Book Review: The God Spear by L.L. Stephens
Genre(s): Epic Fantasy
Book Synopsis:
It will take a god to awaken a god.
The Heir to Essera’s throne, Handurin Stauberg-Randolph, has escaped from Sordan and sought out the Kheld people of Amallar. He hopes to gain them as allies, particularly against the murderous sorceror Nammuor.
Dorilian Sordaneon has also left the safety of Sordan-and stopped the Rill god-machine. Handurin doesn’t know it yet, but Dorilian is hot on his heels. Which means Dorilian is in Amallar too, living in secret among Khelds who believe he killed, well, just about everyone.
But Amallar isn’t as welcoming as Hans thinks, or as backward as Dorilian believes.
Review:
This series just keeps getting better and better.
In The God Spear, the political tensions escalate, new (and potentially unexpected) alliances are made, and the Khelds as a whole are as stubborn as ever. But they wouldn’t be Khelds if they weren’t bullheaded, and infuriating as they are sometimes, it made for a great story.
While Dorillian (who is still my favorite character in the series) and Hans (a very close second) are the main focus, we do get a few glimpses of some of the others from books past, along with one new and notable character: Aubrey. Aubrey is a Kheld woman and landowner, better educated than many of her kinsmen, and tasked by her uncle to learn as much about Hans’ plans as she can. She’s smart enough to figure out that one of Hans’ companions is not who he says he is, and her prying makes her one of Hans’ greatest threats, though she doesn’t fully understand that until the end. I liked her, even though she was problematic for Hans.
The Khelds as a whole are scheming, and many of them hope to see Hans fail, despite his lineage and his birthright as their next king. Nalf (Aubrey’s uncle) is the worst schemer of the lot and almost as infuriating as Stefan was in terms of his stubbornness. Hans certainly had the deck stacked against him in Amallar.
While the series’ true villain doesn’t get much page time in this installment, Nammuor does make a few appearances—and the full scope of his power is finally displayed. It will be very interesting to see what he does going forward, because a displeased Nammuor is scary as hell. And he was thoroughly displeased at the end of this book.
And Dorilian, as always, acts according to his own agenda. But in this book, we discover that he can be persuaded to change—provided the price is agreeable to him. I’ve loved watching his character grow and evolve through the series.
This was an excellent continuation of the series. If you haven’t read it yet and you enjoy epic fantasy with lots of political intrigue, definitely check it out. The Triempery Revelations begins with Sordaneon (you can read my review of that book here: Book Review: Sordaneon by L.L. Stephens)
Author website: triempery.com
Amazon link: The God Spear
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