01/08/2018
SF/F thriller author Cole (Siege Line) makes an uninspiring first venture into epic fantasy with this flat trilogy opener, which is unoriginal in its cod–medieval Europe setting, idealized peasant characters, and generally portentous tone. Sixteen-year-old peasant girl Heloise aspires to something other than marriage and babies, but she lives in a dangerous world: at any time, hidden wizards could suddenly turn into interdimensional portals, allowing terrible demons to come through and devour everyone and everything she loves. Only the clichéd Order of religious knights can keep the demons back by hunting and destroying the wizards. But the order is itself, of course, a cruelly despotic organization, and knights nearly kill Heloise upon their first encounter with her for no reason except that they don’t think peasant lives are worth very much. When her village is forced to take part in brutally and protractedly massacring another village, an operation conducted on suspicions of wizardry that Heloise knows to be false, she finds herself and her family and friends set against the Order—and the demons are still a problem. The entire book is focused on getting Heloise to the climactic fight scene, which then proceeds completely predictably, and the book ends just when it seems like something might start to happen. Agent: Joshua A. Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary. (Feb.)
The Queen of Crows, the second volume of The Sacred Throne trilogy, follows Heloise, injured but not broken by the challenges that have faced her, into the next stage of her epic journey from unimportant girl to the leader of a revolution. It’s a story of archane war machines, magical armor, and a harrowing fight […]
As has become our tradition, we’re looking ahead to the next year of new science fiction and fantasy books—with the help of the editors and publishers responsible for bringing them to our shelves each and every week. Here are 95 new books they can’t wait for you to read (and that’s just the tip of […]
For two decades, Jim Killen has served as the science fiction and fantasy book buyer for Barnes & Noble. Every month on Tor.com and the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Jim shares his curated list of the month’s best science fiction & fantasy books.
Myke Cole continues to amaze us.
So you have some questions about The Armored Saint by Myke Cole, book one of The Sacred Throne series: