BROKEN BLADE, the first in McCullough's new fantasy series "Fallen Blade", seemed to me the perfect answer to my assassin/thief/fantasy blues. I haven't really found anything to replace Brent Week's "Night Angel" trilogy yet, and this sounded perfect. Fallen Goddess, assassin on the run, complex fantasy society--seemed to fit the bill.

In some ways it was diverting and intriguing, but the problem was more in the execution. McCullough relies a bit too much on coincidence and unspoken rules. He doesn't ever spell out Triss' powers so each time Aral ran into some sort of problem he couldn't talk, kill or escape his way out of, Triss had the answer. She had a near unlimited bag of tricks it seemed and that ruined the suspense for me.

The world McCullough sets up was certainly the highlight of the book for me. I enjoy fantasy world politics and dark humor, both of which are in abundance here. The world is populated by the ruthless, god and mortal alike, who manipulate and scheme to oust one and other. Aral, by his current and former occupations, finds himself stuck in the middle of these machinations more often than not, which leads to some hairy situations.

This is in many ways set up like a mystery, the fantasy elements incidental and sometimes a distraction from the plot. You have beautiful woman, shady deal, murder and deceit--I kind of expected Sam Spade to jump out or Matlock to ring a peal over the culprits' heads. McCullough tried to combine too many genres at once, not really meshing them together in a coherent fashion hat didn't have one trying to dominate.

As I said though this was diverting and did keep me interested throughout. I didn't feel a pressing need to finish it right away, nor did I miss any sleep over it, but it kept me entertained consistently.

Review was originally posted at Night Owl Reviews ( )

A broken man, a broken blade, and a tale of heart break and growth. Absolutely amazing writing. ( )

Tricky, this one. It didn't really do anything wrong, but damned if it really did much great. There's lots of interesting stuff about the world, but it never really delves into it deeply enough, and there's a faint sense that the world is sort of Asian-inspired without ever actually showing us enough to pull it out of generic-urban-world-fantasy description.

It's that sort of thief-hero fantasy noir - except Aral's dead dame is a goddess, so clearly he trumps your man-pain and he's actually a rogue/cleric, so there. Somehow the first-person narration still doesn't manage to really get into him, possibly because he's an extremely conscious narrator, but never in a way that feels like the author and the reader are sharing things that the character isn't aware of. There's a vaguely interesting love-interest who likes sex, but clearly the author doesn't because it fades to black quite firmly and abruptly. Twice. (Possibly realising that it was going to be a bit hinky having a first-person sex scene with a guy who overtalks everything he's experiencing, so possibly wise move there.)

I dunno, it's just thin. I don't even feel like it's setting up a huge and thrilling series, because there are very few indications of the story from here on.

Two and a half stars because there really isn't anything wrong, like I said, but rounded down because eh. ( )

I enjoyed this story. Right after I finished, I added the author's other works to my wish list. ( )

Not a bad story, set in a city where the protagonist is existing after everything he held dear has been taken away from him.
Although Aral used to be a member off an elite group called the Blades who meted out justice impartially on anyone, no matter what their social status, he now only uses his talents to earn enough money to drink himself to death.
The only thing holding him together is his familiar, Triss, a shade, who pretends to be his shadow and who helps him with the use of his shade and his special darkness type qualities. The familiar idea makes this a bit different to the usual typical "ruined hero who needs to be redeemed" storyline.
Triss urges him to accept a job from a woman who wants a message delivered. From a seemingly simple job, it morphs, as expected, into something highly dangerous, but ultimately highly rewarding.
Watching the development of the human/shadow dragon relationship and magical interaction is nice. More Triss would be even better. ( )