Ratings9
Average rating4.3
Discover your new favourite fantasy series the epic and spellbinding first instalment in Empire of Salt 'One of the best fantasy novels I've read' 5***** READER REVIEW ______ The city of Darien lies at the heart of a dying empire. Twelve families race for a throne soon to be made vacant - by murder or civil war. Into this fevered, hungry city come six strangers: An orphan and an old swordsman. A hunter and a pitiless killer. A young thief and a cynical chancer. As the sun sinks the city will know no slumber. For long dormant passions have awoken. Fortunes will be won and lost. Lives will be staked and claimed. And a story long waiting to be told will catch fire in the telling . . . ______ Readers are captivated by EMPIRE OF SALT: 'Enough machinations, conspiracies and controversies to rival Game of Thrones' 5***** Reader Review 'I'm a huge fan of Iggulden, but this takes it to another level' 5***** Reader Review 'A must-read and a very welcome addition to the genre' 5***** Reader Review
Featured Series
3 primary booksEmpire of Salt is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2017 with contributions by Conn Iggulden and C.F. Iggulden.
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Finally after suffering reader's block for weeks, I finished this one just before the month ended!!!
Conn Iggulden or C.F. Iggulden, one of the better historical writers, finally has his own fantasy world.........
Maybe because of the block I mentioned or something else, when I read the first few lines of his opening paragraph, I was looking for something captivating, and there it was, a telling of Elias story, no frills, no long winding description of the trail, how the leaves on the surrounding trees were of this colored, while walking some of those would fall lightly........and so forth and so on, I like the way he describes things, to the point with some embellishments, but that dreaded block came about, and much as I tried to read it, it just clutched at my head.......that was why it took me a long time to finish this one......and the story seemed to drag along........
Character wise Mr. Iggulden writes believable protagonists and antagonists, when a new character is introduced, everything is revealed(or almost everything), then you start to like the said characters, only to find that, they were just part of the embellishment (Daw, I really liked him........dang........
First 60% were 10/10, character driven, with some original concepts and good story (felt 90% like reading Abercrombie, just without his more Tarantino-esque humor/over the top occurences). Also good flowing writing and good rhythm.
Unfortunately, the last 30% are quite bad, 4/10 bad and consists only of "action! Action!! ACTION!!!" and bad at that also, since the character development becomes useless or even strongly inconsistent (Nancy) and the author is not good at writing battles, neither at 1st person POV, nor in the tactical view.
Will not read the rest of the series.
Might be useful to mention i read Iggulden before: loved the Genghis series, but disappointed with Lion of Sparta (mediocre to lame) and Dunstan (straight up bad).