The Red Knight
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4.3 • 43 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Miles Cameron weaves an epic tale of magic and mercenaries, war and depravity, politics and intrigue in this action-packed debut fantasy The Red Knight.
Twenty eight florins a month is a huge price to pay, for a man to stand between you and the Wild.
Twenty eight florins a month is nowhere near enough when a wyvern's jaws snap shut on your helmet in the hot stink of battle, and the beast starts to rip the head from your shoulders. But if standing and fighting is hard, leading a company of men -- or worse, a company of mercenaries -- against the smart, deadly creatures of the Wild is even harder.
It takes all the advantages of birth, training, and the luck of the devil to do it.
The Red Knight has all three, he has youth on his side, and he's determined to turn a profit. So when he hires his company out to protect an Abbess and her nunnery, it's just another job. The abby is rich, the nuns are pretty and the monster preying on them is nothing he can't deal with.
Only it's not just a job. It's going to be a war. . .
If you're a fan of Mark Lawrence, John Gwynne, or Brian McClellan you won't want to miss out on this intricate, epic debut fantasy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of hefty adventure epics will enjoy this dense, intricately plotted historical fantasy debut, which launches the Traitor Son Cycle. A medieval Europe threatened by the chaos and magic of Wild creatures turns to two dubious civilizing forces: the church and bands of cutthroat knights for hire. Normally the Wild are powerful, semi-intelligent animals and magical beings without direction or discipline, but a rogue sorcerer named Thorn is summoning the Wild to fight the forces of church and law and sees taking the fortress nunnery Lissen Carak as the first step in overrunning the kingdom. The abbess of Lissen Carak reluctantly hires the Red Knight and his group of mercenaries to defend the abbey, but she isn't sure which is worse: the Wild forces, or the mercenaries' threats to her nuns' virtue. Cameron, a pseudonymous author of historical fiction, packs this thick volume with enough magic, violence, and intrigue for three books, flavoring the story with period detail and earthy dialogue.
Customer Reviews
Really, 4.6 out of 5
Really excellent book. Good combination of fast paced action, with quieter moments, creating good opportunities for world building and character development.
A wide cast of characters are handled with skill.
It’s my understanding this is the author’s debut novel , if so, it is remarkable.
I hope to see him develop more skill at giving voice to the character’s individual and unique minds and personalities. It’s not absent, but I feel like I don’t know them deeply. Maybe more omniscient perspective from the characters other than the MC would make it easier. In limited scenes, he does a good job building some feel for the (numerous) secondary character’s motivations and inner drives, but I was left feeling a little like I was missing out on what the secondary characters were thinking, feeling, dreaming about.
The MC obsession with the woman he admires could have been better explained. Maybe this will become apparent later in the series.
Overall, a really marvellous first book for this series. Reminds me of Robert Jordan, but much quicker pace, and lacking the “save the world” urgency. But sometimes, most times, people fight just to save their friends. This is one you may reread. I think I will.
Overall, highly recommend.
A work of incredible skill and imagination!
The entire time I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but admire how much skill it takes to keep a reader engaged through many changes in perspective, and even more skill to weave the seemingly disparate plot points together in such a satisfying way! Miles Cameron is an incredible writer; he writes fantasy that is deeply grounded in material culture and history, lending a sense of total believability to his work. He writes action and battle scenes like no other- it is clear he knows exactly what he is talking about when it comes to sword play, armour, weaponry and more.
I am completely enamored with the captain, and my desperate desire to learn more about his clearly traumatic and pivotally important backstory kept me on the edge of me seat! And of course, after book one, there is still secrets being kept from us- Cameron doesn’t spoon feed the reader anything which I so appreciate!
I can’t say enough good about Cameron’s fantasy work- I read Cold Iron first and it put me in a book slump, as it was so good nothing else I tried compared. Until, that is, I dove into the Red Knight.
Such an amazing series!
This was such an amazing series and I would recommend highly to any fantasy reader. Miles Cameron has such an amazing writing style, including all the small details that no one else does to make the book feel so much more real, yet he manages to keep your interest the whole time. I find it difficult to stay interested in longer series, yet this is one of the first in many years to keep me as interested from the first chapter to the last. The world building, pacing, and characters were all done amazingly. Definitely the best book series I’ve read in a few years!