The Path of Swords (The Song of Amhar #1) by Martin Swinford
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Blurb: “Luan ap Garioch, second son of the house of Artran, this is the day of choosing. How do you choose?”
On the last day of the summer of his fourteenth year, Luan takes the first step on The Path of Swords. He has been told that the path will be hard. He knows that it will lead him into danger. The reality is beyond all his imagining.
The Path of Swords is the first novella in the Song of Amhar fantasy series. Set in an alternate Iron Age where the world of the spirit is always close by, the series follows the adventures of Luan, a boy training to become one of the Klaideem, elite warriors who dedicate their life to the service of the kingdom.
My Review: I’ve been reading all sorts of books over the past year or so, and when I downloaded this one I thought it would be a good chance to revisit a fantasy story. I love fantasy. And this book didn’t disappoint me.
It was refreshing. The start of each chapter had a short ‘introduction’ in a different voice. It sounds weird and off putting, but it wasn’t. I’d like to elaborate, but I don’t want to give anything away. Anyway, after the short introduction (a paragraph or two, at most), we would return to the actual storyline and the voice of the main character. I liked the way the author accomplished this. It was well done.
The story itself felt ‘classic’, old world. Set totally in a fantasy world of the author’s making, I felt myself slip into the world and observing its ways and its people. The main character was young and learning about life, as we learned about him and his world. I believe this book to be a solid start for a series and I already have the second book loaded and ready to go.
Recommended.