GRAVE EMPIRE

A looming invasion by extradimensional creatures demonstrates just how dangerous it is to forget the lessons of the past.

At the end of The Trials of Empire (2024), Lord Regent Konrad Vonvalt strongly encouraged the Empire of Sova to become a republic, stop fighting wars of conquest, and reject the study of most kinds of magick, especially that which involved contact with other planes of existence. Set 200 years later, this opener of a sequel series to the Empire of the Wolf books argues that getting one out of three is very, very bad. The Republic is an Empire again, a religious schism has led to a fierce war between Sova and the Principality of Casimir in their colonial territories, and worst of all, successfully adhering to the third stricture has left the Sovans without the magickal resources they will soon desperately need. Two monks of a heretical sect report that communication with the afterlife has ceased, portending an ominous event known as the Great Silence. To gain more information about this phenomenon, an ambassadorial mission sets out to negotiate with the mer-men, who still retain their magickal knowledge. At roughly the same time, a nobly born lieutenant with a purchased commission but no real stomach for battle is posted to the frontier, where he must contend with constant screaming from no visible source, bloody hallucinations, and gruesome murders with no obvious perpetrator. And a viciously classist nobleman with an enthusiasm for forbidden magicks investigates a mysterious plague that robs people of their minds, plotting to turn the calamity to his own selfish purposes. Naturally, these plotlines eventually converge. Authors who write follow-ups to trilogies that climax with an apocalypse-averting epic battle generally have difficulty in raising or resetting the stakes convincingly in those new installments. Swan actually succeeds in making his continuation seem organic, as the bittersweet ending to the first trilogy, added to his obvious acknowledgment both of real-life history’s cyclical nature and humanity’s collective tendency to forget the useful lessons of the past, make this reset seem plausible and not a mere retread of what came before. Plus, the eldritch abominations he conjures are genuinely frightening.

Tense and spooky, with vivid characters that inspire strong feeling; a good new start built on a well-established foundation.