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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
