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An Empire of Law by Allan T Michaels

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Rated 7.54 out of 10 Statistics

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Genre: Fantasy / Secondary Genre

Updated: Weekly

Content Advisory

Occasional Violence

Statistics

Overall Rating: 7.541

Average Rating: 10 (Guests), 8 (Members)

Ranking: #79

Rating Count: 3 (1 Guests, 2 members)

1 indicates a weighted rating.

An Empire of Law by Allan T Michaels product Read This

"High treason, magic, war and griffons makes for compelling reading"

Rating: 8 / 10

I’ll say straight out that fantasy is not one of my favourite reads.  Nothing drives me batty more than long-winded social and cultural explanations, or descriptions of fancy food and elegant clothing.  That’s not to my taste at all.

Mr Michael’s tale gripped me and drew me in, and I had to keep reading.  Even though I skimmed some passages of background detail, I still kept reading.  Even though the prose at times annoyed me intensely, I still kept reading.  Normally I’ll drop a story faster than a hot brick if the writing is less than my personal ideal, but not so this time.

I can’t even put my finger on what it was that I loved so much, but I’ll try.  The characters were real.  There were no fantasy tropes here, no shiny heroes or wise old sages or whiny farmboys.  There were just men (really, a severe dearth of female characters) who were doing their jobs in a messy, awful, world-changing time.  I liked the lawyer.  I liked the Seneschal.  I know the sneaky brother is up to something, but I haven’t got to what it is yet.  I liked Liam and the griffin riders, and I especially liked that Mr Michaels wrote them like a company of soldiers, not a bunch of shiny sexy fantasy stereotypes.

I haven’t finished the serial, but I’ve bookmarked it for future reading.  I need to know what happens.  If I could describe it, I’d say it’s a huge, country-spanning, political epic full of tragic characters all hurtling inexorably towards their fate.

If you like that sort of thing, and you enjoy political machinations, war and betrayal, then this is the story for you.  Very compelling, a really meaningful tale.

(Cross-posted from the e-Fiction Book Club)

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