[LISTENED TO: October 2013] Warbound
I loved Book I and Book II of The Grimnoir Chronicles immensely. The first was an amazing introduction to this new world and the second upped the scale and intensity to an amazing level (nearly destroying Washington D.C.).
And since the beginning of Book II picked up shortly after the events of Book II, it seemed pretty safe to assume that we would be heading into the giant conflict that was predicted at the end of Book II–fighting the creature that was coming to kill The Power. For real context, read the other two reviews first (I mean, really), but for simple context, a sizable minority of the population has the gift of Magic. This gift comes from The Power and it allows people to do all kinds of things–bend gravity, transport from one place to another, talk through animals, fade into walls, etc.
It has only been recently, through the work of our heroes, that people understood just how people got the power. It came from The Power, a creature that gave humans magic and then fed off of them when they died. It was a symbiotic relationship. But of course people who did not have Power hated those with Power. Even though the people with Power often use their power for good, there were of course people who didn’t. Consequently all people with The Power were scapegoated. This is all laid on a backdrop of alternate reality 1930s America, where the Nipponese are ascending and offer a very credible threat–especially since their Magicals are organized and brutal.
So book II ended with a U.S. born threat coming to destroy Active Magicals, which got a little out of control and nearly destroyed the world (but only ended up destroying a part of Washington D.C.). When our heroes defeated that creature, they set their sites on the entity that was coming to kill The Power. And off we go.
Right into a lot of backstory. I appreciate that Correia knew he had a good climactic story to tell and I really appreciate that he used these early pages to flesh out the characters that had not really gotten their stories told yet. Like Lance (who we knew probably the least about) and Heinrich, who we knew some about but man, was his full story fascinating.
So Correia slows the pace somewhat (but not too much), switching back and forth between Faye (who is actually in Dead City–Berlin, where all of the zombies were collected) trying to find out if her power will turn her evil. She meets a man who can see futures–not what will happen but things that might happen. It’s a very dark sequence, which really pushes Faye to the edge.
But Faye doesn’t do a lot for most of the book–indeed, everyone else thinks she’s dead. So that means the rest of the Grimnoir must fight on, which means enlisting the help of the Nipponese Iron Guard–you know, the sworn enemy of the Grimnoir. This leads to a lot of discussion between Sullivan and Toru about their future plan to battle each other to the death–you know, once they have fought side by side to defeat the Enemy. It also means testing the bounds and limits of The Power’s power while they plan an elaborate ruse to show the Iron Guard that their Chairman is not who he claims to be.
There’s not a lot to summarize here–there’s a lot of clever planning and plotting. There’s double-crossing. There’s humor. And there’s wondrous magic. This story ups the ante on the violence and destruction (and the magic). And, indeed, we lose someone in the battle. The climactic machinations are well-devised and thoroughly enjoyable. There’s even an epilogue which brings some threads to a tidy close.
I enjoyed this universe so much, it was wonderful to get absorbed in it. And once again, the narration by Bronson Pinchot was utterly stellar. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to read these books because I could never put as much into it as Pinchot did. This was a great trilogy for anyone who likes magic and war.
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