Alex Marshall “A
Crown for Cold Silver” (Orbit, 2015)
A Crown for Cold
Silver is one of 2015’s most anticipated epic fantasy debuts. Perhaps “debut” should be in quotes, because
Alex Marshall is a nom de plume, so is it the author’s first fantasy? Who knows.
Anyway this is a post-Abercrombie fantasy. A big sprawling world with neer do wells who
are looking for revenge, redemption, or a variety of other things. They are
mean & nasty, but utterly captivating.
Marshall’s world is wonderfully complex. Strange religions, complex governments and
cultures. Somehow all of this was
created in a story that seemed propulsive and plot driven.
And the end… wow. I
didn’t expect that the story would go there.
It does a decent job of wrapping up the events from this book, while
leaving me (at least) firmly on the hook for the next book.
My only complaint about A
Crown for Cold Silver is that occasionally there were flippant uses of
contemporary slang that knocked me out of the book. It’s just occasional, but I would’ve
preferred those to be removed.
Otherwise, I loved it!
