One of the best books I have read this year was Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It was an incredible take on the ideas of evolution and what makes someone human along with a interesting narrative style. I thought Children of Time was so good that it made me want to dive in to Adrian’s vast catalogue of books and read more. Solaris/Rebellion was kind enough to facilitate this desire and sent me an ARC of his newest book, Redemption’s Blade, in exchange for a honest review.

Redemption’s Blade has a plot that should appeal to most fantasy readers. The story takes place in the immediate wake of a gigantic war that touched almost the entire world. A demigod, named the Kinslayer, decided that he was no longer keen on his God given mission to protect the mortals of the world. Instead, he thought it would be a lot more fun to consume his brethren (which earned him his name), cast down the gods, and enslave all mortals. His war for domination was cut short when he was sliced in half by a group of heroes and some of his minions that turned traitor. One of these heroes was Celestaine, who goes by Celest, who is finding herself a bit lost in a world that regards her as one of its saviors. In order to find some meaning in her post-hero life she sets out on a journey with a group of the Kinslayer’s ex-minions to try and right some of the wrongs that the demigod committed in his war.

Redemption simultaneously evokes classical quest fantasies like Lord of the Rings, while also being a non-stop avalanche of original ideas and worldbuilding. We follow Celest as she travels across the world looking for an artifact of incredible power to heal the people the Kinslayer mutilated. On this journey she recruits a number of interesting characters to her cause and takes you on a tour of a number of horrors that the Kinslayer created. The plot is enjoyable, but slightly predictable (which was fine). Where the book really shined was its world, as Tchaikovsky really knows how to build atmosphere and story set pieces. I was filled with childlike wonder as I read about strange creatures, cool swords, weird races, and despicable crimes. So while the plot of the book can sometimes feel a little shallow, Celest’s journey is simply a lot of fun and honestly that is the most important quality for a book to have.

If I had to pick a flaw to talk about, it would be Celest herself. The characters of the story are, on a whole, fantastic. The party members, side characters, and antagonists all succeeded in getting me emotionally invested and caring about them as people. However, Celest felt like she struggled as the central POV as her character began to feel a little one note as the book ran on. Her inner monologues get a little bit repetitive, and she tended to harp on the same ideas (such as “are these ex-evil minions my friends or tools that I am using?”) a little too often. This is a shame because her various party members were a buffet of deep personalities.

Overall, I enjoyed Redemption’s Blade a lot. It is a very fun book with a lot of astoundingly cool ideas that I think almost any fan of the fantasy genre would enjoy. It loses a little bit of steam towards the end, and Celest could use an injection of personality, but I would still recommend it to anyone who asks. In the meantime, my second foray into Tchaikovsky’s work has only cemented my belief that he is an unique and imaginative author that I need to read more from, and I can’t wait to get my hands on his next book.

Rating: Redemption’s Blade – 8.0/10
-Andrew

It's not enough that Celestaine killed the Kinslayer--the abomination who ravaged the world. Now she feels compelled to set things right after so much wrong. She's starting with one seemingly small thing: Restore the ability for flight to a race of beings whose wings were sadistically taken from them by the Enemy.

We're dropped into this world, and portioned out background info. The people don't know how to get their lives back together. The Kinslayer's forces don't know what to do now that their master is dead. Some fight on, not knowing anything else. Some find a sort of redemption--two of the Kinslayer's warriors are now helping Celestaine. It makes for tense situations as people have bad memories and prejudice against creatures that helped to wreck their world.

We've seen plenty of fantasies that put us in the middle of the fight against the Big Baddie, but few that walk with us through the aftermath, and the repercussions of what comes after. That makes for compelling reading. What keeps this from 5 stars is that sometimes it felt like a series of fetch quests from an RPG. Fetch quests in a fantastic and rich world, but still...

Redemption's Blade was terrific. It's self-contained but also, it turns out, the first book in a shared-world series to be written by different authors. I'm interested enough to check out at least the next book. I just wish Tchaikovsky was writing those, too.

Redemption’s Blade is an absolutely thrilling sword and fantasy tale. What Tchaikovsky does is set his story in the aftermath of the Great War and its consequences. And that makes for very interesting storytelling and a backstory of considerable depth. Just imagine a world where the Dark Lord of Mordor has been defeated after years of terrifying battles against all manner of fell creatures, but the evil things haven’t faded into the earth and there isn’t one King of Gondor to unite everyone. And imagine Aragorn wandering the earth with a pair of giant bloodthirsty orcs with huge tusks, one who gained fame as a torturer of innocents.

Here, the Kinslayer has finally been defeated by Celestaine and other Slayers, her by wielding a magic invincible sword ⚔️. And, the armies of the Kinslayer are still mulling about, half refusing to believe in his defeat. Celestaine might be a hero but her two companions - who helped defeat the Enemy- are ferocious Yorughan including a magic-wielding torturer and a great female troll-like Yorughan monster, both whom the war survivors fear and hate.

The story brings these companions alive as they journey to do one good deed, to save a people who were utterly destroyed, devastated, maimed by the Kinslayer. Nearly every page is filled with ferocious battles among all manner of beings. And the backstories of what happened to these peoples and how they are dealing with each other post-War is just terrific. Who says you can’t find great fantasy stories anymore?

Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review. And, yes, it appears a sequel is being prepared. Can’t wait.

Oh, look - a way to write a fantasy hero story without beating me over the head with certain things. For that alone I would have enjoyed this story even if it didn't featured the not so good band of characters.
Celestaine feels guilty and restless after the war that left the land completely ruined, to put it mildly. They are yet to witness the horrors the Kinslayer left behind. And you get some of it, in detail. She and her two Yorughan friends are after a very powerful item to restore at least a little bit of the former world.

This is a true adventure story, so if you're in the right mood to follow a small group of adventurers searching for a powerful magical item, go for it. Along their way, they pick up others too; some join them and some just follow after Celestaine's group for their own reasons. The latter are a colourful and humorous addition to the story too.

The thing is, I am tired of dreading the new stories I pick up because more often than not they are preachy as hell. There's none of that here unless you count the good old good versus evil trope. Even our heroes are not as clear as you'd expect. They have to face their own motivation for doing this quest.
The main villain is dead before this story starts, but what he left behind is horrible enough. Kinslayer is the Lucifer of this world. Unless you accept 'because he's evil' or 'wants to destroy everything' as a motivation, that is the only thing that was unclear to me.
Also, I might start nitpicking the characters and stuff (one always can), but I enjoyed the story too much to do it.

Overall, even with a few horrible scenes, this is a light adventure story and the ending seems to be open enough to hope for a sequel. I'll definitely read it too.

ARC received from Rebellion/Solaris via NetGalley

https://lynns-books.com/2018/07/23/redemptions-blade-after-the-war-by-adrian-tchaikovsky/
3.5 of 5 stars
I’ve written and deleted this review about three times and I’m still just as conflicted and frustrated with myself now as I was at the start so here it is: my feelings on Redemption’s Blade are a bit mixed. I can’t deny it was an easy read, I love the writing style of Adrian Tchaikovsky and if this turns out to be the start in a series of adventures by this motley crew then I can definitely say I’d like to pick up more from the world of Celestaine and her sidekicks.

Redemption’s Blade comes after all the horrific events that usually take place in a novel have come to an end and the tyrant ruler has been killed or overthrown. I really like this as an idea because it gives us a chance to see what happens next and there’s certainly plenty of food for thought contained within these pages.

The world here has suffered greatly with huge swathes of land now being uninhabitable. On top of that tensions, prejudice, fear and hate are par for the course. Regardless of ‘side’ everybody suffered during the reign of the Kinslayer and the bloodshed and loss have created an ugly atmosphere where the need for revenge is barely kept in check and on top of that, travel too far into the wilderness and some people still think the war is going on. I loved the world created here. I guess there’s an expectation that when you kill the tyrant everyone goes back to their lives again but in actual fact a lot of those lives have been destroyed or left in tatters.

In terms of the characters we follow Celestaine. Slayer of the Kinslayer she can barely enter a town without being immediately recognised and revered. Although, travelling with two Yorughan as companions (the former enemy) usually puts something of a dampener on the over enthusiastic displays of anyone she encounters. Celeste is a conflicted character. Known as the hero of the war she suffers from the guilt of knowing that the victory was anything but single handed, I guess she’s experiencing a form of ‘impostor’ syndrome coupled with a crisis of identity as a hero in a world where there is no longer a need for heroics. Her companions are two Yorughan. Creations of the Kinslayer these are huge creatures, strong and with keen eyesight as a result of many years spent in the bowels of the earth. These two are interesting characters and are a great demonstration of the fact that war is sometimes just purely a matter of unhappy chance. They and the rest of their race were manipulated by the Kinslayer and made to fight, dissenters were tortured or killed. There are other characters who come into play along the way but I won’t mention them here and there’s also a storyline with two collectors who seem to be seeking the same magical artefact that Celeste is in search of.

The plot is fairly simple in nature and involves a quest. Celeste, in an attempt to find new meaning to her life, is trying to put to rights some of the atrocities committed by the Kinslayer, one of which was the almost annihilation of the Aethani race and the mutilation of those that survived.

In terms of my overall feelings. I felt to an extent that the plot suffered a little. In real terms this isn’t an epic adventure to save the world and yet there feels like there’s an identity crisis going on wherein the story wants to be more than it should or more than I expected (I suppose more to the point). I think I was anticipating a smaller more concentrated focus but it felt like Celeste and her companions went from one near death situation to the next and to be honest it started to feel like a continuous loop. I think I reached a point where I didn’t feel tension or fear on behalf of the characters. Having given this plenty of thought, the real issue for me is that my expectations had headed in a different direction than the story took and it took me a little while to come to terms with that.

All that being said, I like this author and his prose brings the world and the characters to life in a way that feels deceptively easy. He handles descriptions well and manages to avoid the trap of over egging the pudding or turning the story into a history lesson. I thought there was a lot of food for thought here about war in general, the winners and the losers and their motivations. The blood fuelled hatred that survives long after the enemy has been destroyed, stoked by a need for revenge and conflicted characters who now question their own actions and the reasons behind them. I think this could be a really entertaining series where Celeste and her team travel from place to place putting wrongs to right – I’m not sure if that is the intention but I certainly hope so and I would pick up more books to check out what comes next.

I received a copy courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

An epic fantasy where the reader is dropped into a world where something terrible and tragic has happened, you missed the beginning, and you are scrambling to put the pieces together to try to understand what you missed. By the end of the story I figured that that was the intention.

The second part of the title ‘After the War’ leads to the expectation that this is to be part of a larger series where the fragments are exposed segment by segment as the main protagonist of this story, Celestaine, is portrayed as a secondary character in a much larger storyline.

So… the epic battle has been fought and won by the forces of good against the terrible evil threat. We are now in the realms of ‘and they lived happily ever after…’ Except they’re not. All manner of creatures ripped apart and horribly disfigured by the Kinslayer are still struggling to put their lives together in a land that has similarly been mutilated. Celestaine has devoted her live and the services of her magical blade to hunting down those still determined to carry out the wishes of their dead master. While she is feted as one of the heroes who overthrew the tyrant, she is left with far too many memories of her fallen companions and a burning need to make their sacrifice worth it by trying to make the world a better place.

It turns out that she isn’t the only one seeking powerful magical gismos and given that her two closest companions were created in the bowels of the earth by the Kinslayer for the express purpose of killing on his behalf (think orcs…) they don’t generally get a great welcome. Her intrepid band overcome all manner of obstacles and adventures on this quest – which makes this an engrossing read with plenty at stake…

I absolutely love this one. Tchaikovsky has taken many of the classical fantasy tropes and given them a thorough shaking, so along with high drama and adventure, we get asides on the nature of faith and what happens to gods once they are overthrown, given they are immortal. The supporting characters are wonderful – I love the two Yorughan warriors, particularly Heno with his snarky asides, as well as Dr Catto and his accomplice Fisher who are the delightfully insouciant antagonists intent on scooping up anything magical after Celestaine and her band have gone to the effort of overcoming the opposition. The character who tugged at my heartstrings is Kul, the prince of flying people, whose wings were savagely mutilated during the war, so there is no one now alive to teach youngsters how to fly. This means they drag their wings around as they join the earth-bound drudgery that is the lot of their parents, or hack them off… I’ve thought a lot about Kul since I completed this book.

This being Tchaikovsky, he brings this adventure to an entirely satisfactory end. I’d love to see more stories set in this world – please? But even if there isn’t, I’m glad to have been along for this particular ride – another outstanding addition to this author’s canon. While I obtained an arc of Redemption’s Blade: After the War from the publisher via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
10/10

As usual, Tchaikovsky proposes original things in this entertaining novel, especially its beginning and some of the characters. It seems like the second book in a trilogy, and at the beginning you have the feeling that you have missed something. But even if there is an important effort to innovate, some of the usual topics of the genre continue to be present. How difficult it is to write epic fantasy ...

Tchaikovsky gives us an entire world with PTSD.

The way I see it is, epic fantasy published in the last forty years is in some measure in conversation with Lord of the Rings, whether pretty much reflecting the structure of the story, or thumbing its nose at its themes (a lot of grimdark fantasies seem to have been inspired by this), or—in more complex books—grappling with a more contemporary view of Tolkien’s themes, while respecting the core.

This is such a book.

It takes place after the huge war (the inspiration might have been the collapse of Mordor after Sauron was destroyed). The world is a wreck, vast armies are out of work, and in this particular story, the gods are gone, and apparently so are the Guardians, godlike figures, some of whom helped defeat the Kinslayer (ultimate evil), others were killed by the Kinslayer, and a few . . . hid.

Celestaine the Slayer (who reflects that ‘the Kinslayer Slayer’ sounds pretty stupid) is appalled by the waste, the detritus, and above all by the evil still existing in the world. She’s been in the hero trade for so long she can’t define herself in any other way, and so, when she finds yet another seemingly impossible cause—restoring the culture of the beautiful flying people, wantonly destroyed by the Kinslayer who couldn’t abide beauty in any form—sets out to track down the magical artifact that will make that happen.

So this is a quest novel, with a band of adventurers, each with his or her own goal, motivation, and above all, emotional as well as physical fallout from the Kinslayer years. Every one of those companions could easily star in a story of their own—they’re fascinatingly complex, sometimes harrowing, other times delightful.

The quest offers plenty of tense and bloody action, as by no means has peace been blanketing the world. There are those (including supposedly good guys) trying to fashion up another Kinslayer, either in situation or literally, but then there are those who are adapting, and a few transcending the utter destruction.

Tchaikovsky is so good at worldbuilding, especially designing various types of critters whose sentience may be quite alien. Everybody has self and so comes alive on these pages, even the “one-off” monsters. There are plenty of surprises in this quest, including moments of profound insight and flashes of the numinous.

The story stands complete, though I hope there will be more in this world, because I fell in love with all the characters by the end. The prose is vivid, graceful and witty, sometimes mercilessly so, with the occasional lancing shafts of infinite mercy.

One of the best books I’ve read this year.

As badass as his previous books, Redemption's Blade pretty much picks up where the first series ended. A somewhat confusing opening to those not familiar with the previous installments, Tchaikovsky quickly picks up a popular character, hands her a sword, a mystery, and has her carry the rest of the story forth. A good and exciting read, Tchaikovsky introduces new fans to his acclaimed work that brought him the level of success he has most definitely earned.

Redemption’s Blade follows a band of characters after the epic war has been fought and won. The main character, Celestaine, is on a mission to right the wrongs of the war while wrestling with her own transgressions, guilt, and desires. Redemption’s Blade has a lot of interesting and well-written characters, but Tchaikovsky’s choice to inform the reader of significant world building information in a piecemeal fashion left much to be desired.

Incredibly fascinating and compelling characters surround Celestaine as they travel from location to location on their quest. Two of her companions are ex-soldiers from the Kinslayers’ army. Brutal killing machines now turned good, though their motivations aren’t always what it seems. Tchaikovsky does a fantastic job of crafting character whose motivations and actions aren’t black and white. Their backstories are engrossing and made me want a novella detailing their lives under the Kinslayer.
Unfortunately, Celestaine isn’t as compelling are her companions. She’s built up to be this badass warrior who defeated the Kinslayer, but she falls flat. She’s only ever the woman who defeated the Kinslayer and nothing else.

Tchaikovsky’s world is bleak and desolate after the war. The people of this world are confused, angry, and lost. They do not know how to recover as much has been lost because of the Kinslayer himself and the destruction of the war. Each leg of the quest, the main characters face people who have been left behind by the Kinslayer, religious fanatics, and criminals who are all trying to forge a new path for themselves.

The reason I rated the novel three stars instead of four was because I truly detested the way Tchaikovsky gave the reader world building information in a piecemeal fashion. It left me confused about the world most of the time until it was absolutely necessary that I have the information to understand the scene playing out. This is purely a personal preference of mine, so if you enjoy or do not mind this type of story telling, Redemption’s Blade will be a good fit for you.

Overall, Redemption’s Blade is an interesting enough fantasy story that includes compelling characters and an engaging world, if you have the patience to wait for the information.

TL;DR:

Redemption's Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a deep novel about characters navigating the aftermath of a decade-long war. It's dense, creative, and fun. Highly recommended.

Review

While stories can be solely for escape, they also ask and answer questions that are too ghastly to be explored in real life. Even though fiction asks many questions, it sticks to certain ones, and others are ignored. In Fantasy, the war to end the evil empire is common, but rarer are the stories that explore what happens in the aftermath. The war, once won, doesn't just disappear. It remains everywhere. The land, the people, all still bear the horrors of war. How does society recover? And when that conflict is years long, what lasting effects linger? Adrian Tchaikovsky sets his novel Redemption's Blade in the aftermath of a decade long fight against the evil emperor, who happens to be a demigod. In a land ravaged by war, a hero and three of the evil overlord's victims set out to correct one of the horrors of the war. In Redemption's Blade, Mr. Tchaikovsky explores a world emerging from the shadow of a magical, horrific war. Here he attempts to answer the question of what happens afterward.

Story

Mr. Tchaikovsky starts Redemption's Blade by dropping us right into the story. We follow Celestaine, hero of the war, one of the Slayer's of the evil emperor, and her not-so-merry band as they seek a way to restore one of the world's species to flight. The novel follows this band on their quest across the battle-scarred land. Quest is the best way to describe it as this reminded me of a video game. They travel around, ask questions, and fight bosses. Granted, that's a bit reductive, and surely others may/will see it differently. For me, the story wasn't the strong point of the novel. Their quest gave us a chance to see the world, to learn of its people, and to spend time with the amazing characters.

Redemption's Blade has me thinking about story as well. Mr. Tchaikovsky has set himself an interesting task. How does an author build tension in a world that is the denouement of a different story? One way is to introduce a new and bigger evil (see also: The First Order). The other is to make the stakes individual instead of concerning the entire world. Mr. Tchaikovsky chose the latter. But in a world that is chaos, where does the tension come from? It's the characters putting themselves in harm's way to achieve a goal bigger than themselves. The book does this, but due to the nature of fiction, the stakes never felt too high.

In the best ways, Redemption's Blade reminds me of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. It's dense, deep, and brutally imaginative. Doctors Catt and Fisher remind me of a mix of the pairs Tehol & Bugg and Bauchelain & Korbal Broach. Redemption's Blade features a lot of action and fights mixed with philosophical contemplation about the effects of war. The ideas are big here, but the entertainment balances well with the philosophy. Like The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Redemption's Blade drops us in media res and trusts the audience to pick up the clues as it goes. I enjoy this style of writing. It's work but worth it.

Characters

Celestaine, the main character, is a capital H, Hero. She helped kill the evil demigod. She killed a dragon. But she is a conflicted hero who starts the novel lacking a sense of purpose. Now that the big evil is dead, she feels she peaked. The life she knew during the war, the person she was, is gone, and while not exactly enjoying it, the life of a soldier was the one she knew. With the war over, how does Celestaine recapture that feeling of purpose, of being a hero? Or a better question, is she still a capital H, Hero? By healing the Aethani, a race of beings mutilated by the evil emperor, she found direction. She seeks to recapture her war-time status and with it a sense of who she is, of purpose. Celestaine's role is that of the soldier in peace. What contributions do the fighters make to rebuilding society?

Heno and Nedlam, two Yorughan, start off as brutish creations of the dark lord, but as the novel grows, Mr. Tchaikovsky fleshes them out as three-dimensional, complicated characters. Throughout Redemption's Blade their journey lets the author humanize the orc-like creatures. Actions that are horrible to the outsider are given reason. To me, the text doesn't judge their actions, maybe even crimes; it's up to the reader to decide on the moral value. While many are not ethical, their reasons are at least understandable. In this book, we get to see what scares the monsters, what drives them. Some of what they did during the war is without a doubt horrific, and we see what they think of their crimes. One of the best parts is how the people of the world react to these two. Even though months have passed, they were at one time the enemy, and now they travel with a Slayer. Are they still the enemy, or are they more? And, if more is the answer, can society see them as anything other than the enemy's monsters?

Identity

In Redemption's Blade, the characters live with the past. The war, though finished, remains with them, with the whole world. Because the characters swim in the currents of that conflict, questions of identity pop up in many interesting ways. What are Heno and Nedlam now that they're not the enemy? How does Celestaine recapture that feeling of belonging and importance that she felt in the war? Can Amkulyah recapture the former glory of the Aethani? These are all worthy questions, and one that soldiers deal with upon entering the civilian world after time in the service. Peacetime is a difficult transition for the soldier, and from my outsider viewpoint, Mr. Tchaikovsky succeeds in capturing this.

But the identities of the Guardians play a very interesting role in this story. The Guardians are demigods, which puts them above mortals but below gods. This privileged position played out in many ways during the war, and it's worth thinking about their stories. Persona versus personality is at play here. In Redemption's Blade, the character of the Undefeated exemplifies this theme. His name is the Undefeated, and yet during the war, he hid away from the fighting. (His refuge is quite funny.) He's built an image, even down to a name, that implies invincible, indomitable, but at the first challenge worthy of his name, he flees in terror. All the stories of him as the Undefeated are now called into question because his actions reveal his personality. And those actions weigh on him. The person he was during the war isn't the person he believes himself to be. This is a common thread for all the characters, and Mr. Tchaikovsky hit the nail square on the head here.

Consequences

Redemption's Blade takes place in a post-war setting in physical, inter-personal, and psychological ways. The land is scarred. The people are damaged. Society is barely holding on. It's excellent world-building. Various factions are doing their best to return to pre-war society, and without the evil overlord, the enemy's subjects are working to find their way. What I find interesting is that the book begins after the EPIC WAR has ended, it and the big bad hang over the whole story. While the Enemy might be dead at the hands of our main character, his presence is felt throughout. It stands in direct opposition to happily ever after. Just because the largest evil is gone, their problems aren't. Reconstruction is a complicated, messy process. Fantasy tends to eschew the aftermath of its main story. Redemption's Blade begins in the aftermath, and the opportunities for character development abound.

Conclusion

In Redemption's Blade, Adrian Tchaikovsky has created a character driven narrative set during societal reconstruction. It's dense, creative, fun, and looks at a part of war that Fantasy often ignores. While the overarching story isn't its strong suit, Redemption's Blade features wonderful characters, excellent world-building, and hope. Highly recommended.

8 out of 10!

Sometimes we forget why we do something. What we enjoyed about it. Our reasons for giving up large chunks of our leisure time to a fantasy world, an odyssey, a book series without a visible end in sight and many strange names and places to assimilate along the way. So forgive me this indulgent review of Redemption’s Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It isn’t a nuts and bolts analysis of the plot, world building and execution of words and sentences in any semblance of a formulaic review. It’s about why books – this book – make me nostalgic and fond in so many lovely ways, while at the same time praising a book that has a host of modern sensibilities about it.

I adore books like Redemption’s Blade. Love the motley crew of characters, painful, frustrating quests, banter, inappropriate hookups and gallows humour. All of which reminded me where it began. This first love of mine. It came before boys, if not horses. The Hobbit was the egg and The Belgariad its rather tasty yolk. Hollandaise was provided by by Robin Hobb and a nice buttery muffin from Brandon Sanderson rounds off my splendid literary breakfast. This new series is the crunchy smokey bacon that gives an extra piquancy to my morning. Perhaps I should have had something tastier than cornflakes and skimmed milk for breakfast today!

In particular it made me think of David Eddings The Belgariad (which I have waffled about here). There are several reasons for this – in the 1980s this was the first ever fantasy series I fell in love with. This too had a quest, an odd bunch of people rubbing along bickering and fighting and occasionally battling monsters while searching for a holy artefact. It had wonderful world building and a humorous, engaging voice.

Eddings drew me in, led me to await each new instalment with fanatical glee as I stalked Waterstones pleading for the next volume and learning the hard way that books don’t just pop up on the shelf – they have to be written first. And now, 20 years down the line (er, 25 plus if I’m honest), here I am clamouring again for the next volume in this epic journey which leaves me on a juicy plum of a new quest (yep, definitely needed a more substantial breakfast!). Redemption’s Blade ticks all my questing boxes.

Tchaikovsky’s smart prose had me snorting my tea at certain mental images that Redemption’s Blade induced. Including this one that children of the 80s will recognise with a certain shudder when describing General Thukrah. Thanks for that!

The book begins at an interesting point in time where we are looking at the aftermath of killing a would be king (in this case The Kinslayer). There is chaos in the void left behind. Of leadership, of severely traumatised nations, of what happens to ‘heroes’ after the war. What happens to the ‘bad guys’? Where they really inherently bad or where they forged by battle and by subjugation into something they were never truly meant to be? Which way will society go when the war to end all wars is done? Who do the spoils of war actually belong to? And that’s a very 21st century conundrum. Who feeds and shelters refugees when the killing is over but order and supplies not yet restored. Neatly summed up in this observation of a refugee community in a reasonably affluent country:

Be useful or be thrown out? Celestaine hoped her kin wouldn’t do any such thing, and likewise hoped that the value Forinthi would normally place on hard labour was being extended to these guests. Times were hard for everyone after the war, though. Hospitality might still be a rationed commodity.

Modern themes and concerns are woven with skill and a light touch throughout the book, giving pause for thought.

All this waffle and I haven’t yet touched on why I really liked this particular book, all nostalgia aside. Celestaine. The wielder of the blade, the seeker of redemption. She may have won the war but there’s a battle inside of her is that is still going strong. She could trade on her name, retire in comfort but that voice in the back of her head whispers of all the wrongs that need to become rights. And she seeks to play a small part in that process by helping the crippled Aethini regain their wings.

Cue a huge girl crush on Celestaine. She’s a Xena for the 21st century (or battle ravaged hinterlands) – deploying her skills for what she hopes will be the greater good while struggling morally to justify just the means that have to be used to achieve her goal. She’s funny, thoughtful, kick-ass. She sees the value in life even as she takes it. And she isn’t afraid to stick two fingers up to demi-gods.

This is the first novel by Tchaikovsky that I’ve read and it won’t be the last. He has a 10 book epic, Shadows of the Apt, that looks just like my kind of sandpit to play in. And I don’t even have to wait months (years) to get it! Instant gratification is sweet (like the ginger cake I may be imbibing at my desk. Um). I rather love the phrase ‘…babbling my brain‘ which describes me perfectly whenever I drink cider. Or Southern Comfort. But it’s still a little early for those beverages!

I owe huge thanks to Adrian Tchaikovsky, Rebellion Publishing & Solaris, and Netgalley for this ARC review copy of Redemption’s Blade. It was a super read and I am very much looking forward to see what the next volume of the After The War series brings us. Gimme more Celestaine! Please!!! After all this time I find that I’m still that impatient teenager waiting for the instant gratification of words and worlds and flawed heroes. And that’s just wonderful.

#RedemptionsBlade #NetGalley

This is a book that focuses on what comes after the big, world changing events that we so often see in fantasy books. I absolutely love this concept and thought it was so well done. The characters are quite well written, if a little flat, and I loved the diversity of the world. Throughout the 500 pages, we get to see a wide variety of races as well as reading about different areas of the world. Plot-wise this book is quite light and for me it lacked cohesion at times, but for the most part I found it to be an enjoyable read. Overall I enjoyed this book but I didn't love it. I would recommend checking it out though, as it is an enjoyable read with an interesting premise.

Good fantasy story with great characters

I enjoyed this book. The story was well paced and the world-building was excellent. There was good character development and good banter between the characters. However, the story lacked the edge of the seat thrill, that you would see in something like Steven Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law trilogy, or Django Wexler’s The Shadow Campaigns. Nonetheless, Adrian Tchaikovsky wrote a very good book that I recommend for fans of the genre. I look forward to other books in the series.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.

The war is over. The demigod Kinslayer has been defeated. His shattered army of monsters is left aimless, the land is in ruins, and slowly, tentatively, people are starting to rebuild.

And this, right here, is going to be a deal-breaker for some people. They want to see the moment the hero Celestaine infiltrated the Kinslayer's fortress, took her magic sword and ended him. They want to see the battles, the sieges, a pain-crazed dragon wading into the fray and destroying friend and foe alike, objects of power found and lost and used, they want to see the blood and the guts of it all.

That's not this book though. This is a what comes next kind of book. What do you do when the dark lord is gone but all the orcs (not that they're called orcs in the book but that's basically what they are) are left behind, what do you do when for years you were a hero, and you had a purpose, and you have brothers and sisters that stood at your shoulders and yes, maybe everything was awful but damn it you've never felt so alive, so what do you do when that's over?

This is the question facing Celestaine, the famous war-hero, the woman who killed the Kinslayer. She has her magic sword that can cut through literally anything (and low-key one of my favourite parts of this book was seeing all the inventive ways Celestaine uses her sword, and all the unique problems that comes with it), she has two not!orc companions who were once the Kinslayer's minions but have thrown their lots in with her, and she has a compulsive need to just do something good, to help, to have a purpose. She basically fixates on the most awful thing she thinks she can fix, in this case a race of flying people who, to a man, had their wings torn off by the Kinslayer, and she decides to find a way to give their wings back.

Pared down to its simplest parts this book is basically just a hunt for a magical McGuffin, a magic crown with enough power to regrow an entire race's wings. It's almost episodic, the way the party travels to a place, overcomes and obstacle, finds a clue and heads to the next place. But the characters are so wonderful that it would be a book about Celestaine popping down to the shops for some milk and I'd still be slamming the five-star button hard enough to break my keyboard. Celestaine is great, I really loved watching her try not to be cynical but never quite managing it, but this is Adrian Tchaikovsky and if there's one thing this man can do, it's non-human characters.

Nedlum and Heno, Celastaine's not!orc companions, are amazing. Nedlum is this cheerful, easy-going warrior and Heno is a too-smart, too sarcastic, too-inscrutable mage. And Kul, a member of the once-winged now wingless race Celastaine is trying to help, is great too. A really interesting mix of innocence and putting arrows through eye-sockets. They encounter a lot of other non-human races on their journey too (yes, including spider-people, would hardly be a Tchaikovsky book without some manner of spider-thing) and it never ceased being fascinating. And I haven't even touched and Dr Catt and his friend Fisher who are also after the crown, and are the closest thing to Malazan's Tehol and Bugg since Tehol and Bugg.

I get why it doesn't work for some, but I just love books where the pages are heavy with backstory. Like in Richard K. Morgans The Steel Remains, or the whole Robert's Rebellion in ASoIaF; where the momentous things are in the past and all we get are snatches of epic events. This book might be the best example of this that I've encountered yet. This book poses some heavy questions but is never weighed down by them, and there are enough genuine surprises that I've left entire characters out of this book for fear of spoilers, which is also why I've barely mentioned the romance.

This book showcases Tchaikovsky's deft hand when it comes to exploring heavy issues while keeping things fun. It opens with Celestaine hitting up a bar built inside the cavernous statue of a dragon she herself slayed, for crying out loud. It also made me cry.

Plus, that ending. Wow.

I was hoping to read something by this author from some time, now. I heard good things about his books and he writes fantasy, not only them but most of his books are of this genre, so, obviously I wanted to try them! And when I saw this title on NetGalley I had to request it. I know that I said that I would have tried to not add new requests, but come on! I’m justified, right?
Anyway… I requested it and they approved me! I was so so glad! And so I had to go and start it as soon as possible, and now here I am with the review! I’m doing a little happy dance right now!

I didn’t know what to expect from this book, to be honest, but I was expecting something nonetheless, because of what I read around about the author. Well, let me tell you that this book exceeded my expectations! And it wasn’t just for the characters, even if we have a good cast of them, mixed and original and well developed, and it wasn’t either for the world-building, even if it’s full of new species and cultures and things, and it wasn’t for the story, even if it’s fast-paced and interesting. All these things were great, mind me, but I loved this book for its ideas.

What happened when the bad guy is defeated and the good guy won the day?

This is the starting point of the story, and we see a world that has won the war and now it has the peace all wanted so much, a world that has defied his enemies, yes, but it paid a dire cost to do so.
The alliances formed during the war are a tenuous thing and mistrust and greed are everywhere, now that cohesion is not needed anymore. The economy is at waste, the war took her toll in lives, in destruction to the cities, with all the things that this destruction implies: the destruction of buildings, yes, but also a stop to the commerce and to the production of goods. The cities are devasted and need rebuilding. Societies (all the different races, kingdoms and empires, religions and so on, so on…) now have to deal with the past and choose what would they do with their present. It’s not just about building, but about people, too. They need a new identity, and it’s not just the identity of the single person, but the identity of all the societies, small or big. Every city, state, empire, every race, every religion. Everything now needs to choose his present and his future.
To be honest, this book could have been a sociological fantasy essay, for his deepness while speaking about all this.
And I loved the way in which we can see the different cities and groups of people deal with a new, painful, reality because even if the war is won it’s not done.

And what happened to the heroes, once they kill the bad guy?

This is another of the important questions that we can find between those pages. More often than not, books end when the good win over the evil, and more or less, we have a happy ending for everyone (not always, that’s true, but you get what I am meaning, right?). We don’t see how the cities rebuild themselves, how the people adapt to the new life and we don’t see what is of the heroes once they’re not needed anymore.
Celestaine, the MC, is a hero, albeit reluctantly. She was part of the group who killed the Kinslayer (yep, the bad guy) and everyone acclaimed her as a hero, with songs and ballads for her feats. But she thinks herself a fraud, not a hero. For every battle won there was one lost. For every life she saved there was someone that she left behind or that she killed. Even if the world saw her as a paladin, she doesn’t think so well of herself. And she tries to atone, starting a new adventure to try and bring back the light to this world where shadows and darkness are everywhere. To try and do something good and to, at least, see herself as a real hero.
But now the people don’t know what to do with her, she’s not needed anymore. The authorities watch her with suspect and don’t want her around. We have the quest to find a new purpose, a new identity and to be, at last, satisfied with ourselves.

And what happened to the minions and to the loyalist of the bad guy? And to the race that he created during the war?

This is another question that we don’t find often in the books. But it’s a really interesting one! And in this book is central to the story. We see how people treat the others, the former enemies. And that’s what really shows us as not all in the world is always black or white, but that in the end the life it’s all made of greys, and we have a ton of different greys.

This is what really made the difference for me. All these questions, all these considerations made the reading a great one!
I’ve said before that the world-building is good. The author creates a lot of different species for his book, and they all are original and well done. We have a lot of fantastic creatures who live there, and all of them fascinated me. They are all tragic, the lot of them, but there is hope, at least for almost all of them, and that’s what matters in the end. I really can’t say that this author is unoriginal!
And then we have the characters. We have Celestaine, Heno and Nem, two Yorughan (and that’s a great thing because Yorughans were the most feared and hated during the war, because they were the attacking force, the most brutal and vicious on the battlefield. So they really were “the enemy”.) and yet Celestaine brings them along, trying to do the right thing, always. And then we have Ralas, the bard, Catt and Fisher, and this pair is really fantastic, and Kul, a prince of one of the races that suffered more during the war. This last one is the one who I liked less. It’s not a bad character, but he’s the less developed, and I’d liked to see something more about him. I didn’t click with him.
And I liked the writing, too, with a humor which makes the reading all more pleasant.

A unforgettable story very intense and engaging, loved rescue it and will be looking to read the other books by this writer!

Adrian Tchaikovsky continues to go from strength to strength. Considering its epic fantasy nature, this is a hugely introspective novel, reflecting on what comes after the end of the world battle, where heroes rise and evil is vanquished. Bleak and beautiful, the author gives us a portrait of a world forever altered by war - parts of it are still burning, entire races have been twisted and altered. It's an incredibly brave and unflinching portrayal. Into this world comes Celestaine, one time inadvertent destroyer, herself forever altered and broken in the aftermath, she seeks a reason for continuing to be. At it's heart this book is about questioning and the rocky road to healing. It is utterly spell binding. Highly recommend.

A high altitude free fall into a world of events so far past the present that you are literally left behind before you have even landed.

Deploy that parachute and crash land Terra Nova without a map, without any point of reference.

A whole trilogy has occurred and all we have is now, the calamitous leftovers.

Redemption's Blade is like Sandra Bullock arriving on the scene of Speed after the bus exploded, like John McClane entering the Nakatomi high-rise days after Christmas. Sarah Connor is dead and although Skynet didn't take over the world, it may as well have.

Who cares about redemption when all we have left are the remnants?

Don't get me wrong, Adrian Tchaikovsky is an amazing writer. Sci-fi is his true stomping ground, fantasy not so much. I will read almost anything written by Tchaikovsky, even his shopping list, but regrettably Redemption's Blade is not his best work... by far.