The King of the Crags by Stephen Deas

The dragon realms are moving towards war. Speaker Shezira has been deposed and is held prisoner in the Adamantine Palace, whilst her daughters summon their armies and dragons to free her. A religious fanatic is intent on seizing control of the rebel dragon army known as the Red Riders and unleashing fire and blood on those who do not accept the word of the Flames. And, amidst the towering peaks of the Worldspine, a dragon has freed itself from bondage and plots to free all of dragonkind from humanity's yoke once and for all.


The King of the Crags is the follow-up to last year's Adamantine Palace. In my review of the first book, I cited the author's furious pace as being a major plus, but it might have come at the expense of the more detailed worldbuilding required to make an epic fantasy novel really shine (although there are plenty of other fantasy books where such worldbuilding takes over and bogs down the narrative, so it's a difficult balancing act). Also, with 70 chapters in 350 pages, the pace was a little too fast and furious at times.

The sequel is a stronger work. 50 chapters in 370 pages means events are given more weight, characters have more time to develop and the world is able to come through a lot more. The addition of a map helps the reader place the various locations and work out the significance of one realm's power and allegiances over another, whilst characters are more fully fleshed-out and developed. Deas even has time for some metatextual commentary on how dragons are treated in other fantasy novels (the line about the docile dragons being ponies with wings was quite amusing, and a common criticism of other fantasy novels), which works better when we get to see the wild dragons, who are considerably more alien in thought and deed, in action.

Some of the criticism of the booking being too fast and furious remains, such as the fact that Princess Jaslyn still has very little page-time for an apparently major character and elements like the Taiytakei still feel somewhat under-developed (although that's probably deliberate in their case). But other characters like Jehal and Kemir shine, the world feels more solid and interesting, the battles are well-described and the various plots twists are more ruthless and startling than anything else this side of Paul Kearney and George RR Martin, and the wait for the third book feels a lot more onerous this time around.

The King of the Crags (****) is a strong, well-written epic fantasy novel and marks some major improvements in the author's style. The novel is available now in the UK from Gollancz and will be published by Roc in the USA in February 2011. A third book in the series is due in a year, whilst Deas has a not-entirely-unrelated YA fantasy novel, The Thief-Taker's Apprentice, due in the autumn.

The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas

The Adamantine Palace is the debut novel by British writer Stephen Deas, and the latest in a number of high-profile debuts from Gollancz, following on from Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie and Patrick Rothfuss.

The nine realms are unified under the authority of the Adamantine Palace, from where the Speaker keeps the peace. The power of the realms are based on their mastery of dragons. More than seventeen hundred of these fearsome beasts exist, kept under control by discipline, training and the mysterious liquids created by the alchemists. Intrigue seethes in the nations, as the current Speaker, old and wasting away from illness, prepares to pass the mantle onto his successor, Queen Shezira of the North. However, Prince Jehal from one of the southern realms is playing his own, long-term game. When Shezira's daughter is promised to Jehal in marriage, a chain of events is set in motion that will plunge the realms into chaos, and amidst the politicking a dragon goes missing and an ancient secret is unveiled.

The Adamantine Palace reads like a gritty remix of Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels. The dragons here aren't fluffy or cuddly, but dangerous beasts whose very training usually costs human lives. They are hazardous animals to be respected rather than talking flying ponies, and when we get a look into a dragon's mind later in the book it is revealed as a rather alien and unfeeling place indeed. The story is interesting and many of the characters are well-defined, particularly Prince Jehal, one of the more interesting recent examples of the 'magnificent bastard' archetype.

You can almost sense the large 'but' coming, can't you? The Adamantine Palace is a fast, breathless read, but that's also it's biggest problem. The book is only 350 pages long (in ARC form, anyway) but contains a massive seventy chapters, few of which are more than four or five pages long. This is fine to start off with, but by the time the book is halfway done, ideas, characters and storylines are not so much flying past but feel like they've been blasted out from a minigun like the one Blaine had in Predator. Frequent changes in POV, location and the political situation can leave the reader feeling somewhat overwhelmed, and a number of characters (particular the sell-sword Kemir and Princess Jaslyn) don't quite feel as developed as they could have been due to this. Some major events towards the end of the book are as huge to this world as say Ned's execution is in A Song of Ice and Fire, but because they've been built up to so fast and then happen so quickly, they don't feel tremendously significant. At times, and this may sound unduly harsh, The Adamantine Palace feels like an incredibly detailed synopsis for a fantastic fantasy novel, rather than a book in itself. Ironically, as I normally like it when a writer delivers a short, concise epic fantasy novel, this book really does feel like it should have been twice as long to really give the events it covers much greater resonance and weight.

As it stands, The Adamantine Palace is a fast, furious and entertaining book that grabs hold of the reader and whisks them off like a rollercoaster. The dragons, as promised, indeed kick ass and the book's ending is enticing enough to make the year-long-wait for the second volume feel irritating. However, the feeling of a lack of weight to elements of the narrative also makes it feel like a somewhat slighter book than perhaps it deserves.

The Adamantine Palace (***½) will be released in hardcover in the UK by Gollancz on 19 March 2009 and in early 2010 by Roc in the USA. The author has a website here.