‘The Fireborne Blade’ – Charlotte Bond (TorDotCom)


Page Count: 176 Pages

No matter what it might look like in various ‘Books for the TBR Pile’ posts, I really am trying to concentrate on reading books that are already on my shelves. ‘The Fireborne Blade’ is a very slender 176 pages long so I’m not going to beat myself up too much for missing it until now. With that page count, this is a book that can’t help but hide amongst the other books once it’s on your shelf. What I’d say is that if ‘The Fireborne Blade’ is on your shelf, don’t let it hide away, grab it for a read, I think you’ll be glad that you did.

Quick thoughts on a quick read today. I’m not sure quite how it happened but yesterday was a bit of a write-off and I’ve got a lot to catch up on today (and take my youngest daughter out for lunch, I’m looking forward to that)…

Maddileh is a knight. There aren’t many women in her line of work, and it often feels like the sneering and contempt from her peers is harder to stomach than the actual dragon slaying. But she’s a knight, and made of sterner stuff. A minor infraction forces her to redeem her honor in the most dramatic way possible, she must retrieve the fabled Fireborne Blade from its keeper, legendary dragon the White Lady, or die trying. If history tells us anything, it's that “die trying” is where to wager your coin.

As someone who is constantly being told that his work documentation needs to stick to the point, I’m very much in awe of writers who don’t hang about in their work; telling a rich and engaging story in hardly any time at all. With ‘The Fireborne Blade’, Charlotte Bond falls very much into this camp. I was able to finish it off over the course of two bus rides and being sat in a hospital waiting room in between. I had so much fun that I didn’t even notice the time pass ;o)

I’ve been hankering, a lot, for some well drawn fantasy and I got a lot out of the methods that Bond uses to build the world of the Fourteen Kingdoms. While the world itself doesn’t offer many surprises, it is beautifully drawn off the back of some ‘scene setting’ academic lectures and detailed backdrops. Like I said, ‘The Fireborne Blade’ is a slim read but thanks to Bond’s expertise, it is so easy to get lost in the background and really feel like you’re there. Which was just what I after, sat on a bus going through south London :o)

Sir Maddileh is just the kind of lead that I love spending time with; passionate enough to really drive the plot forward, with her energy (while you cheer her on), and while she’s sharp enough to ask the right questions, she doesn’t give the game away by answering them too soon. And that is very much good thing when you realise that Bond has hidden a couple of big clues in plain sight, to be found just after a pretty big revelation. I don’t know, you’ll probably get there before I did but I enjoyed that feeling where suddenly, everything became clear, casting everything in a new light and at just the right time. There is scheming afoot and it’s all handled superbly.

I’m pretty sure there’s a sequel to ‘The Fireborne Blade’ and there’s no doubt that I’ll be picking it up soon (well, after payday anyway). ‘The Fireborne Blade’ is a thoroughly engaging read on every level and I need to know what happens next.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘The Way Out’ & ‘Perdition’s Flame’ (Warhammer Horror, Black Library)

Image
It’s Friday so you’d normally be looking at a post on whatever I read, on the bus to/from work, yesterday. Not today though… I had a touch of insomnia followed by a day in the office so while I had a book in my bag (I always have a book in my bag…), I was in no state to actually read it. Luckily, I had a couple of Black Library audiobooks on my phone so I listened to them instead. As a rule, I don’t tend to do too well with audiobooks that are hours long and just a narrator narrating. Black Library though, have a nice line in audiobooks that have a full cast, run for just over an hour and are full of immersive sound effects I thought I’d see how that worked with a couple of ‘Warhammer Horror’ tales… ‘The Way Out’ – Rachel Harrison In the midst of a vast gas nebula lies a remote watch-station, hanging silently against a tapestry of dying stars. It sits alone, patiently awaiting lost travellers adrift in the freezing vastness of the void. To such souls it appears as a blessing, a safe h...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

'Conan the Barbarian: Battle of the Black Stone’ – Zub, Scharf, Canola (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)

Image
It’s starting to look like this could be the week where I make a half decent dent in my ‘Comics TBR Pile’, lets see how we do... I’ve really been struggling with the ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ collection just recently (more than one reason but I want to finish the collection first before I talk about it) and I thought that I’d have to take a little step back from ‘Conan’ comics and come back when I was in a better mood for it. Until I realized that there was another ‘Conan’ comic lurking in the TBR pile and maybe I could give that a go instead. So that’s what I did. I’ve caught little glimpses of the ‘Black Stone’ storyline, in other ‘Conan’ comics, but I can’t help but feel that the event has kind of passed me by a little. That’s on me though to be fair, I’ve got the attention span of a goldfish right now and there are so many books that I just haven’t been able to focus on; I suspect a couple of them talk about a Black Stone… Oh well, I’m here now. Where better a place to catch up on ‘B...
Read more