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G’day Epics, It’s Adam. I’m trying something new. This style of review allows you to read along with me. I’ll break up the book into quarters and review it every week for a month or as close as I can get it. I feel like this will be interesting way we can collectively enjoy books and also introduce books to you. To kick this series off, we’re going to dive into Empire of the Damned.
Empire of the Damned is written by an Ozzy author, Jay Kristoff. Jay has delved into both science fiction and fantasy. His book Empire of the Vampire was recommended by a facebook group that I’m part of and I’m glad I followed up! Empire of the Vampire is a fantastic book. I’ll be releasing one of my novel reviews of it soon. Empire of the Damned is a follow-on from Empire of Vampires, which is an interesting and new look into vampires and the lore around them. I’m excited to get back into the gore, depravity and hopelessness of this world to see how I get chewed up and spat out at the end.
So, I’ve divided the book into four quarters. This means that I’ll review it every 160-ish pages.
In the first quarter, Jay recapped the previous book he summarised the main characters and what happened. This was a really nice touch and it sent me straight back into the realm of what had happened in the previous book. The opening scene deep dives into two people diving into each other. Literally. What a way to start a book! It has now caught my attention! Celene takes centre stage, and we find much more about the unknown 5th group of vampires, Esana or Esani or the faithful or whatever it is. These vampires are somehow tied to faith in their own way and may have been around and involved when the redeemer found himself on the fun wheel. This 5th group of vampires eat other vampires! To dust, it would seem. We find this out when Celene ate a strong vampire in the middle of a fight! Needless to say, it was freakin shocking and amazing and totally opened up my thinking about this old but newly introduced style of vampire. I love the potential they bring to the story. We start to follow the trail of finding an Ancien who might know what to do with Dior, a descendant of the Redeemer. We also find out the origins of the faithful and why they’re hated so much. I mean, yeah, they started eating all the vampires and turned it into a way to be faithful. The thought cartwheels are hilarious.
There are now hints in the book that the vampires are going to destroy themselves by drinking all the blood in the world and slowly killing themselves off. It is an eventuality. Also, on a much different note, my spidey senses are tingling. Has Gabriel seen the next steps of the re-structure of the hierarchy after the forever king found out he isn’t so forever anymore? Thus old Gabs has planted himself in a position where he can get access to multiple Ancien and the elders of the bloodlines. Ahh, man, I would love this to be so. Maybe he isn’t so doomed after all. Or it could be that he is devoured? I’m just thinking now of him getting devoured, MAYBE he has the ol’ fun wheel Redeemers blood in him and if he’s drunk by other vampires, maybe they die? I’m super excited to see how this plays out.
How good was the almost anime style entry of the 3 Dyvok blood vampires who came sauntering out of the castle Aveléne. Oh my god, what a horrific scene and the size of the weapons. Phoar, I loved that entrance.
Also, I want to know Ashdrinker's origin story. I'm really into this half-drunk blade, and it’s almost surrendered to the captivity OF the blade style of voice. Every time Ashdrinker comes up in the story, I want to know more, but it’s always just tantalisingly out of reach.
What is interesting to me is that having faith in something is powerful. It’s not just faith in the Redeemer or God that gives the character power but faith in general. Also, the faith changes colours to almost represent the type of faith being channelled. For example, red represents faith in a person and white light represents God. I feel like this opens up the story for other creative ways to kill the damned.
And yeahhh. Page 88. That illustration of the dusk dancer. God dam, I think I need one in my life. I also think my wife will have strong words with me though.
To close this off, This first quarter has seen a lot of world-building with some good action, and I’m keen to find out more about what is going on. I’m excited about the lore. We’re now finding out what the faithful are capable of. There are new characters that have been hinted at previously. Gabriel is still totally nuts, and I love it.
Thank you for listening. If you wish to help me continue to make these for you, please sign up on my Patreon page, patreon.com/Mostlyepicfantasy. It’s a small amount of $5, which I will use to buy more books and pay for equipment and fees. You can also try it for 7 days to see if it’s for you. I can also be found on Facebook: facebook.com/mostlyepicfantasy