The Court of Broken Knives is a strong fantasy debut by Anna Smith Spark. It’s got absolute gads of cynicism, characters who range from the pragmatic through conflicted and into monstrous, and a world which encourages and rewards that sort of approach.

Speaking of the world – well, it’s complicated. There’s the remnants of a global empire – reminiscent of Rome in the late medieval period. They assert sovereignty over the world at large, and have a degree of social and cultural capital – but don’t control almost anything outside of their capital city. Still, that city is a monstrosity of wealth, still gilded by centuries of ruling the world. The street urchins dress in silk, and the decay is, whilst obvious, still masked by the urban grandeur. The mood of sorrowful decline is, I suspect, intentional – as is the feeling of self-inflicted wounds, of coiled vipers, of personal politics poisoning an imperial perspective. Of course, this is an empire in a desert, which doesn’t seem to have much of a sanding army – but does have a religion requiring the sacrifice of children. The cultural attitudes are expertly played here – saddened, but accepting of the necessity.
The empire is surrounded by its more vibrant successor states, which seem to have a more medieval mindset. There’s a fair amount of fortifications and stone walls – and a royal family put in place by a historical ruler who may also have been a demon. They’re prone to bouts of ecstatic madness, entwined with violence – and their people fear and love them for it. This is a tumultuous, often nihilistic world – but also one where there is potential for great beauty, and for the realisation of the better traits of humanity.

There’s a rough quartet of protagonists. Two of them sit within the remaining Imperial city. One is the High Priestess of their somewhat brutal god – a woman circumscribed by circumstance, with the potential to be more, restricted by her own power and position. She’s clever, observant, and, for someone who sacrifices children on a regular basis, surprisingly sane – but there’s twinges of visible damage there, and a recognition that perhaps the world isn’t limited to the walls of her temple. The contrast between her and one of the others, a hardened politician, a noble of the empire, is, I suspect, intentional. He’s wry, jaded, and not at all surprised by the worst in people – but at the same time, driven by the dream that was once his home, in an effort to sustain and create something better. There’s a vivid characterisation here, of a man in power, who has no interest in his wife sexually, but cares for her; who is prepared to enact horrors on old friends in the service of an ideal; who can be tormented by their own success, and justify it as failure being the worst option. Both of the imperials are vividly, cleverly portrayed – they certainly feel like people, if perhaps not people you would want to take out to dinner.

The others – well, I have great affection for Tobias. A mercenary squad leader, he’s thoughtful, always has an eye on the main chance, and is not at all afraid to turn his reflections into brutality if that’s what’s required. He’s ever-so-slightly conflicted, a everyman with more than an edge of darkness about him – surviving in a world which caters to and demands the use of his worst instincts. For all that he makes abhorrent choices, they are plausible, logical ones – and his tarnished view of the world is at once strange and familiar.

Then there’s another – one of Tobias’s band of mercenaries, he’s an enigma at first. Tormented by unknown demons, driven by unknown curses. If there’s a space here, it’s one of emotional distance or connection, switching from a need to escape the world to being bathed in it – usually in blood. This is a man who is sure of what he could be, but trying to escape it – through drugs, through drink, through murder. This last is one that is more difficult to sympathise with – but a complex, believable character, one whose emotional intensity and validity rises out of the prose, and makes it into something special.

The plot – well, there’s all sorts. Here are high politics, and low murder, often in one. Political assassinations as knife fights, gutters and blood, coarse language and red in the gutters. There’s also magic – explosive, typically, unpleasant, almost always. There’s plots, counterplots, and appallingly visceral battles. There’s something for everyone here, if you’re not squeamish about how you get it. The dialogue is typically snappy, with moments of emotional transcendence; the pacing is spot on, and I had to keep on turning pages to see what happens next. There are highs and lows here – the latter perhaps moving to contempt or to tears, the former transporting to joy.

I guess what I’m saying is, it’s good stuff. This is smart, self-aware fantasy. The characters make sense, are easy to invest in, and reward that investment. The world is complex and believable. I’m really looking forward to seeing where this series goes, and I urge you to give it a try.

I don't know how I feel about this book, in all honesty. I really wanted to love it, but I just didn't. I know that there will be a lot of people who do love this book, however. I think it ticks all the boxes to become a favourite for a lot of people, but it just wasn't for me.

One of the main problems that I had was if I took a break from reading, I found the story incredibly difficult to get back into. I didn't really like most of the characters, and even the characters that I did like, I ended up hating at the end. Marith, for example, I really enjoyed his chapters at the start of the book, but by the end, I didn't like him anymore. The same with Thalia. I feel like Thalia became weaker throughout the book.

Well, by Jove, I wanted to find out what grimdark was and I think The Court of Broken Knives is more or less a one-novel definition of the term. Searingly brutal, full of political intrigue, without a single purely good character, but plenty of fascinating ones, this debut fantasy gripped me with the tenacity of a cutthroat in a dark alley. It isn't without its issues, as you'd expect in a first novel, but it has a fearless, blood-drenched flair. 

The time is coming, and the pieces are falling into place. In the middle of a bleak, barren desert, a small band of mercenaries slogs through the sand towards their next job, led by their captain Tobias. In the city of Sorlost - centre of the empire, centre of civilisation, centre of the world - elegant, jaded aristocrats plot the assassination of their emperor. In the Temple, the High Priestess fulfils her duties and waits for the unknown day when her successor will be drawn by lot, starting the countdown to her own necessary death. And, among the ragtag men who stumble after Tobias through the endless sands, the beautiful youth Marith struggles to control the shadows and strange compulsions in his mind. 

Smith Spark's world definitely feels further along the fantasy spectrum than that in K.J. Parker's Engineer Trilogy, for example: I would say there's probably the same amount of fantasy as there is in A Song of Ice and Fire. But the magic is, for the most part, treated as normal by the world's inhabitants: mages use their powers to do street tricks, or work charms on noblewomen's litters to make them fireproof. Magic, such as it is, has been tamed. But, from the very earliest part of the book, there's a sense that something has changed and the rules are shifting. Here be dragons - sometimes nothing more than large and viciously destructive animals - but sometimes more enigmatic creatures, with the ability (of course) to speak an ancient and almost forgotten tongue. Don't let the idea of 'magic' put you off, though. The main thrust of the drama comes from human actions, even if those are sometimes amplified by powers slightly beyond the normal. And the drama itself is, more often than not, of the gritty bloodshed variety.

This is not a book for anyone who's squeamish about fight scenes. We're talking about Jacobean levels of blood and bodies here. If you like a good bit of battle writing, though, it's a veritable feast of ambushes, skirmishes, murder, incineration, war and probably a hundred other ways that people can messily dispose of other people. It wears its credentials very cheerfully on its sleeve (not for nothing is Smith Spark's Twitter handle @QueenofGrimdark). Yet, even if you quail a bit at the thought of blood, be assured that (despite all the spilled guts, dismemberment and frequent swearing), the characters are vibrant enough to keep you engaged and eager to know what happens next.

I was hooked by the first few chapters in Tobias's third-person narrative voice: a no-nonsense, contemporary, down-to-earth, here-we-go-again soldier's commentary that felt pitch-perfect. He felt so vivid at times that I was reminded of Mildmay in the Doctrine of Labyrinths series, who remains my narrative voice to beat; and the interaction between the men in Tobias's troop had the kind of easy, incidental banter that I enjoyed in Ben Kane's Eagles novels. There's a marked and appropriate contrast in voice between these chapters and the more languid, louche, yet fastidious narrative of Orhan's chapters within the walls of Sorlost. In fact, had the book stuck to alternating Tobias and Orhan I'd have been completely happy. For me the weaker parts were those of Thalia's narration. She's the only really prominent woman in the novel and yet, unfortunately, I didn't feel she was interesting enough to warrant the space she had, especially once she started doing little more than gushing about another character. (I'd have liked a smart, shrewd, ruthless woman to match the men.) I also thought it a misstep to have some of Thalia's chapters in third person narration and some in first. Ideally they'd all have been in either one or the other, which would have helped with the flow. 

The book ended up being a more conventional kind of fantasy novel than I expected from the first few chapters but, nevertheless, I enjoyed it hugely. I don't mind a bit of bloodthirstiness now and again, although I think I've had several months' quota here, and I enjoyed the hints of the backstory slowly unfurling and coming together. We finish in an interesting place - new powers, new chances, new dangers - and I'm keen to see where Smith Spark takes this in her next book. (Hopefully there'll be plenty of Tobias in the next one, and Thalia will be less repetitive on the subject of irresistible beauty.)

I must finish, however, by stressing that this is a hard one to put down. I only opened it to have a quick flick through, get a feel for it, and two days later I've read the entire thing and am itching for more. It's a strong and impressive debut and, incidentally, it's great to see a woman taking on the male-dominated world of grimdark with such aplomb. So do give this a go if you like your fantasy on the dark side: it's a compelling, bleak and deliciously twisted tale to savour. 

To see the review on my blog, where it will be published on 9 June 2017, please follow this link:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/06/09/the-court-of-broken-knives-anna-smith-spark