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The world has fallen from its former state. The war between the clans of the Black Road and the True Bloods has spread.
For Orisian, thane of the ruined Lannis Blood, there is no time to grieve the loss of his family, brutally slain by the invading armies. The Black Road must be stopped. However, as more blood is spilled on the battlefields, so each side in the conflict becomes more riven by internal dissent and disunity.
Amidst the mounting chaos, Aeglyss the na'kyrim uses his new-fo... (show more)
Reviews (10)
great sequel to the first book if liked winter birth you will love blood heir. It just gets darker bloodier and more interesting
An excellent (and keenly awaited) follow-up to the first book. Little annoyed with the acknowledgement as he thanks the team for getting the trilogy out! So why make us wait then! Where is the third book?!
A kick-ass sequel. definitely read Winterbirth first though. Can't wait til Fall of Thanes
The second book in what's supposed to be a trilogy. The back cover says that the author puts the "epic" back into epic fantasy--seems a fair enough assessment to me, although Ruckley's definitely not Tolkien, and he probably falls short of George R.R. Martin too. Even so, this book (and the series so far) served its purpose, entertaining me as it carried me off to sleep each night.
Following from Winterbirth, and the na'kyrim Aeglyss' recovery from his crucifixion on a sacred Kyrinin stone, the disturbance in the Shared is now so large that even we plebbish humans (called the Huanin) can sense it, and, though this could be taken out of context, Ruckley really manages to create an air of inevitable death and destruction. Bloodheir, albeit definitely not the calm, is certainly awaiting the storm. As it becomes clear just how strong Aeglyss is in the Shared now, and with the squabbling and back-stabbing that is rife amongst his enemies, I finished Bloodheir thinking, for the first time in a while, I can't see how the bad guy can lose. This is, of course, how I'm meant to feel, but the danger is now, that with the Godless World series' gritty bent, and magic still largely in the background, short of deus ex machina, which I'm certain Ruckley won't stoop to, I'll be shocked at any other outcome. Excellently done. The only one powerful enough to harm Aeglyss is himself ... but enough of that.
Ruckley introduced a small, but interesting, group of non-human races in Winterbirth. Although, as the blurb says, the Anain are in this book, we see them from accounts of other people, rather than as actual characters which is a shame. In Bloodheir, though, we do learn more about them (whether from the Robin Hobb style entries at the beginning of every chapter or from Aeglyss) and, although they seem to be doing rather badly at restraining the mad na'kyrim, it will be interesting to see whether "the most potent race this world's ever seen" have anything else up their (probably metaphorical) sleeves. The Kyrinin, especially Ess'yr and Varryn, play a part in Bloodheir, but I was a bit disappointed that their characters weren't fleshed out more.
Bloodheir. The strange thing is, I'm not sure just which one that refers to. I suspect it's Orisian, who does a lot of travelling around in Bloodheir, but the High Thane's brutish son, Aewult, gets more page time, too.
After a slow start, Bloodheir quickly picked up speed, and a lot of different threads are starting to move together; it does suffer from some of the problems of a "middle book", and every character seems to be travelling somewhere (this is a world at war), but, nonetheless, Bloodheir is a good read, and Ruckley has definitely built upon the success of Winterbirth to produce a worthy sequel. Best scene? Five words: Highfast; Aeglyss; long distance possession.
There isn't one in the ARC, but I gather there is also going to be an extract from the concluding volume of the trilogy at the back of the book. There's also a rather useful "What Has Gone Before" section at the beginning! And damn those Orbit lying types: the book wasn't written in blood, at all...
Very good sequel to WINTERBIRTH. Should be one of the fantasy books to read in 2008!
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