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Ross (3282 KP) rated The Court of Broken Knives in Books

Aug 7, 2018  
The Court of Broken Knives
The Court of Broken Knives
Anna Smith Spark | 2017 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Finally, well executed, gritty literary fantasy
I had skimmed some reviews of this book after seeing glowing recommendations of it in different facebook groups. I was warned the tone of the narrative was off-putting and very different to the genre. I have read a few authors who try and put a more literary, almost poetic slant on the narrative in fantasy books and I always found it a bit flowery and took me out of the story.
Not so here. I'll admit the tone took me a couple of chapters to get to grips with, but I am so glad I stuck with it. The lyrical poetry contained within the narrative is so good that it adds to the story being told, it puts some emotion into the storytelling, something that is so sorely lacking from many books in third-person narrative.
Descriptions of people, places, feelings, events take on a whole new level of tangibility so rarely felt in fantasy fiction (without going down the Stephen King route of describing everything, and avoiding the Robert Jordan horse/riding dress description pratfalls).
The only place this becomes an issue is at times in the action scenes. On occasion I had to re-read a passage to work out what had actually happened - while I enjoyed the words I had struggled to pick up on what had occurred.
The story itself is not overly elaborate and unfolds before you with little warning. It felt like a natural, flowing journey than a series of events loosely tied together. We have the gritty mercenary company en route to unleash hell on the Empire, the great priestess of the God of living and dying (who has to sacrifice someone every few days to ensure life and death continue to operate properly) and we have the political manoeuvrings of the high lords within the Empirical council. This is all weaved together in the first third of the book to an excellent, surprising conclusion (in what many authors would have filled a whole book with ad nauseum), with the remainder of the book being a journey through wild country while everyone double-crosses everyone else.
This is of the grim-dark sub-genre, which basically means everyone is a bit of a shit, and bad things happen to nice people. There are no heroes here. There are characters you come to rout for (or despise) but you know it is wrong to do so as they are all so nasty and flawed in so many ways, like humanity itself.
Don't be expecting a happy ending!