With Blood upon the Sand: The Song of the Shattered Sands, Book 2 (Unabridged)
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
With Blood Upon the Sand is the second book in the Song of Shattered Sands epic fantasy trilogy.
Çeda, now a Blade Maiden in service to the kings of Sharakhai, trains as one of their elite warriors, gleaning secrets even as they send her on covert missions to further their rule. She knows the dark history of the asirim - that hundreds of years ago they were enslaved to the kings against their will - but when she bonds with them as a Maiden, chaining them to her, she feels their pain as if her own. They hunger for release, they demand it, but with the power of the gods compelling them, they find their chains unbreakable.
Çeda could become the champion they've been waiting for, but the need to tread carefully has never been greater. After their recent defeat at the hands of the rebel Moonless Host, the kings are hungry for blood, scouring the city in their ruthless quest for revenge. Çeda's friend Emre and his new allies in the Moonless Host hope to take advantage of the unrest in Sharakhai, despite the danger of opposing the kings and their god-given powers, and the Maidens and their deadly ebon blades.
When Çeda and Emre are drawn into a plot of the blood mage Hamzakiir, they learn a devastating secret that may very well shatter the power of the hated kings. But it may all be undone if Çeda cannot learn to navigate the shifting tides of power in Sharakhai and control the growing anger of the asirim that threatens to overwhelm her....
Customer Reviews
A Disappointing Follow-up
Bradley P. Beaulieu’s sophomore effort in the Song of Shattered Sands series is a disappointing follow-up to the exceptional first book. The modicum of plot development that can be found - which would have comprised a few chapters of content in the previous work - has been dragged out over 30 difficult hours of mostly inner monologue. This might have been fine, should we have gotten to know the protagonists any better or watched them change or develop. Sadly, neither takes place, with the main actors spinning their wheels almost as much as the writing does. There are certainly some gems of descriptive or dramatic development hidden within this giant slog of a novel, but they are so few and far between that they are hardly worth the effort. Reading a brief summary of the book would be a much more enjoyable and compelling experience. The author clearly did not respect his readers’ time or effort with this tedious and mundane brick of a book. It often feels like 30-hours of jumping from soliloquy to soliloquy without anything being added from these long sojourns into the broken records of the characters’ thoughts. When one considers that the Fellowship of the Ring clocks in at 25% fewer hours, with all is descriptiveness and world building and grand adventure, it becomes difficult to argue that these 30 hours wouldn’t be better-spent reading something else.
Sarah Coomes’ voice work is stellar once again, although at times the direction could have improved. It would be hard to fault the director, however, for being as uninspired as the source material.