by Michael Michel, Book One of Dreams of Dust and Steel
Summary:
Prince Barodane could not hold back the darkness. Not even in himself. He laid an innocent city in its grave and then died a hero.
In his absence, war whispers across the land.
Power-hungry highborn dispatch spies and assassins to the shadows as they maneuver for the throne, while an even greater threat rises in the South. Monsters and cultists flock to the banners of a mad prophet determined to control reality…and then shatter it.
Destiny stalks three to the brink of oblivion.
A dead prince who isn’t dead. Barodane buried his shameful past in a stupor of drugs, drink, and crime. Now, he’d rather watch the world fall apart than wear the crown again.
An orphan with hero’s blood who’s forced to make a harrowing betray her country or sacrifice her first love.
And a powerful seer who has no choice at all–her grandson must die.
If any of them fails to pay the price…
The cost will be the world’s complete annihilation.
Review:
I first read the book a year or so ago, when it originally released but when I heard that Michel was doing a re-release, I jumped at the chance to read the newer version. There were quite a few changes, but they all made the book even better actually; a rare feat, seeing how I absolutely loved the original!
A fantastic debut book, the last 200 pages especially felt like it took me 20 minutes to read, it was a crescendo that was built up masterfully over the previous few hundred pages.
Sometimes you read a book with multiple POVs and when one starts up, it’s like “ah man” and you can’t wait to finish that part. Not here. Every person we experience the story with brings their own unique perspective to the storytelling and not once did I turn the page and get bummed out with who I saw was on it.
I don’t like going too deep into the plot itself to refrain from spoilers, but this was definitely a change of pace from the usual stuff you see in fantasy/grimdark books. I also especially liked the portions where godsthorn, a drug/drink in the world, was used to not show how damaging it could be when abused but also used to enlighten the mind; both approaches are in separate POVs and it worked really well going back and forth.
The supporting cast of characters were also great, which for me is almost as big of a part of the story as the main ones themselves. It gets really boring reading about a great protagonist if everyone around them gets on your nerves lol, but that’s not the case here. Some of them, like Wolst and The Madness, became two of my favorite characters in general.
I also feel like there will be a good deal of re-reading at some point too, since there is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes of the main story and plenty of things to go back in and find and make connections that wouldn’t appear the first time. I know there were at LEAST 2 things off the top of my head where I had to read the passage over cause I was mind blown at the time, and it wasn’t that I missed anything; it was just such a well done reveal that I was like “what the hell just happened.”
Michael Michel is continuously proving himself to be a major force in the indie world; I feel like every time I read his work, whether it’s brand new or reworked, it’s that same level of excellence. If you never read this before the new release, you’ll love it just as much as I did. The political struggles, the internal battles, the world building…all of it remains top notch, and I cannot wait to start book two!
Find out more about The Price of Power!
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