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Title: Princess of Blood
Series: The God Fragments #2
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 545
Format: Digital Edition
Title: Princess of Blood
Series: The God Fragments #2
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 545
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
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The Cards head to
another independent city state ostensibly as bodyguards for the
Ambassador, but with Toil telling them to “be prepared”.
Some fool scholar
has opened a mystery in the city of Jarrazir that leads down into a
duegar maze of mythic proportions. Legends hint of a stash of god
fragments, but that is odd as the duegar pre-date the fall of the
gods.
Sotorian Bade,
working for the Knight Charnel in his role as relic hunter, leads a
force of knights underground to recover the fragments. General Faril
is leading a very visible attack against the city to distract
everyone from Bade.
But Toil isn't
distracted. She has a vendetta against Bade since he left her to die
in the Underdark all those years ago. With the very reluctant
blessing of the Nobility of Jarrazir, Toil and some of the Cards head
underground, along with the surviving student of the aforementioned
fool scholar. Now in a race with Bade, both groups will be tested to
the utmost in all areas: magic, brains and brawn.
Bade successfully
carries off the god fragments but Toil realizes there is a greater
treasure and the 7 survivors are imbued with some sort of magic that
ties them together. Once upon the surface, they must work together,
with the remaining Cards and other mercenary groups to throw back the
Knights Charnel. This they successfully do.
Now Anatim must
figure out just what his Cards are becoming and if it's something he
still wants to be in charge of.
My
Thoughts:
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I enjoyed this as much as the first book. On the plus, there were no
“slow” times like I experienced previously. On the minus side,
Lloyd goes into perverse immorality here. Sadly, I am letting my
enjoyment dictate the outcome instead of dnf'ing this like I've done
other books with such content. I'm sure it will happen again so I'm
already preparing myself for stopping this series at the next such
instance.
Lloyd likes to write a lot of setup. While the Maze opens in the
first pages, neither the Cards or Bade actually go underground until
after the 50% mark. It worked this time but there were times I felt
like telling him to “get on with the story”. The maze reminded me
of the movie Cube, just not quite so spectacularly violent and
grotesque. I'm ok with that though. Sadly, the whole time in the maze
felt a bit rushed. I do wish there had been more fighting or traps or
monsters or something. Less backstory for that wretched Toil and more
Maze death.
Lynx didn't feel nearly as much the main character as he did in the
first book. It seemed like Toil kind of bulled her way in and tried
to take over. I don't mind her as Lynx's love interest or as a side
character, but I don't care for her as a main character. She's simply
“too much”. Lynx is a bit more believable. In a world where
pieces of gods are used to make bullets I mean * rolls eyes at self *
We do find out a little bit of the history of this world and the fact
that the gods might have been duegar. My initial thought on learning
this was “what is this going to do to the psyche of the people if
they learn their gods were nothing but jumped up dwarves?”. I have
a feeling Lloyd is simply going to ignore that aspect of things. Just
like he's pretty much not written how the gods being dead and their
carcasses being used affects people.
This does continue to get the profanity tag as well. F-bombs are used
like mage bullets it seems.
★★★★☆