The Tower of Living and Dying

I loved The Court of Broken Knives when I read it a few weeks ago; and The Tower of Living and Dying answered to my every wishes, being the perfect second instalment in the Empire of Dust series.
Anna Smith Spark's writing style is as unique as ever, and I can understand if some people have hard times diving into it: short sentences, repetition of words, blurr descriptions during battles (and I sometimes found myself lost into it, though I guess it's the author's will to get us as lost as the characters).
This book starts where the last one left us; we find the same main POVs -Marith, Thalia and Orhan-, and new dangers and plots are introduced in this new book. Marith is as detestable as ever, but I cannot manage myself to hate him: even if, in his folly, he wishes to kill everyone, he feels remorse and regrets afterwards. He's an intriguing character, and has been since Book I; we discover a new facet of his character, the conqueror and king. He leads his armies through his enemies' lands, and leaves behind him a path of death and pain. Fortunately, we also had the chance to get more about Thalia, and I've been dying to get more POV from her since the first book! She's getting stronger, and seems to gain a more important role in the story. Besides in Sorlost, Orhan is facing other dangers spreading as a fever in the different quarters of the city.
The Tower of Living and Dying is a great sequel, and has been my favourite so far, with all its surprises and plot twists. This book will get your attention, I can guarantee you that. I cannot wait for its next instalment, where I feel a great battle is coming.

Compared to the badlands, blood and filth with which the first <i>Empires of Dust</i> novel opened, the early chapters here sometimes seem unnervingly close to an idyll, with Marith and Thalia riding through the woods by a river, enjoying the trees and the wildlife and the light...until it all comes crashing back that she's the rogue priestess of a murderous faith, and he's the heir to a ruler who once set the world aflame, and a quiet country life is never likely to be their lot. And now he's seemingly channeling that ancestor's charisma, but also his destructiveness, and a lot of people aren't entirely sure why they're following him, but they are, her included. Under which, she still keeps getting the temptation to leave and/or kill him, and she's not the only one...but will any of them actually go through with it, and would it work even if they did? There's a real feel and fascination here for the part that sheer momentum plays in great events, the awkward moment - or period - of pivot in which the usurper becomes the rightful king, the king becomes a hated tyrant, the movement for reform becomes the establishment and then the despised old guard, and people - even the people at the heart of it all - are left scrabbling to adapt to the new dispensation. Which, this being fantasy, is also made manifest in flawed and very human figures, people other characters know they've seen broken and dirty and faltering, who are also in some equally real sense something more (or maybe less, but certainly other) than human. There's also a lot of brutal violence, for sure, not to mention filth and plague and worse. But on the whole it feels a more meditative, less hectic read than <i>Court of Broken Knives</i> - a book which already outraged some fantasy fans in its deployment of literary devices such as deliberate repetition. And such readers aren't going to be won round here, but for those of us lucky enough to be able to handle emotional crises, epizeuxis *and* swordfights, it's golden. Though it may help that I got to read a fair chunk of it against the backdrop of London's own Tower of living and dying (Hell, two of them if you take the Shard as an embodiment of late-stage capitalism and its sins) and a particularly evocative big sky.

(Netgalley ARC)

Anna Smith-Spark takes everything I loved from Court of Broken Knives and ramps it up in The Tower of Living and Dying. That’s not to say that this is faster paced. In fact in some ways this moves at a more measured tread and the overall story arc is smaller in scope. All I can say is that it really works for this book which was even better than the first one. If, like me, you are someone who savours prose then you are going to love this. Seriously, my lexical synesthesia was throwing a wild abandoned party over this one. If there is such a thing as lyrical even literary Grimdark, this is it. I imagine you’ll find this harder going if you don’t have my predilection for gorgeous prose but prefer SFF authors to be mostly invisible while they tell the story, you’ll probably have more trouble with this. I loved it and I’m hungry for more. Possibly one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read this year.

https://lynns-books.com/2018/08/09/the-tower-of-living-and-dying-empires-of-dust-2-by-anna-smith-spark/
Having just finished The Tower of Living and Dying by Anna Smith Spark I can say with absolute confidence that not only was this a fantastic sequel to an impressive debut but it’s a definite contender for one of my best reads of the year so far. While the Court of Broken Knives delivered an unexpected novel in terms of the author’s own unique brand of writing, the Tower of Living and Dying cemented for me the love for that particular style. If the final episode delivers a worthy conclusion to the Empires of Dust then I truly believe this series could become a modern classic. Seriously, if you love to read fantasy, and in particular grimdark fantasy, then you really need to read these books – I insist. Please, even.

Before I go further, first things first. You will need to read book one in the series. My review is here. Also, it is possible, although I do try to avoid them, that some spoilers may be lurking here for the first book. You’ve been warned.

So, I’m literally sat, staring into the abyss (aka computer screen), just trying to figure out what to tell you. I do find that sometimes the books I love are the most difficult to review.

Okay. The writing first and foremost. It’s different than anything I’ve experienced before and I admit that in the first book, for the first few chapters, I found it a little difficult to get along with. Probably because it’s so unlike anything that I’ve read before. There’s a simplicity here, a curtailing of long sentences combined with an alchemy of words that makes this a beautifully told story. The imagery is just startling and sometimes breathtaking. I wish that I’d slowed my own reading pace and thought to make more notes so that I could share some quotes but as with all my favourite books I was gripped in a reading fervour and all rational or sensible thoughts were dashed on the altar of good intentions. There’s something about the writing that feels almost like a stream of consciousness or almost like a person babbling excitedly and there’s something infectious about it that simply draws you in, it’s just packed with emotion. And, it’s like a gingerbread house, it will tempt you in with the promise of sweets and cake and once you’ve entered inside the trap is sprung and the honeyed words will belie the bloodshed and war that you find yourself reading about.

The characters. Well, the four main characters from the first book are all still present. They’re a little bit more weary which isn’t a surprise given the amount of death and destruction they’ve seen but they all have a purpose. What I loved about these characters this time is they’re all so conflicted. Marith is in serious danger of losing himself completely. His relationship with Thalia is the only thing that keeps his inner demons from completely dominating. He kills and destroys wantonly but then frets enough to seek the bottom of a bottle or worse. Thalia, well she feels like a ray of light, a little spot of hope and yet at the same time she is also twisted with doubt and not a little bit of guilt. She knows Marith and sees what he is capable of, she feels like he must be stopped, but at the same time he’s shown her a different life to the one she expected. The other two characters are no less riddled by doubts and uncertainties.

In terms of the world building. We certainly see a lot more of the world in this instalment. A lot of it is of course in the throes of destruction as Marith marches relentlessly forward with his army but nonetheless this area of the story felt much stronger. This is a ruthless and unforgiving world in which to live but if Marith succeeds in dominating it the consequences don’t bear thinking about. God like creatures roam the land and soaring dragons rule the skies. A world of magic and myth.

I’m not really going to discuss the plot because I don’t want to give anything away. I will say that these four storylines all develop into tantalising threads – all highly readable in their own rights and all bursting with the expectation of so much more yet to come.

But, a word of caution, make no mistake about it this book is grim and bloody and if that doesn’t work for you then no amount of poetic prose will glamour what’s really taking place here. For me Anna Smith Spark has truly earned her ‘queen of grimdark’ title. She’s unflinchingly brutal, has a unique style of writing that is cunningly succinct and disturbingly on point and she’s definitely one to keep an eye on. I’d like to say that here is an author writing at the top of her game and yet as this is only her second novel that feels a bit premature because surely she has much more promise yet to deliver and I can’t wait to read more.

Write. Write. Write, I beg you.

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

The Court of Broken Knives was a book I very much enjoyed when I picked it up earlier this year. Yes, there were a few issues, for me, that needed ironed out but it was an excellent debut fantasy novel. It was dark, gritty and full of interesting characters that I enjoyed getting to know.

The novel moves at a much slower pace than The Court of Broken Knives but there is a constant undercurrent of tension that slowly ramps up over the course of the book and you don’t even realise it is there until you’re sitting on the edge of your seat, letting out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and thinking “what the hell is going to happen next?”

What I loved about The Court of Broken Knives was how beautifully it was written and The Tower of Living and Dying is just as good. Anna Smith Spark is a fantastic writer and her descriptions are second to none. Even in the midst of battle where blood and guts are flying everywhere, the prose is stunning to read. It flows perfectly and almost poetically. It is something quite unique.

“[…]he wanted to kill Marith because Marith was rich and beautiful and brilliant and a total evil poison shit.”

This is probably the best description of Marith. He is brilliant and beautiful but he also has an incredibly dark streak that makes you think “Jesus, that’s going a bit too far.” He is by far the most interesting character. Yes, he does some despicable things, his moral compass seems to be so off it’s in another universe and he does kill people in a variety of unique and disgusting ways but then afterwards he is filled with a level of remorse which stops him from becoming one dimensional and it makes you want to read about him. I am drawn to him despite the horrible things he does and his drug addiction only makes him more interesting as a character.
Orhan’s story went in a way that I wasn’t expecting. Sorlost, the jewel in the Empire’s crown, really goes through hell in this novel and Orhan’s downfall throughout the course of the novel seems to mirror that. It is very interesting to see the transformation of both the character of Orhan and of Sorlost from the beginning of the novel to the end and I am very interested to find out what is going to happen next. I didn’t feel the same kind of disappointment at the end of his story in this book that I did in The Court of Broken Knives. This ending seems like a natural one rather than the abrupt one of the first novel.

Tobias, bless him, gets all the best lines. There is a wonderful level of dark humour in Tobias and that quite often gives a moment of levity when everything is going to hell and there is just blood and death everywhere.
The overall theme of this novel is death. Lots and lots of death. People die in battle, people die after the battle, people are tortured to death, people die from plague. There is death everywhere and it is fantastic to read. The Tower of Living and Dying is one of those books which slows down the pace but the plot moves on substantially so by the end you’re in a very different landscape to where you started. The characters are brilliant and very compelling and the writing is absolutely stunning.

I'm only an occasional reader of fantasy but I love this series for its grown-up take on the genre: no adolescent Luke Skywalker figures here who have to learn to manage their power and save the world. Smith Smart's arc is darker, more violent and more morally-ambivalent, and her writing lifts this well above the workmanlike prose of much of the genre. Lyrical and almost poetic in places, even when writing of battles, blood and death, this is grim and gritty, set against an imaginative mythology and world.