TBR Pile Review: The Trials of Empire, by Richard Swan

Description

The Trials of Empire is the epic conclusion to the bestselling Empire of the Wolf series, where Sir Konrad Vonvalt – the most powerful and feared of the Emperor’s Justices – must finally face the dark powers that seek to detroy the Empire.

THE TIME OF JUDGEMENT IS AT HAND

The Empire of the Wolf is on its knees, but there’s life in the great beast yet.

To save it, Sir Konrad Vonvalt and Helena must look beyond its borders for allies – to the wolfmen of the southern plains, and the pagan clans in the north. But old grievances run deep, and both factions would benefit from the fall of Sova.

Even these allies might not be enough. Their enemy, the zealot Bartholomew Claver, wields infernal powers bestowed on him by a mysterious demonic patron. If Vonvalt and Helena are to stand against him, they will need friends on both sides of the mortal plane – but such allegiances carry a heavy price.

As the battlelines are drawn in both Sova and the afterlife, the final reckoning draws close. Here, at the beating heart of the Empire, the two-headed wolf will be reborn in a blaze of justice . . . or crushed beneath the shadow of tyranny.

My Review

I have several editions of this book, I’ve been reading and listening to them since the hardback and audiobook came out. My special edition is so cool. I have the whole series in a specific edition and on audio. I think I have them in paperback too. We all know this is my thing.

Last night I finished reading the paperback – there was 203 pages to go, so I settled in for a session. I ate so many biscuits, and cheese and crackers! The cat objected until I gave her some cheese and butter from my cheese and crackers. It was a whole thing.

In The Trials of Empire, Helena guides us through events as the Empire starts to stall under Claver and the Severan Templars’ assault, the decline of the Emperor, and Vonvalt taking control of the empire. There are trips to the underworld, important battles, and a final showdown in Nema’s Temple. Aegraxes and Resi make several important appearances throughout the book, and we finally find out who Claver is drawing his power from. Finally, she leaves us with the mystery of where Vonvalt went after giving up control of the new Republic of Sova.

It was both thrilling and distressing by turns as Helena replays her nightmares and painful experiences in the spirit world, and her disenchantment with Sova as an idea and Vonvalt as a person. Their enmeshment and conflicted relationship drives some of the plot.

The descriptions of the politics and the battles are visceral. I was enthralled all the way to the execution of Claver. I was relieved that Vonvalt didn’t turn evil, although he skirts the border several times. He is reprieved by Helena in the Temple of Nema and makes the right choice in the end.

The ending, with Helena going on her travels with Heinrich and a donkey, is a calming moment after the adrenaline of the battles and politics. I have heard it called ‘flat’, but I disagree. It is that gentle slope into rest that you need after high tension and leaves us with mysteries – Helena is 20 when the novel ends, but implies that the next 40 years are very eventful, what happened? – Where is Vonvalt? I hope some of these will be answered as background in the new series.

Reading the ‘author’s note’ at the end confirmed what I thought. The world of the Empire of the Wolf is based on European history in the later medieval/early modern period – the Hanseatic League, the Holy Roman Empire, and all that. It is a complex and interesting period, and I can see why it would suggest a fantasy setting and one that hasn’t really been played with yet. There are lots of periods like that in European history. We need to play outside of the early and high medieval for a while, it’s getting over-worked. I think the new series is the equivalent of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but I need to read it to check. Someone send me an ARC!

I also found out that Richard Swan is from my neck of the woods, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and a RAF brat! We probably know the same RAF camps – Waddington, Scampton, Conningsby, and Binbrook. My grandad mustered out at Binbrook in the 70s and my dad was based at Waddington and Scampton in the 90s, while my grandparents lived in Conningsby in the late 80s and Woodhall Spa in the 90s. It’s a small world.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and the series and I’m looking forward to the next series by the author. I already have two special editions of Grave Empire on order, and the audiobook is in my Audible wishlist.