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Approachable Epic Fantasy: Cold Iron by Stina Leicht

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Approachable Epic Fantasy: Cold Iron by Stina Leicht

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Approachable Epic Fantasy: Cold Iron by Stina Leicht

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Published on July 17, 2015

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Cold Iron is Stina Leicht’s third novel. With it, Leicht moves away from urban fantasy and towards epic in the new gunpowder fantasy mode. Cold Iron is the opening volley in The Malorum Gates series—and to judge from the amount of ground this novel covers, it’s a series that’s going to do a lot of epic in a relatively short space of time.

It is also a rather better, and strikingly less boring, book than its opening pages portend.

Cold Iron opens with Nels, a kainen crown prince—the kainen are a race of people taller than the human norm, all possessed of varying degrees of magical powers, including the ability to magically force other people to do their will, simply by instructing them to—who initially comes across as self-absorbed, spoiled, whiny and ineffectual. Nels’ only distinguishing factor is his lack of the command magic that is especially characteristic of the royal family of Eledore. But fortunately—for the reader, if not for Nels—tragedy strikes! Disbarred from the succession and forced into the army due to Eledorean taboos on the shedding of blood, Nels becomes approximately fifty times more interesting, and so does the novel. With his twin sister Suvi, her naval ambitions interrupted to take up the role of crown princess, and Nels’ friend and lover, the apprentice healer-sorceress Ilta, added to the cast of point-of-view characters, Cold Iron rapidly progresses towards very entertaining indeed.

Flawed—of which more later—but very entertaining.

Nels, Suvi, and Ilta are faced with an intransigent array of problems: an invasion by the resolutely unmagical but technologically more adept humans of Acrasia; a smallpox epidemic made worse when magic goes wrong; and the machinations of Nels and Suvi’s paternal uncle Sakari, who seems determined to take the reins of power into his own hands—at no small cost to Nels, Suvi, and Eledore itself. As Nels struggles with the responsibilities of military life, including hostile senior officers, enemy action, insufficient supplies, and men who don’t trust him, Suvi must navigate court life and a mission at sea to acquire an alliance with the Waterborne nations, while Ilta is put under house arrest when her attempt to inoculate herself against smallpox gives rise to a magically more potent strain.

The war with Acrasia is going badly, and Nels’ commanding officer is a sociopath. Meanwhile, among the Waterborne, Suvi has to deal with assassination attempts, a magical duel, and battles at sea. And in the background lurks an ancient danger, against which—it appears—only the Eledorean royal family can stand. As the Acrasian forces close in around Eledore’s plague-wracked capital, Nels, Suvi, and Ilta are reunited in their nation’s darkest hour. If they cannot avoid their uncle’s betrayal and stand against the Acrasians, they’ll just have to save what they can.

In Cold Iron, Leicht has written an approachable, entertaining epic fantasy, peopled with engaging characters and replete with dramatic incidents. I confess that lately I’ve been having a spot of argument with epic fantasy: most of the time I want it to be either less boring or less full of deeply unlikeable people. Fortunately, despite its length, Cold Iron avoids the worst perils of droning epic fantasy, and its characters, despite our initial introduction to Nels, are anything but unlikeable.

But Cold Iron has its flaws. Leicht has a tendency to skip large chunks of time between chapters, and to signal these cuts only sketchily, with little summary of anything that has taken place in the intervening weeks or months. This is a little annoying. Also on the annoying side is my feeling that Leicht has got sea battles and life at sea all wrong—but it’s been some time since I’ve sailed on a tallship, or even sailed at all, so one should not take my word for it.

Cold Iron might not be the very best example of epic fantasy around: I’m not inclined to rave about its prose or polish, and it is working with some familiar tropes—plus gunpowder. It remains to be seen whether or not the next volume is going to break new ground. But Cold Iron is plenty entertaining, and it’s good enough that I’m definitely looking forward to finding out where the story goes next.

And may I just mention here that the new Saga Press imprint is being impressively consistent with the quality of its releases to date? Not all of them are my cup of tea, but they are all recognisably solid examples of their kind—at least the ones I’ve encountered so far.

Cold Iron is available now from Saga Press.

Liz Bourke is a cranky person who reads books. Her blog. Her Twitter.

About the Author

Liz Bourke

Author

Liz Bourke is a cranky queer person who reads books. She holds a Ph.D in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin. Her first book, Sleeping With Monsters, a collection of reviews and criticism, was published in 2017 by Aqueduct Press. It was a finalist for the 2018 Locus Awards and was nominated for a 2018 Hugo Award in Best Related Work. She was a finalist for the inaugural 2020 Ignyte Critic Award, and has also been a finalist for the BSFA nonfiction award. She lives in Ireland with an insomniac toddler, her wife, and their two very put-upon cats.
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9 years ago

I so wanted to love this book.  Ms. Leicht has done some interesting world building, and there are lots of cultural and political aspects that could provide story ideas for some time to come.  

But, oh dear…the pacing.  The book reads like a series of vignettes, loosely strung together by infodumps.  Now, I have no problem with the notion that an author might turn aside from a story during the long slog from point A to point B, and use a single sentence to bridge the distance.  “We marched forever in the rain and mud…”

That’s not what happens here.  Instead, protagonists are left in some peril – comrades missing or dead, uncertain and dangerous paths ahead, uncomfortable meetings dreaded.  Turn the page and “poof!”  They are back with their comrades and the danger and problems are past.  

There are whole pieces of interesting story that are just not there.  It was incredible frustrating.  

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Kirshy
9 years ago

do you have any recommendations of other fantasy books in the gun powder age? I haven’t read many in that ‘time’ period and am curious to read more. I’ve added this book to my reading list and will give it a try though.

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9 years ago

Looking forward to reading and reviewing this book!

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9 years ago

– Look for books that are selling themselves as “gunpowder fantasy” or “flintlock fantasy.”  You may also want to look at books that are considered steampunk. Not all of them count as epic fantasy, but there are many fun reads.

 

I like the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik.  Napoleonic wars, with dragons. No elves, alas.

 

Also Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susanna Clark.  There’s not as much military activity, and the struggle is more individual, but with epic consequences.  There is plenty of elvish weirdness.  It’s also set in the Napoleonic War era.

 

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is more steampunk-ish than flintlock, but it is a lovely read.  There’s plenty of pointy ears and royal intrigue.

 

Books I haven’t read, but that sound interesting to me:

The Iron Elves trilogy by Chris Evans

The Powder Mage trilogy by Brian McClellen

The Tears of Rage series by Todd Gallowglass

 

 

 

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9 years ago

I wanted to add one more book series recommendation – Frontier Magic by Patricia Wrede.  These are more YA and coming of age story, in an alternate 19th century North America with functional and important magic.  No elves and not really epic, but a fun series to read. 

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9 years ago

and – Having just finished The Gunpowder Mage trilogy, I can highly recommend it. And don’t worry about pacing, it practically sprints along! 

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9 years ago

@@@@@ several above: I have been impressed with the 1st two novels of Django Wexler’s Shadow Campaigns series (The Thousand Names; The Shadow Throne)

Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB