Rise of Empire

One of my complaints about Theft Of Swords was that the story and the characters sometimes felt a bit shallow, and I wish we had gone deeper into what they felt or thought or just in general. I do not have that complaint about Rise Of Empire.

This book builds upon the previous one (in worldbuilding, characters, even writing) and is a direct continuation. Royce and Hadrian are as wonderful as ever, but we also get tons more on Arista and Thrace and a few new characters. As always, these books just scream “Fun!” while still maintaining a serious story.

Unlike Theft Of Swords, I listened to this one as an audiobook (I did finish the short stories inbetween some of the novels as audiobooks as well) and I think that's my preferred way of reading this series. Tim Gerard Reynolds really brings these guys to life. I had to get a bit used to Hadrian speaking in a sort of “posh” way, but now I can't even imagine him sounding different. A lot of the humor also comes from the delivery of the dialogue, and he absolutely excelled at that. He makes the entire thing just feel like “hanging out with Royce and Hadrian for a while”, and it's so worth it.