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Title:
Tower of Silence
Series: Saga of the
Forgotten Warrior #4
Author: Larry Correia
Rating:
4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages:
374
Words: 132K
Publish: 2023
I
have realized that at least for this readthrough of this series, none
of the books will be getting higher than four stars. Correia is a fun
author, a great pulpy author, but he’s no Rex Stout. Seeing Correia
write outside his typical urban fantasy gunporn (ie, Monster Hunter
International) does tend to show his weaknesses, that is, the
characters. They are decent, they are not cardboard, but they are not
nearly as real as Nero Wolfe or Archie Goodwin. The thing is, I
wonder if I felt the same way about the MHI characters on my first
read through of that series?
So I am still enjoying this series, quite a bit. It is furious action coupled with some very interesting world building that is fusing the traditional fantasy with hints of science fiction. The theology, which plays a vital albeit rather non-specific part, still escapes my grasp. I’m hoping by the end of the series that I’ll understand a bit more. Politics are playing just the right amount without becoming annoying at all.
By this point in the series, I’m definitely recommending it.
★★★★☆
From https://upstreamreviews.substack.com/
After the events of DESTROYER OF WORLDS, the casteless rebellion is scattered and the surviving characters have to make do without Ashok in their ranks. Thus we find them each engaged in their own plans as they wage a war for survival against the government.
Grand Inquisitor Omand Vokkan continues to put his plan into motion to eradicate the casteless and the representative government alike, seizing control of everything. We learn in a flashback that the Inquisition has had a demon in captivity for decades, which they harvest for magic and information. The demon will tell Omand the location of a certain “source” in exchange for all of the casteless being killed, as they are the blood descendants of Ramrowan, the ancient god that defeated the demons the last time they attacked the world.
The demon tricks an eager Omand into sending a band of wizards into a trap, where they accidentally activate a sleeping cell of insect-like demons that slaughter and destroy anything living, and are almost impossible to stop. Omand repays this betrayal with a trick of his own, allowing the demon to think that the casteless have been slaughtered, thus learning the location of the “source” that he’s after, north in the jungle. Upon hearing this the demon activates a spell to notify others of his ilk that it’s time to invade Lok again. Omand isn’t quite sure what, but the demons have activated a spell of some kind, and we learn in an epilogue that (perhaps) all freshwater in Lok—even hundreds of miles inland—has been converted to saltwater…
Ashok Vadal wakes up on the Isle of Fortress, imprisoned, half-starved, and on trial. The residents think he’s a false Ramrowan Reborn, something they’ve seen before, and while Ashok doesn’t lay claim to the title, he does perform several feats of superhuman strength that lead them to believe he’s the real deal. He escapes imprisonment and falls in with a local monk, Dondrub, who gives him the rundown of Fortress’s current political and religious divisions. The Isle is rich with technological knowledge but poor in other resources, especially for creating guns, which they’re known for. Dondrub shows Ashok the underground/undersea tunnel that Fortress smugglers use to get to Lok, but it’s occupied by a demon god. Ashok slays this creature and takes its head back to Fortress, deposing another false Ramrowan along the way, although Dondrub dies in the conflict.
With the tunnel cleared, Ashok returns to Lok, just in time to learn that an enemy house has found the casteless rebels and is about to annihilate them. He rushes into battle and finds their champion, a new black steel swordbearer named Akerselem. They duel, and for the first time in his life Ashok is almost equally matched, as Akerselem’s sword gives him the same knowledge and skill that Angruvadal gives to Ashok. In the end Ashok triumphs and cuts off Akerselem’s sword arm, defeating him, and ultimately taking up his sword for himself. Once again Ashok has an ancestor blade.
Keta, Keeper of Names, continues to lead the casteless rebels as their priest, though the situation continues to worsen. He does his best to fend off Akerselem’s forces at the rebels’ hiding place, and while he’s just a man, he dies heroically against a black steel swordbearer, leaving the descendants of Ramrowan without a spiritual guide.
Javed, an Inquisition spy planted among the rebels, has been feeding information about them to Omand. When two young hunters find him communicating with his master, Javed kills them and hides their bodies, though the act shames him and he eventually struggles with his loyalties. At the end he’s visited by Mother Dawn, a traveling demigod who takes the form of witches and other things, to tell him that her loyalists (the rebels) need a Keeper of Names. He is to fill the void that Keta left behind. The rebels know what he did though, so this will be no small hurdle to overcome.
As for the prophetess Thera Vane, she continues to lead the rebellion though she misses having Ashok at her side, and she has to make do with lesser assets. One of her more key discoveries is that the mute and damaged children she rescued from the House of Assassins are actually capable of magic, and are slowly coming back to their senses. She’s able to nurture them back to sanity and they make powerful contributions to the rebels’ efforts, helping to destroy aqueducts that deliver water to their enemies. Near the end she learns that Javed is a traitor, and she sows doubt in him that he’s on the right side. Her part of the story ends when she’s captured and swept away to be put on trial, only to be intercepted by Dhaval Makao, a man she ran away from years ago…who is her legal husband.
Once again, the fates of warrior Jagdish, scholar Rada, and protector Karno are intertwined. Jagdish is now a high-ranking officer in House Vadal, which faces border invasions from Akerselem and his new army. House leader Harta Vadal wants Jagdish to face Akerselem in open combat with the hope that somebody will kill him and Vadal will once again have an ancestor blade. (As a reminder, their sword was Angruvadal, which was lost when Ashok was exiled in book 1, and later shattered.)
Rada, meanwhile, communicates from time to time with the black steel mirror that she carries, gifted to her by her late mentor. While made of the same material as the ancestor blades, it performs differently, opening a communication channel to a powerful entity loyal to the Forgotten Gods. Rada and Karno accompany Jagdish and a detachment of his soldiers on an expedition, only to come across the band of wizards that Omand unknowingly sent into a trap. Several of Jagdish’s soldiers are killed by the demon-insects, which almost overwhelm Karno, and nobody escapes unscathed. Rada appeals to the entity in the mirror, who isn’t overly concerned with the humans and their quest, until Rada explains that saving them means they can be useful to the gods later.
The mirror then summons up a force field around Jagdish, Rada, and the other survivors and fires a superweapon from somewhere unknown, obliterating all of the demon-insects that were trying to kill them.
When they report their findings back to Harta Vadal, he wants to know if this super weapon can be conjured up again and controlled. Rada is more worried about the demon insects and the affairs of the Gods, as things continue to intensify.
Lord Protector Devedas has a diminished role in this story, but he’s not out of it. Riding high on a wave of popular support after defeating Ashok, he only becomes more useful to Omand and his scheming. When the time is right for a perverse act of governmental subversion, Omand calls for all power to be concentrated in Devedas to deal with the rebel crisis, under the condition that Devedas will of course give up his power once the problem is solved.
In conclusion, this story covers a scattered cast of characters who do their best to move toward their group goals even without being able to rely on each other
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