Finally Good HEMA!

This book has a Great plot, with twists, interesting characters, and great world building. Set in Italy just post renaissance with a wonderfully history based world in which magic works. Great fantasy story with a good world building and interesting characters, but that is not all.
The Author did the SWORDFIGHTS RIGHT! If you study Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) This is a nuisance that you just have to get used to in fantasy novels. 15 pound swords, cleaving people in twain. just not a thing in real life. Vague sword swooshed and he defeated 13 people, descriptions. Like the sword play in boring and we want to move on. This one is done right. You can actually picture the positions of the swords and how they respond and counter.
Ordering the other two book in the series and I am definitely going to read the rest of this authors work.

9 people found this helpful

Nice try but no UNICORN!

MC is so boring that I had often wished that he was cannon fodder for when the real MC would arrive. Little to no details on how he acquired his two magical leanings and when revealed it was left to the listener to divine what those arcane talents entailed. A lot of vague allusions to a growing threat to the empire from what is termed The Pure but except for a few lost smaller cities there wasn't much excitement. Almost all the women are stunningly beautiful except for the old ones but, even there, they are described as having a stately beauty or some such.

While he was young, the MC's virginity and naivety seemed like they weren't even an issue with his first bedding encounter. They bedded and the next thing it's morning. Very little interesting intrigue other than some spoon-fed allusions.

Then there's the medieval equivalent of the MC's Dancing With The Stars moment. I be like: "Did we really need to go there!?"

In all, I was halfway through the book and found myself scrolling through my well-worn music collection rather than returning to this novel.

Okay, I braced myself to continue on only to run smack-dab into an unbelievable passage. the MC was being called to arms by the city militia's female general and as everyone was armoring up, the men mounted their war horses and then the book jump the unicorn ... yes, the author one-bested a shark where he had the female general mount her ... wait for it ... UNICORN!

I heard enough.

Bottom line: it's an average flintlock fantasy tale and not at all worth to cost of a purchase nor the loss of a credit.

5 people found this helpful

B-

My point of comparison is Miles Cameron's The Red Knight / Traitor Son Cycle, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I found Cold Iron slow. I wasn't interested in the characters or the main mystery/plot. Skip this read Red Knight (again if you already have once).

6 people found this helpful

Love MC but not a fan of cold iron

I didn't fall in love with any of these characters. The story took too long to get going and many times I questioned the point of a scene. The character driven greatness of The Red Knight just wasn't evident in this book.

2 people found this helpful

average

I've tried to write this review several times, but as the phone app takes every opportunity to change pages and erase what I've typed I'll reduce this review substantially.

Tl;Dr the story lacks depth

The story does not develop anything substantial. what should be interesting areas are glanced at rather than created, explored and enjoyed. there's some kind of magic that's never explained despite protagonist being a student. there's some kind of political turmoil leading to war but the factions are barely mentioned. this lack of depth can be applied to each point of the story. oh, there's a dragon. it is mentioned twice, despite it being a "guest" in the city for the entire story. I'm hoping this was just an over long introduction, but if the next book goes on to introduce another country and fails to develop anything I'm returning it.

5 people found this helpful

Great Author and another great story

I was a huge fan of the Red Knight, but got a little lost as the series unfolded with the various characters. I believe this series seems to have taken allot of the historically accurate or realistic sword fighting scenes and funnel them into a tighter narrative. I highly recommend this to any fan of the genre. My only humble critique is that the ever present evil force working to plunge the world into chaos is a touch one dimensional, but perhaps not due to a lack of depth but maybe a lack of exposure to the reader in book 1? As the writers says in a slightly different way, everyone is the hero to their own narrative. and yet we only hear glimpses in book one for the master antagonist true motives beyond power and greed. As for the reading performance it was well delivered with a steady cadence and just enough voice variation to make the story more immersive without becoming a distraction. Once again I recommend this purchase to any fan of fantasy.

5 people found this helpful

broad strokes and not great characters

didn't care for it. jumped around and took on some really uninspired characters. not great

1 person found this helpful

Great book, only a few gripes

Overall: The book was great. It held my attention most of the time and had a fairly interesting story. I'd personally recommend it to anyone looking for a book like this. Performance was great as well. No complaints there.

Few gripes:
1. The story did have a lack of focus. MC didn't seem to be doing a whole lot besides just living his life with some interesting occurrences mixed in. That didn't leave a whole lot of room for change in the story.
ALERT Possible spoiler -
2. The whole Daliah (is that how to spell her name?) relationship. Not a fan of how the author went about that. Everything seemed to be blamed on the MC despite him clearly being busy, used by her, and ignored a good chunk of the time. Relationships are a two way street. Idk why book authors seem to blame the dude like 90% of the time when every single allegation against the MC (in this case anyway) could just as easily be made against the GF.

3 people found this helpful

Tonal Shift.

I really enjoyed this book until Book 2 (about the 15 hour mark), which marked a tonal shift in the narrative. This shift and the deus ex machina ending of Book 1 take away from the overall story. The performance was excellent. The world and intrigue were beautiful crafted. Then the way Book 1 ended and the tone of Book 2 keep me from rating the the story as anything better than pretty good.

2 people found this helpful

good story and pace

fun adventure and plot development. thank God not another video game story. action keeps rolling