I started reading this during my vacation, figuring that it was different enough from my other vacation reads that I wouldn't get everything confused. One review I read described it as being like George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, except set in a fantasy Middle Eastern world. Unfortunately, although some of the magic and political intrigue was interesting, it turned out to be a bit of a slog. I couldn't connect with the characters and had trouble caring about what was going on around them.

The politics and character relationships were complicated. Years ago, when Emperor Tahal was in power, everything was better. When he died, someone (maybe Tahal himself? I can't remember) arranged for all of Tahal's sons to be killed by Eyul, the Emperor's Knife, in order to avoid future power struggles. The only ones spared were Beyon, who became the next emperor, and Sarmin, who was locked up for the rest of his life, in case he was ever needed (fantastic idea, right?). In the book's present, Beyon has become a respected but sometimes brutal emperor. By his command, anyone found to have been patterned (mysterious pattern marks spontaneously appeared on their skin) is put to death. However, there are rumors that Beyon himself has the pattern marks and may eventually become a Carrier, a dead shell used as a tool by the Pattern Master.

I was a little confused about who was trying to accomplish what, and how. I think Nessaket, Beyon's mother, was doing whatever she had to in order to remain the most powerful woman in the palace, but she also potentially cared for her sons...maybe. Tuvaini was definitely trying to overthrow Beyon, put himself in power, and claim Nessaket as his wife (he seemed to both lust after her and hate her). Eyul wanted to serve the empire but wasn't sure whose orders would best help him do that. Sarmin would have done anything to protect his brother. Mesema, Sarmin's future bride, just wanted to figure out what was going on, learn what the patterns meant, and stay alive. I think I followed all that well enough, but I couldn't always keep the assassination attempts and reasons behind them straight.

It probably didn't help that there wasn't a single character I really cared about. There were some characters I liked more than others, and yet it didn't upset me at all when a couple of those characters died (don't worry, no spoilers). Of them all, Sarmin probably appealed to me the most, but having been locked alone in a room for nearly his entire life meant he wasn't the most comfortable of characters. When he first began exploring his magical abilities, I wasn't sure if what he was dealing with was actually magic or if he was as insane as Tuvaini said he was. After all, his advisers were faces he saw in the walls of his room. And he had almost no experience interacting with others. I thought his excitement at the thought of eventually meeting Mesema was nice and kind of sweet, until I realized that he viewed her as something like a present, someone that would belong to him alone.

I wish I could have liked Eyul, Amalya, and Mesema more than I did. Eyul, the world-weary assassin, was fascinating at first. However, he spent much of his time away from the palace, and I had trouble remembering why anything he did was important to the overall story. Some of the reasons why he disappointed me were also tied into my disappointment with Amalya.

Almost across the board, women in this world had little freedom and power. Even Nessaket, the most powerful woman in the palace, couldn't leave the palace grounds. She was powerful because she was the emperor's mother and previous emperor's wife, and, if Tuvaini got his way and became the next emperor, she hoped to stay powerful by becoming his lover. There was no way for her to be powerful that did not involve some sort of connection to a more powerful man.

The only women who had anything resembling power and freedom all their own were mages, and there were only two female mages in the entire book: Amalya and Mura. Mura was mentioned so rarely I had to look up her name just to include it in this review. She was the one female character Tuvaini met that he didn't view in terms of her sexual attractiveness to him, primarily because he was uncomfortable with the knowledge that a wind elemental was trapped inside her. Amalya was a much more prominent character than Mura, but unfortunately she didn't amount to much more. She used her fire elemental's magic a little, but it was mostly Eyul's skills that kept them safe. Amalya's greatest skill, it seemed, was cooking, and her primary purpose in the story was to give Eyul someone to fall in love with. She had so much potential, and it was all wasted.

I wanted to like Mesema more than I did, but she kept doing things that annoyed me. She supposedly loved Banreh, a man from her tribe who escorted her to her new home in the Cerani Empire, and yet she frequently insulted him. Years ago, he'd shattered one of his legs and could no longer ride well – not good in a culture that prizes riding skills. Mesema sometimes called him Lame Banreh. At one point, she said “You are barely more than a woman yourself...” (13.5%). Later, she thought of him as a “thrall” not once (41.3%), but twice (45.9%). There was also occasionally some pity in the mix.

And I was supposed to believe she really loved him? Had they interacted more and had Mesema done some groveling, then maybe, but instead I was left feeling like she just latched onto whoever was uppermost in her thoughts. When she wanted to go home, she loved Banreh best. When she was in the thick of things at the palace, Beyon began to attract her. Even though she was there when, earlier, Beyon threatened to kill Banreh.

It's possible that this series gets better, but I doubt I'll ever read the next book. I didn't like the characters enough to risk another slog.

 

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

It did feel like a first novel, there were times when I wanted to know more about how things worked in this world, a world that somewhat resembles our own, but not quite, some of the differences aren't quite clear enough to make this resonate properly with me. It's an interesting world, this semi-arabic style world where Sarmin is a brother of the emperor, the only survivor of the massacre that happened when his brother took over the throne. He's isolated and going somewhat mad while a strange pattern magic is creeping around the kingdom. The pattern appears on a person's skin and can kill or possess, and it's contagious (TBH the pattern magic and cool cover got the book an extra half-star) Sarmin's mother has organised a marriage for him with Mesema, a windreader from the northern plains and she will change everything, if she survives. It was an interesting read, though there were moments when things felt somewhat rushed and incomplete, I liked the characters but sometimes they felt like shells, and the big showdown fell a bit flat for me, having said all that, I was drawn into it and kept reading. An author to watch for in the future, shows promise.

I desperately wanted to enjoy this book, but at the same time I just never got into it. I realized after something like 275 pages that I just didn't really care about any of the characters. Some were sympathetic, sure, but many just didn't feel real, fleshed out, developed. The writing was acceptable but paled in comparison to many of the books I've read lately, even other books on smaller publishers (The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer comes to mind; it was brilliantly written).

Mazarkis is well thought of by other authors, fun to follow on Twitter despite their anonymity, and seems like a legit guy/gal - however, this book just didn't sing to me. I seem to continue to run into this issue in the pseudo-middle eastern desert style fantasies. While I love that they're different, unique, something else - they're just much harder for me to get into. Throne of the Crescent Moon had a lot of things I enjoyed, as did The Emperor's Knife and The Black God's War...yet I just couldn't seem to get into any of them. Whether it's the setting, the writing or something else, that I can't say. However, The Emperor's Knife might appeal to many others - it just didn't work for me.

I was surprised by how good this book was! It's a little like "A Game of Thrones" with it's intricate court schemes, but with a lot more magic. I particularly like the pattern magic, but I hope the elemental side will be developed in the next book.

The characters were solid and well developed. There were a few plot points that didn't seem quite right, but considering this is Williams' debut novel it's not so surprising and I expect his/her writing will mature.

Although this is the first in the trilogy, the story is self-contained, so even if the book isn't quite your cup of tea you won't be left hanging! Hopefully there will be a greater story arc spanning the entire trilogy, which I believe is not beyond Williams' capabilities.

If there's one thing I can be certain of about my taste in books, it is that I can never resist a tale of dark fantasy -- especially one involving magic, assassins, and court politics. That Mazarkis Williams does it all in such a unique way is an extra added bonus.

It's going to be a little tough to describe this book without revealing too much, but here are the basics: across the Cerani Empire, a disease is spreading throughout the populace, manifesting as geometric forms and lines that spread across the skin. The afflicted quickly worsen and lose control, becoming part of an overall "pattern" and losing themselves to will of the "Pattern Master". All those marked are believed doomed and put to death, so you can imagine the resulting freak-out when it is rumored that Emperor Beyon himself has begun exhibiting the tell-tale marks.

Only a few people at court know the truth about Beyon being marked by the pattern, amongst them the Emperor Mother Nessaket, the crafty vizier Tuvaini, and the royal assassin Eyul. Of course, the question is, are these Beyon's loyal subjects there to help him, or might they actually be harboring their own ideas on just who should take the throne?

Also, one would definitely not want to be a younger male child in this particular royal family. Following tradition, Beyon's brothers were all killed the day their father died and he took the throne; that is, all except Prince Sarmin, who was kept locked up in a tower as a secret backup -- just in case. One of the many schemes set in motion in this book involves the arranged marriage of the secret lost prince to a daughter of a Felt chieftain, a young Windreader seer named Mesema. Thus this intricate tale of court intrigue is woven together through the eyes of all these characters.

And out of all of those characters, I think I have to say I enjoyed Mesema's narrative the best. On the surface, a story about a young girl being packed off to a foreign land to marry a total stranger is nothing new, but while many other reviewers have found her characterization to be on the weaker side, I actually felt most connected to her. It was a curious development, considering the male-dominated cast, but quite honestly, a very clear personality profile of Mesema emerged for me in her dialogue and interactions, whereas I felt all the other characters felt bland in comparison, almost like they were missing something.

A similar sensation arose when I though about my feelings about the book overall. The Emperor's Knife features some gorgeous writing and superb storytelling, but once again, a part of me just wanted a little more. More action, perhaps? More excitement, more emotion, more "edge"? I know I hit upon several dry spots in the book which lost me briefly, and part of the reason for this is the frequent jumping around of points-of-view and scene changes. Rather than keeping me on my toes, my focus was instead hindered by the confusion of always trying to figure out where I was and who I was following. I'm happy to say the book finally finds its groove in its last quarter, though; from then on, the momentum was like one of an unstoppable freight train gloriously hurtling me all the way to the end.

The book's world, too, is something I want to talk about. I already mentioned that the writing was gorgeous, and this is immediately clear from the way the author can bring beauty to what is otherwise a barren desert setting. There is one particular scene involving flowers in bloom and their sweet perfume amongst the sandy dunes that I know I will always remember. The skill with which the descriptions are handled are such that I have no problems envisioning it all in my mind.

As it also turns out, one of the most impressive things about this book are its magic systems, something I did not expect at all when I first picked this up. Recently, fantasy authors have been coming up with all kinds of incredible stuff, and the "pattern concept" in The Emperor's Knife is probably one of the more unique ones I've read about in the last few years. First of all, the pattern disease itself has a sort of magical basis behind it, but there are also these mages in this book that harness their powers by sucking that energy from elemental spirits that they "imprison" within them. And it is most definitely not a symbiotic relationship, I can tell you that.

Over all, despite some issues with pacing, this was a wonderful fantasy debut from Mazarkis Williams.

Check out this review and more like it at The BiblioSanctum.