A DEMON IN SILVER

RELEASED OUT NOW! 464 PAGES | PAPERBACK AUTHOR RS FORD PUBLISHER TITAN BOOKS

This first book in RS Ford’s new series War Of The Archons boasts violence and multiple viewpoints, and raunchiness to boot, so comparisons to Joe Abercrombie or George RR Martin are inevitable. But there’s a soaring, celestial feel to its world-building. Its heavenly war and the human cultists obsessed with it recall Blackwing by Ed McDonald or Blood Of The Four by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon.

The story unfolds in a blighted land where magic’s been absent for 100 years, following the gods’ exile. Various factions keep these traditions alive. Silver and Livia, scraping by in a farming community, exhibit strange abilities; these attract malevolent attention, including that of the local duke, weary mercenary Josten and warrior monk Kaleb.

Ford is skilled at making you care about the smallest of interactions, conjuring vivid, moving scenes. He switches registers with abandon, charming with erudition and then dropping the c-bomb. It’s not always smooth – the book finds its rhythm a few chapters in, but still flashbacks and excerpts of lore interrupt the flow. The characters sometimes behave inconsistently too.

But not enough to detract from a pleasing, energetic novel. The Demon In Silver mixes the epic and the earthy, delivering gory battles and well-crafted banter. Dave Bradley