The Court of Broken Knives – Anna Smith Spark

The Court of Broken Knives is the first book in the Empires of Dust trilogy, it follows three main perspectives. Marith has just joined a group of mercenaries, he has a shadowy past, and is the main-est of the main characters. Thalia has been the high priestess of a religion since childhood, it’s her job to perform the regular human sacrifices that are made in the temple, a building she hasn’t left since she set foot in it. Orhan is an aristocratic politician, he’s worried about the threat of invasion, but his influence at court is dwindling and the emperor seems uninterested in his frequent warnings, perhaps there’s another way he can protect his country.

I’ve been on a pretty good run recently when it comes to picking books, that run had to end at some point, and I’m afraid to say that Empires of Dust is the book which broke the run. I just… didn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t connect to the main character, I’ve enjoyed other books with less than angelic main characters (just look at some of my recent reviews), but I found Marith to be so coldly indifferent that I just wasn’t invested in his story. For the first quarter or third of the book, it was bubbling along quite nicely, there were several strands of the story beginning to intertwine, a bit of political intrigue, I was trying to figure out where things were heading, mostly I was waiting for something to hook me in and drag me along, it just never did.

My other gripe is that some of the scenes just seemed to peter out, towards the end of the book there is a battle, the tension is built up, the fighting starts and then it just seems to be over. This happens a few times, earlier in the book there is a big set piece in the emperor’s palace, there’s a long build up and then just as things come to a head and you’re wondering how certain characters are going to survive, they just do, that’s it, no clever tricks, no great feats, they’re in an inescapable situation and the important characters just escape, with very little difficulty. A wiser reader than me may interpret either or both of these things as an important event which reveals the true extent of a particular characters greatness, for me it was an anti-climax, possibly even a deus ex machina moment.

I’ve read a few reviews in which people have loved this book, and I can see how they might but, I just… didn’t. For the first time in quite a while I won’t be reading the rest of the series.