I've absolutely adored everything in this book! I've grown so attached to the characters and the world they were immersed into. It's so easy to sink into the universe thanks to the cultural cues and anime elements. I'm gonna recommand it to everyone!

[this review will be up on my blog, acquadimore.wordpress.com, on October 19th, 2019]

Unfortunately, me and this book didn’t get along at all, for various reasons, the main ones being my dislike of the writing and the humor, which I found more cringe-y than funny.

I didn’t expect to dislike the writing, since I didn’t remember having a problem with it during Krueger's Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge, but here I found it awkward and with a tendency to state the obvious (the kind of thing that I might notice mostly by chance and then can’t unsee for the rest of the novel), and… this might sound weird, but I’ve never disliked the descriptions in a book so much. It got to the point that I hoped the author would stop describing things.

Nothing felt grounded. For the first eighty pages or so, there was very little sense of setting, and I had only a vague idea of how the characters’ surroundings were like. But the descriptions we actually got were worse, so that most of my feelings about this book ended up being puzzlement about its choices in aesthetics and character design. I mean, how do you make vaguely Pokémon-like animal companions ugly? By making them exactly like normal animals, just upsettingly oversized! If it had been only that, I wouldn’t have paid attention to it, but every single description seemed to go out of its way to make everything as ugly as possible. I don’t think that the book was even trying to be unsettling (with one main exception) – it wasn’t creepy, just deeply aesthetically unpleasant. Why?

I did end up seeing a little of potential in Lee and Xiulan’s storyline, and I always get sad when I don’t like an f/f book, but they weren’t worth the slog that were Tala and Jimuro’s chapters.

A band of rogues and royals is basically everything I want in a book, to be perfectly honest, add in a lovely queer romance angle and you've got me hooked.

OH AND THERE IS A DOG. 

Are you getting the vibe that I'm excited about this book? But a little scattered? Yeah.

Xiulan and Lee's storyline(s) was absolutely my favourite (Judith goes for the Gay storyline...who'd've thunk?). In all seriousness, the detective and the criminal is a pairing that just works, and in this context, it works without feeling gimmicky or overdone. 

That's not to say Tala and Jimuro aren't interesting. I get a little tired of the 'rich boy learns that his way of life is not representative of everyone' line but it's not too prevalent in this story. 

But the dog. 

Ok, so, the way things work is that people can have a magical animal companion by bonding with a dying animal (or killing an animal but I don't want to think about that) so some of the characters in this story have shades they can call on and ONE OF THEM IS A DOG! I love having a happy dog in a story and even though this dog starts off quite sad I am adding this book to my 'books I can recommend to dog lovers' list. 

There is also an openly trans character who I thought was handled very well. By which I mean the book told you he was trans and then let him get on with being a human being in a story. I kept waiting for the book to screw up, for their to be a 'tear the bindings off' terrible cringe moment but (if I recall correctly) it didn't come. I'll be very interested to see how trans readers recieve this book!

So yes, really good magic (and competing magic systems which is almost always amazing and is definitely used to great effect within this book), a dog, QUEER, do I need to sell this any further?

Oh, you need a plot? Ok, I will say that the plot hasn't really stayed with me having read this book. It's one of those stories where the impression of the world and the characters has stuck and everything else has merged with all the other fantasy rushing around my head. I do remember it being fast-paced and that I appreciated how the different storylines and tension points came together. 

This is most assuredly a book I will be re-reading in the near future (if I have time). It has the makings of a new favourite for me and I can't wait for more of you to have read it so we can all talk about it!

My rating: 4/5 stars

I received a free digital advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own. 

Steel Crow Saga is available now!

To be honest I'm still reading but I'm enjoying it so much that I wanted to share my impression so far.
It's an amazing Asian themed fantasy that swept me away since the first pages and it's keeping me hooked making me turn pages as fast as I can.
I love the complex world building that mixes political and magical elements, the humor and the amazing cast of characters.
A more extended review will follow.
It's strongly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Steel Crow Saga is like Avatar: Legend of Korra collided with Pokemon, and the combination is ridiculously enjoyable. It’s gloriously funny and gloriously, straightforwardly queer. In the wrong hands this book could have lacked sincerity and that deep humanness that sustains the narrative – luckily, Krueger has a clear and distinctive voice that shines through and keeps his characters in the centre of the narrative, and keeps a balance of seriousness and wry humour.

This novel stars four characters all caught in a twisted political net of post-war conflict, spy-work and negotiation. Three of the nations, Shang, Sanbuna and Dahal, have finally defeated their coloniser, Tomoda. Tala, a soldier of Sanbuna, has been tasked with escorting the captured Jimuro, Prince of Tomoda, back to his country to take the empty throne and begin the proceedings to cement the tentative peace between the nations. Xiulan, a Princess of Shang, and Lee, a citizen of Jeongson, are investigators hunting down Jimuro before Tala can deliver him back to Tomoda, so that Xiulan can use him to convince her father to name her heir to the throne. And also – there’s murderous necromancer on the loose.

At around 600 pages, there’s a lot going on! The political complexities are deftly painted and joyfully explored, and Krueger clearly has great fun building up these fascinating nations – not just in their histories, cultures and characters, but in their unique magics and sartorial pizzazz. At one point we have the princess of Shang lounging on a throne in a suit and trilby, smoking a pipe – and reader, I was shooketh. From characters to aesthetics to world-building, this book is so much fun.

I know I mentioned the queer characters, but we have bi characters, gay characters, trans characters – and it’s not even something to remark on, there isn’t a history of oppression built into the world of Steel Crow Saga, as we find with many fantasy novels – as if that’s just how it is, as if angst, queerness and oppression are an unshakeable triumvirate. It’s so great to finally have a fantasy novel that throws those tired conventions out the window and lets us have fun with the characters and their romances, that has kings married to men and trans swordsmen and lesbian princesses and bi emperors – yes, finally.

So we have a world in which people can pact with spirits of the dead – animal and human – and summon them like Pokemon, but in a sincere way (and I’m serious), using them not just to fight battles but cherishing them as partners with their own wants and voices. We have a world in which people can manipulate metal, can catch swords and guide bullets. And we have a world in which all these people are people of colour, and most of them are queer – and they’re all funny, and sarcastic, and sweet, and doing their best to set aside old enmity and move forward into a bright and empathetic future.

My advice? Buy this book now! It’s the tonic for the soul you never expected to receive. Drink it down.

Unfortunately the formatting of this ARC meant I struggled a bit with this and it made it hard to enjoy, I’m sure others will enjoy but seemed overdrawn, too complex at times and I couldn’t remain interested
Sorry due to this it isn’t for me at this time
I’m sure others will enjoy this

This was an enthralling and mesmerizing debut. Paul Kruger managed to put a high stake and a different level of world-building in this story. Steel Crow Saga was set to an Asian inspired world where empires fight for freedom and seclusion to the oppression of the stronger empire.

The story was told by four POVs which made this story astounding and concrete in every way. The characters are so interesting and each background was well-written and well-plotted.

Every character's story was well-intertwined and well-concise to the very goal of the story. Xiulan, a princess who wants justice to her people, Lee, a thief who experienced mistrust with people, Tala, a soldier who wants revenge, and Jimuro, a king to be who needs to prove that he is a better ruler.

The magic system was to die for. There types of pact which are very interesting. But the story only tackled two types of pact, the metalpacters, and the shadepacting. Metalpacters con conjure metals while shadepacting can conjure animals as a companion, and help during battles. This animals get stronger while use during battles.

Steel Crow Saga was a phenomenal fantasy. A great read!

This book was such a nice surprise actually. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did.
There were 4 perspectives and they were really different from each other. When there are multiple perspectives as many as this, I always approach with caution as most writers can't pull it off. But, this is a good example that it worked.
I really enjoyed the magic world, the animals inclusion, which warmed my heart.
There's a lot of queer representation and fun story.

So, definitely a good one.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Not to alarm you or anything, but this book is one of the best I've read this year and you should all read it because god damn wow. We got four main characters, and they all are awesome and the best thing is how different they all are from each other. They all have different perspectives on the world they live in and its people and you could see the distinction in the writing, and sometimes it really clashed (especially at the beginning) when you'd go from one perspective to the complete opposite the next chapter but each character has its own voice and that's what makes it so great.

Another amazing thing? It's Asian inspired and most of the characters are queer, bless my happy heart. And the magic of this world? You got animal companions you can summons and people who can work steel with their mind and it's all amazing.

Read this book for the worldbuilding. And the characters. And the relationships between them. Read this book for its incredible story.

You want action? This book has that. You want magical animal companions? This book has that. You want colourful characters that compliment and clash against each other? You guessed it, this book has that.

Much has been made about just how “anime” Steel Crow Saga is, and honestly, I can’t really dispute that claim. I’m not much of an anime fan myself (beyond enjoying Fullmetal Alchemist) but I am a fan of how Paul Krueger manages to pull from those influences to create an engaging and exciting story that stands apart from the books I’ve read before.

I love books that are unashamedly themselves. Those that celebrate their tropes and revel in them. So while I did admittedly find some of the dialogue to be a little cheesy, or some of the character’s reactions to be a little melodramatic at times, I didn’t really mind. Steel Crow Saga is proud of what it is, and what it is… is really fun.

And not “fun” in that damning-with-faint-praise kind of way. I mean this book is a riot. The characters are vibrant and full of personality and pain and longing. The world is modern, but imbued with a sense of magic and complexity that keeps you reading just on the off-chance that you might learn more about it. Steel Crow Saga may be fun, but that doesn’t mean that it’s simple. It goes into a pretty in-depth exploration of the effects of colonialism on people adjacent to it, for one thing.

And this, of course, ties into the characters. The blurb copied above does a great job of introducing them, but I want to comment on just how much I enjoyed how the history of the world, and each character’s individual background, ties into their worldviews. From the prince that doesn’t want to be a slave to his people’s colonialist past, to the impoverished thief trying to get over her innate distrust of her oppressors, to someone simply wanting to stand up for themselves against their family.

Krueger is wonderful at crafting these characters that are deserving of sympathy. You want to see them succeed, all of them.

But the catch there is that, a lot of the time, these characters are on opposite sides.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a big bad. But the complexities of the world mean that it isn’t as simple as just teaming up to fight a Pokemon battle against Team Rocket. There are politics and feelings and all sorts of other stuff in the way.

I love it when a world is that complex. But what I really loved about Steel Crow Saga is that it achieved that complexity without sacrificing its sense of wonder. The magic here feels magic. Whether that comes in the form of someone who can shape metal, or someone who can summon a giant animal to fight for them.

Steel Crow Saga is a book that will appeal to a lot of people. There are lots of high-action scenes, plenty of heart-to-heart moments between characters, and a whole lot of magic. There is so much more to this book than I’ve touched on, but honestly it’s a book best experienced for yourself. If you’re strongly opposed to a little bit of cheesiness, I’d maybe look elsewhere. But if you aren’t, and if anything else I’ve said sounds up your alley, I really think you’ll enjoy this one.

This is quite honestly one of those fantasy books that I have been waiting on for a while. A world that has non-white characters, magical powers and a whole bunch of LGBTQ+. While I have seen this book be shelved as YA I think it is Adult as that is where I found this book on Netgalley.

Steel Crow Saga deals with the aftereffects of a war between four different nations (plus one country that is occupied). Jimuro’s empire has been brought down after conquering others, but he has been allowed to return to his country to rebuild it and restore some balance in the world. Not everyone of the nations agrees with this. It creates in interesting dynamic between all the characters that play a role here.

The writing is very straightforward and easy to settle in and it helps to get familiar with this world. We do it through the characters as they get to know each other. I would have liked to have seen more of Lee’s heritage but I hope that we will see more of that in the next books. Food and eating also played an important part to show the differences in culture and how things were approached. Two countries take on animals as soul companions (and who fight with them) while another country sees this as slavery and who also don’t eat meat. Or little things one does before having a drink. All these little details were very interesting.

I will say that I think for the amount of pages we could have gotten more history and background to really feel the war and various difficulties between the countries. While I clearly felt that with Shang and Jeongnese (who Shang occupy), I did not always get that with the other countries.

Another point is the pacing. We follow four characters in two duo’s and we get all their point of views. Sometimes a next chapter would go back in time of a few hours but I didn’t feel we got that much of a great extra information from it that could not have come from a short flashback in another chapter. It became repetitive at times. Especially the second half lagged because of it. The story could have been a lot tighter as a whole with about a 100 pages shaved off I’d say.

Having said that, I really enjoyed the characters. Especially Lee and Jimuro gave some much needed laughs and heart, where Tala was our resident grump with her heart in the right place with our prominent princess Xiulan giving us some womp. It was easy to root for them all.

Adding on to that, all characters are non-white (world is Asian-Inspired) and there was lgbtq+ rep. Two bisexual main characters, 1 gay main character, 1 gay side character and a trans man.

All in all Steel Crow Saga is a book I will happily recommend to you all and I am very curious to read the next installment.

Okay it's not bad but it's gotten extremely boring and I can't read any further. The starts great and all and I'm sure loads of you will enjoy it.
Maybe I'd try it some other time.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I loved the characters, the setting, the shade animals and the food descriptions. I was sucked into the story from page one and had a great time reading it.

However, my only gripe is that this was far too long. There were numerous times where I felt the story could have been trimmed down, scenes taken out, chapters shortened etc because they either didn't add anything to the story or it was far too drawn out.

Having said that, I'm definitely interested in reading more from this series.

3.5 stars

This book really took me by surprise in many ways and so I'm sad to only give it a 3.5 star review. I'm going to break it down into the good and bad points.
Good:
- The main four characters were fantastic and I really became attached to them. Theu were all very different and had unique quirks which made me love them even more.
- The world building was really good. This is a great fantasy book and although it has Jay Kristoff-esque shadow animals, they are completely different in use and background. The ideas were new and it didnt fit the generic fantasy set ups that most fall into nowadays.
- The fact that the characters were all from different sections of LGBTQ and yet there was never ANY judgement or so much as a blink at a woman being gay or a trans male. It was refreshing to read.
- The storyline was interesting and with many unexpected moments. It was a real journey which I loved.

Bad:
- This book is WAY too long. It is 528 pages and I believe at least 150 of those could have been taken out and it would have been a better book. It really ahould have been edited down as some scenes added nothing to the overall story.
- It is slow paced. The author obviously loves detail and long dialogue which some people may love but I needed it to be a little more fast paced to keep the story gripping. Sadly despite loving the storyline, qorld and characters, I found myself a little bored at times.

I will struggle with whether I continue the series or not. For the characters sake, I probably will.

Please note that this e-book was gifted in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, Orion Publishing, and Netgalley for a copy of Steel Crow Saga.
This is a fantasy novel with a great story with great characters. Others have said that is like Pokémon. Set in China it was similar. But I thought it was far too long and exaggerated that left me wanted wondering when it is going to end. Sorry not for me

This book was awesome! An Asian fantasy set in an alt-1920s (50s?), Kreuger has written a satisfyingly twisty plot with very engaging characters. I especially liked how, true to the book's setting in the aftermath of war, there was no 'true' villain. Everyone had coherent reasons for doing what they did, and they all had their own array of prejudices and presumptions that made them believable. The different magic systems were also incredibly interesting and well-used, and I really enjoyed how, in Princess Xiulan and Prince Jimuro, we were treated to two very different types of *utter nerd*.

I would reccommend this book to anyone who's enjoyed the work of Leigh Bardugo, Aliette de Bodard, or RF Kuang, or whoever watched The Legend of Korra and hoped for a more scoundrelly protagonist.

After a bit of a slow start the story really flows quickly and kept me interested throughout. Near the end I was on the edge of my seat and I feared for the characters in a few parts which is always a great way to keep me invested. I was a bit confused in the beginning because of all the countries and races mentioned and who had invaded who at what time. There was a lot of history between them to get to grips with. The magic system was really cool, I'd love to be able to pact with an animal! The relationships between them are so close and endearing to read about. The steelpacting was a bit confusing since it wasn't described in quite the same detail as shadepacting.
My favourite characters had to be Jimuro and Tala which I was a bit surprised about since I thought it would be Lee and Xiulan. I enjoyed their storyline more, it was more action packed and I enjoyed their relationship building slowly. Jimuro grew from a bit of a brat to a darling cinnamon roll, I mean mature young man. Tala and her relationship with Dimangan was heart breaking. I enjoyed how Tala took a lot of beatings and just never gave up and kept doing what she felt was her duty to her country.
I found that the relationship between Lee and Xiulan developed a bit too quickly considering they had only just met and Lee's distrust of pretty much everyone. It was sweet though, some of their banter was very amusing especially when Lee made fun of Xiulan's long winded way of speaking.
There was so much LGBTQ+ rep as well, we had a trans-man side character, lesbian and bi characters main characters.
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a standalone or first in a series, the end left a few things unanswered I think, so I'm hoping series.

This is probably the best book I have read this year. Yes, I’ve read over 200 at this point, yes, I’ve read some excellent books (mostly sequels), but this book. This book. I knew from the first few pages that this was going to be a 5-star read, it’s that good.

Steel Crow Saga is set in the aftermath of a revolution. The combined forces of Shang, Sanbuna and Dahal have fought and defeated their coloniser, Tomoda. But now they have to make this fragile peace permanent. For the past three years, the now sole remaining heir to the Empire, Jimuro, has been imprisoned by Sanbuna, but he is now the hope for peace. So, Tala is tasked with escorting him to Tomoda. Meanwhile, Lee and Xiulan, two investigators, are on Jimuro’s trail, themselves hoping to bring him in and gain the Shang Emperor’s respect.

First and foremost, the best thing about this book is the characters and their development. The four major characters are: Lee, a thief who’s learnt only to look out for herself; Xiulan, a Shang Princess looking to prove herself; Tala, the warrior tasked with protecting her greatest enemy; and Jimuro, the next ruler of Tomoda whose life rests solely in the hands of those who despise him most. So already we’re set up with some fascinating and flawed characters. Recently, I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of books where the characters can be summed up in a single word. Not so here. They’re wonderfully fully fleshed-out, you could be right there with them they feel so realistic. And they get some excellent character development. Especially Jimuro. Gotta cop to never having seen Avatar: The Last Airbender here, but I’ve picked up enough about it to know that Jimuro gets a Zuko-esque redemption arc. Not some cop-out where he has a single heroic deed and is thus forgiven, but an arc where he works towards changing himself and his country. And the other three mains get similarly amazing development as well.

Secondly, the worldbuilding is just epic. If you liked the kind of worldbuilding that Jade City and The Poppy War presented you with, fantasy allegories for real-life countries and events, then this book will be right up your alley. If you like the kind of steampunk fantasy that Fullmetal Alchemist gives you, again, this book is for you. If you want a magic system that’s something like if you crossed FMA with Pokémon (go with it), then this book is most definitely for you. And if you’ve never seen or read any of those, or didn’t particularly like them, read the book anyway. Trust me you won’t regret it. It’s a book that’s been getting a lot of comparisons to anime, and that’s exactly right (also, it would make the most epic anime, but I digress).

I feel like I’ve rambled on a lot here, but there’s no easy way to express how much I love this book. It’s 600+ pages and I read the bulk of it in a couple of hours because I just couldn’t put it down. I had to force myself to go to bed instead of just finishing it like I wanted to. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that about a book (probably a couple of months back, if we’re honest), but this book was one of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had. Truly.

Which means, you should absolutely go and preorder this, and then wait impatiently for September to come.