.
The narrative suffers from a few issues. Many asides demonstrate a continual need to tie things back to previous events, removing focus from the main storyline. The narration alternates between Rezvani's first-person perspective and third-person perspective for all others, making for a disjointed read. The ending felt rather anti-climactic and didn't provide clear resolution, wrapping the epic events up in a few pages with no aftermath. All in all, this is a book that didn't quite live up to its great potential.
Doyle does a great job presenting action clearly, especially the showdown in Tokyo that starts the book and the final battle in Shangri-La. The pacing of these battles is good, never becoming a frenetic blur nor devolving into action for graphical sake; it serves the story rather than the story existing to present the action. The cerebral action--shifting alliances, motives of the international cast representing their own interests, planning and plotting--is likewise well-presented, giving a taut groundwork for the military and magical occurrences.
I liked the characters, but never felt like I knew them at more than a surface level; Endicott and Morton particularly suffer from a "doing it all for God and country" gung-ho-ism offset by a "how can I use this raw power and still be a good person?" do-gooder strain that felt archetypally flat. Marlow plays such a small role that I did not feel as if I knew her at all. Rezvani is the most dimensional, largely because her first-person passages give insight into her that the others do not have. On the flip side, many secondary characters jump off the pages, especially the spirit Madeline Morton, who is complex and fascinating. Rabu the graveyard dog--a character with no words to impart--was likewise strongly written. Perhaps with this being the third volume of the series, the author assumed that the reader knew the principles well and there was no need to present more on them?
Doyle's story seems like it would make a perfect "guilty pleasure" streaming series, providing the visual punch of large-scale action sequences along with the more cerebral workings of his magical world.
War and Craft by Tom Doyle was given to me in our Christmas "Dollar Store Reads" exchange between friends, and was the perfect mix of tongue-in-cheek gift and interesting read. I'll have fun presenting on it at our review party.
The strength of this book is its system of magic, which roots the abilities and sources of power for the characters in the religious, folklore, and mythological history and traditions of the region. Doyle clearly has an expansive knowledge of this subject, cleverly combining Puritanism, Hinduism, the tale of Hachiko the graveyard dog, Roman Catholicism, and many more to create a believable and cohesive framework for his world.
The narrative suffers from a few issues. Many asides demonstrate a continual need to tie things back to previous events, removing focus from the main storyline. The narration alternates between Rezvani's first-person perspective and third-person perspective for all others, making for a disjointed read. The ending felt rather anti-climactic and didn't provide clear resolution, wrapping the epic events up in a few pages with no aftermath. All in all, this is a book that didn't quite live up to its great potential.
Doyle does a great job presenting action clearly, especially the showdown in Tokyo that starts the book and the final battle in Shangri-La. The pacing of these battles is good, never becoming a frenetic blur nor devolving into action for graphical sake; it serves the story rather than the story existing to present the action. The cerebral action--shifting alliances, motives of the international cast representing their own interests, planning and plotting--is likewise well-presented, giving a taut groundwork for the military and magical occurrences.
I liked the characters, but never felt like I knew them at more than a surface level; Endicott and Morton particularly suffer from a "doing it all for God and country" gung-ho-ism offset by a "how can I use this raw power and still be a good person?" do-gooder strain that felt archetypally flat. Marlow plays such a small role that I did not feel as if I knew her at all. Rezvani is the most dimensional, largely because her first-person passages give insight into her that the others do not have. On the flip side, many secondary characters jump off the pages, especially the spirit Madeline Morton, who is complex and fascinating. Rabu the graveyard dog--a character with no words to impart--was likewise strongly written. Perhaps with this being the third volume of the series, the author assumed that the reader knew the principles well and there was no need to present more on them?
Doyle's story seems like it would make a perfect "guilty pleasure" streaming series, providing the visual punch of large-scale action sequences along with the more cerebral workings of his magical world.
War and Craft by Tom Doyle was given to me in our Christmas "Dollar Store Reads" exchange between friends, and was the perfect mix of tongue-in-cheek gift and interesting read. I'll have fun presenting on it at our review party.
March 18, 2018
Not my kind of book at all. Way too violent for my taste. I read this because I'm going to hear Tal M. Klein talk about Punch Escrow at the Virginia Festival of the book later this week, and I thought I'd try to read the books listed by the other three authors who will be in the session. This is the third in the series, and possibly I would have liked it better had I read the first two, but the imagined world does not appeal to me in any way. I will not be reading the others. My favorite character was the dog.
September 18, 2017
Once again Doyle takes us on an epic ride.
This closing installment to the trilogy is spot on, even not knowing what to expect beyond a fab read. Highly recommend this as a binge trilogy. Each installment is a great read and together they're more than the sum of their parts. This book can be read on it's own, but is more enjoyable in the full context...so go get the first two books.
We get some new players, some old players, our protagonists are true to the traits revealed in previous installments...and they build on them. Doyle deftly weaves various cultures, myths, traditions into a coherent system of magic, faith, physics, politics, and the intrigue that goes hand in hand.
I hope we get more adventures set in this universe.
This closing installment to the trilogy is spot on, even not knowing what to expect beyond a fab read. Highly recommend this as a binge trilogy. Each installment is a great read and together they're more than the sum of their parts. This book can be read on it's own, but is more enjoyable in the full context...so go get the first two books.
We get some new players, some old players, our protagonists are true to the traits revealed in previous installments...and they build on them. Doyle deftly weaves various cultures, myths, traditions into a coherent system of magic, faith, physics, politics, and the intrigue that goes hand in hand.
I hope we get more adventures set in this universe.
January 22, 2020
War and Craft is the latest of the American Craftsman series. The series includes American Craftsman and the Left-Hand Way. Craft in this series refers to art of controlling the mystical arts. Think of television series the Magicians. These soldiers are the hidden troops of each countries military. Each person has access to specific other worldly powers and spells that manipulate the ordinary world. Some of these craftsmen and women operate as independent agents pursuing their own goals such as world conquest or bringing about the apocalypse.
This book covers one of those events. It starts after the protagonists have banished a particular nasty creature to unique hell dimension. They acted as independent agents in the last book and are persona non grata in the United States. Yet all is not doom and gloom for our heroes. Individuals from two major and sometimes conflicting major households are getting married.
It’s at this time the Evil from the past raises its ugly head and causes trouble. The ensuing crisis promises to bring an end to free will in this world and all dimensions.
The great part of this book is how Doyle is able to develop characters that we think we knew in prior books and make them more interesting. He is able to design and describe mystical and mundane conflict in understandable ways. The action is non stop but not mind numbing. The end wraps up plot lines in other stories with out the need to have read the prior works.
This book covers one of those events. It starts after the protagonists have banished a particular nasty creature to unique hell dimension. They acted as independent agents in the last book and are persona non grata in the United States. Yet all is not doom and gloom for our heroes. Individuals from two major and sometimes conflicting major households are getting married.
It’s at this time the Evil from the past raises its ugly head and causes trouble. The ensuing crisis promises to bring an end to free will in this world and all dimensions.
The great part of this book is how Doyle is able to develop characters that we think we knew in prior books and make them more interesting. He is able to design and describe mystical and mundane conflict in understandable ways. The action is non stop but not mind numbing. The end wraps up plot lines in other stories with out the need to have read the prior works.
July 26, 2017
War and Craft is the third book in the American Craft trilogy by American author Tom Doyle, and definitely lives up to its role as a final book. Joining Morton, Endicott, Rezvani and Marlow in the aftermath of the earthshaking events of the previous novel The Left-hand Way, it doesn’t take long at all before they are pulled back into even more world-sweeping craft disaster. With a bona fide apocalypse in the offing, and even stronger more dangerous powers able to be called upon if the situation becomes dire enough, the stage is set for a stunning conclusion and far-reaching consequences for both our heroes and the world at large.
Read the full review at Strange Currencies
https://strangecurrencies.org/2017/07...
Read the full review at Strange Currencies
https://strangecurrencies.org/2017/07...
October 26, 2017
Tom Doyle’s third tale of secret magical family fighting craft wars between the right hand magic and the left-hand evil magic After a Japanese wedding between Michael Endicott, and Grace Marlow, they are attacked during the honeymoon and forced to flee to India, where they are asked to stop an armageddon, with War and Craft (hard from Tor) in a very real Shangri-La in the mountains between India and Tibet. The living and ghosts are bent on a destruction that could destroy the world. Of course it’s all the fault of the villain of the series Rodney. When death doesn’t mean dying,it makes it harder to care about the characters. Still this is a fun tale.Review printed by Philadelphia Free Press
April 13, 2018
My review is up at http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.p...
August 29, 2018
A great mix of magic, history and military action.
May 7, 2019
It was a very good book hopefully they make the fourth one. Can’t wait.
August 31, 2021
Kept me interested, but didn't capture my imagination as much as the first 2 books.
October 13, 2017
Mon avis en Français
My English review
I liked the first two volumes. I admit that at first glance this genre is not necessarily my favorite but Tom Doyle handles perfectly the words and his stories and I spend each time a very good time. Moreover, he always has the great idea at the beginning of the novel to re-situate the story so that we can remember the previous events.
So we’re going back into a new story, starting with the marriage of two of our main characters which, of course, does not turn at all the way it should. Indeed, after a big fight, it seems that Madeline has disappeared. Nobody knows what made her go through the afterlife or if she is a prisoner of some entity.
I admit that, as always, my favorite characters are Rezvani and Dale, whom I always take great pleasure in following. So I was very happy when I saw that we were concentrating mainly on them. It must be said that the poor chracters will not necessarily spend very good times. Moreover, our dear heroine now pregnant will also have to face her new condition.
I really had a good time with this conclusion. As I said Tom Doyle has a way of his own to share his stories and is easily carried away. Our four heroes are going to have a hard time and new and old enemies will surface. It is a volume full of action that takes us in different countries to offer us a very good conclusion.
My English review
I liked the first two volumes. I admit that at first glance this genre is not necessarily my favorite but Tom Doyle handles perfectly the words and his stories and I spend each time a very good time. Moreover, he always has the great idea at the beginning of the novel to re-situate the story so that we can remember the previous events.
So we’re going back into a new story, starting with the marriage of two of our main characters which, of course, does not turn at all the way it should. Indeed, after a big fight, it seems that Madeline has disappeared. Nobody knows what made her go through the afterlife or if she is a prisoner of some entity.
I admit that, as always, my favorite characters are Rezvani and Dale, whom I always take great pleasure in following. So I was very happy when I saw that we were concentrating mainly on them. It must be said that the poor chracters will not necessarily spend very good times. Moreover, our dear heroine now pregnant will also have to face her new condition.
I really had a good time with this conclusion. As I said Tom Doyle has a way of his own to share his stories and is easily carried away. Our four heroes are going to have a hard time and new and old enemies will surface. It is a volume full of action that takes us in different countries to offer us a very good conclusion.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews