The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan on February 11th 2015
Genres: Epic, Fantasy
Pages: 592
Rating: I'M OBSESSED
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The capital has fallen...
Field Marshal Tamas returns to his beloved country to find that for the first time in history, the capital city of Adro lies in the hands of a foreign invader. His son is missing, his allies are indistinguishable from his foes, and reinforcements are several weeks away.An army divided...
With the Kez still bearing down upon them and without clear leadership, the Adran army has turned against itself. Inspector Adamat is drawn into the very heart of this new mutiny with promises of finding his kidnapped son.All hope rests with one...
And Taniel Two-shot, hunted by men he once thought his friends, must safeguard the only chance Adro has of getting through this war without being destroyed...
All pit breaks loose in this book. Adro is in occupied by a foreign invader, there’s a Kez army camped on her boarders, and betrayal is rampant.
Gosh, where do I begin? This is a hard review for me to write. Those who follow my reviews know that I’m a character driven reader. They are what make me come back to a series. So after book one and certainly after book 2, I was completely obsessed by Taniel. Don’t get me wrong, Olem, Pole, and Tamas are some of my favorites as well, but Taniel is the one I gravitated to the most. Which is why this review is hard to write.
If I sit back and think about my feelings while I had been reading the book, they were nothing shy of enthralled and angry that I couldn’t read faster. I was caught up in it all and was damn curious how McClellan planned on closing this series. I wasn’t disappointed. The ending, though I was expecting some of it, was well written and managed to get me to shed a tear to two. So while reading, I was utterly in love. Then it was over and…
I felt a tad bit little cheated. Upon reflection, I wasn’t as satisfied as I was with book 2, which happens to be my favorite. After much deliberation, I was able to understand why: I didn’t get enough Taniel and Pole time. Since those two are the ones who drive my obsession, I wanted more than what I got. In book 2, Taniel had some amazing fight scenes and I really missed those in this book.
There was also a … how can I say this? Lack of closeness, maybe? In book 2, the battles and scenes were personal to the characters; smaller fights, close quarters, smaller scale. Those that might have been more high level were short and sweet. In book 3, there’s much more of a battlefield feel to it, more overview of how the entire fight is going. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still amazing. The scenes are done incredibly well and are needed, but since I’m a character reader, I like those more closed in battles.
What I was pleased with was the development of Nila, who happened to be one of my least favorite characters in the first two books. She took a turn for the better and made her PoV sections as interesting as Adamant, a storyline that is needed and can be—for me—either incredibly interesting or ever so slightly boring. I can’t help but wish her page time could have been shortened and Taniel’s lengthened.
Tamas’s storyline was a whirlwind. Poor guy never had a chance to breathe. His sections propelled the story onward while others gave us some breathers. I feel we got a lot more time with him, Adamant, and Nila, so if you love any of those characters, you’ll definitely love this book.
It might sound like I didn’t love the book, but it’s quite the opposite. I’ll read this series many times over. McClellan has my attention and I’m going to be a lifelong fan. I hear he’s writing another series set in the same world and I can’t wait. I’ve got a few of his short stories to read, but they won’t last long. After those, I’ll be impatiently waiting for the next thing McClellan types out.
So overall, a fantastic end to a great series and I’ll happily recommend these books to everyone.
About Brian McClellan
Brian lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife, two dogs, a cat, and between 6,000 and 60,000 honey bees (depending on the time of year).
He began writing on Wheel of Time role playing websites at fifteen. Encouraged toward writing by his parents, he started working on short stories and novellas in his late teens. He went on to major in English with an emphasis on creative writing at Brigham Young University. It was here he met Brandon Sanderson, who encouraged Brian’s feeble attempts at plotting and characters more than he should have.
Brian continued to study writing not just as an art but as a business and was determined this would be his life-long career. He attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp in 2006. In 2008, he received honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest.
In November 2011, The Powder Mage Trilogy sold at auction to Orbit Books. The first two books, Promise of Blood and The Crimson Campaign, are out now with book three, The Autumn Republic, due out in February of 2015.
