At the Queen's Command (Crown Colonies #1)

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Title: At the Queen's Command
Series: Crown Colonies
Author: Michael Stackpole
Rating: of 5 Battle Axes
Genre: SFF
Pages: 450
Format: Kindle



Synopsis:
An Alternate Fantasy History. A history where the King James Bible is the King Robert Bible. A world where magic is real, wurms are used as troops and NorIsle and Tharyngia are fighting as viciously as England and France ever did.
Owen Strake is a soldier, sent on a mission from NorIsle to explore and update the outer frontier regions of Mystria.
Only Owen is a pawn being used for hidden means. Can he throw off his shackles, fulfill his mission AND foil the hidden agenda that could spell his death?


My Thoughts:
In response to the above question, the answer is "Of Course!".  Owen Strake is the main character of the book and I thoroughly enjoyed following along. Owen goes from a snobby NorIslean to a Mystrian Patriot.
We get the best of the late 1700's with magic, zombies and battles.

The last time I read Stackpole was back when he did his Age of Discovery trilogy, which was horrible. It put me off of him for many years. And after I recently went on his website, it seems that he'd been going through a dry spell back then and hated writing.

Thankfully, he was back in top form with this series. While very different from Talion or Once a Hero, it was just as enjoyable and in many ways seemed more mature, in talent. This was a joy to read and my only complaint is that it is part on only a duology instead of something longer.