A Time of Dread
One hundred years after The Faithful and the Fallen, an epic saga begins
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- 5,99 €
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- 5,99 €
Publisher Description
‘Reminds me of why I became a fantasy enthusiast in the first place’ – Robin Hobb, author of Assassin’s Apprentice
The first novel in John Gwynne’s epic and stirring Of Blood and Bone trilogy.
The Ben-Elim, a race of warrior angels, once vanquished a mighty demon horde. Now they rule the Banished Lands. But their dominion is brutally enforced and their ancient enemy may not be as crushed as they thought.
In the snowbound North, Drem, a trapper, finds mutilated corpses in the forests – a sign of demonic black magic. In the South, Riv, a young, tempestuous soldier, discovers a deadly rift within the Ben-Elim themselves.
Two individuals with two world-changing secrets. But where will they lead? And what role will Drem and Riv play in the Banished Lands’ fate? Difficult choices need to be made. Because in the shadows, demons are gathering, waiting for their time to rise . . .
Continue the heroic fantasy series with A Time of Blood.
‘A truly excellent read . . . Exciting, well-written swords and sorcery’ – Mark Lawrence, author of The Broken Empire
‘John Gwynne is one of the modern masters of heroic fantasy’ – Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time
Of Blood and Bone is set one hundred years after the end of Gwynne's Faithful and the Fallen quartet, and can be read as a standalone series. The trilogy includes A Time of Dread, A Time of Blood and A Time of Courage.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nice guys finish alive, and not always last, in this gritty but not grimdark fantasy of battling supernatural forces, set in a fantasy world where humans battle the demonic Kadoshim with the assistance of the Ben-Elim, a winged race of warriors from the ethereal Otherworld. Bleda, a human warrior-prince whose siblings are killed by a Ben-Elim they attacked, is taken hostage and raised by the Ben-Elim. When the supposedly defeated Kadoshim suddenly spring out of hiding with their own human allies and human-demon children, Bleda teams up with Riv, a fellow denizen of the Ben-Elim citadel, to take them on. Riv finds that the angels she knows often fight and scheme among themselves, their conflict instigated by the issue of "improper" human Ben-Elim relationships. Separately, Sig, a bear-riding giant familiar from Gwynne's The Faithful and the Fallen series, embarks on a solo quest to eradicate the Kadoshim, and Drem, son of a trapper, discovers his heritage is with the Order of the Bright Star, who have their own fight against the demons. The Hebraic names are a bit misleading, since neither the characters nor the cosmogony are recognizably Jewish in any way. Gwynne relies on some of the currently popular elements of high fantasy blurred lines between good and evil, a willingness to kill off significant characters but avoids much of the cynicism that reduces epic struggles to mere realpolitik.
