The Judas Blossom

A story of the empire of the mongols with a tiny slither of fantasy

I'm not a massive historial reader. I like some books and the history but I find the books that stick too close to the history I find are slow meandering and at times boring

This was and wasn't the case

There wasn't much distinctive character differences between the 3 main characters but it didn't stop my enjoyment

Arryan didn't pull punches. This story is brutal.
Oh how I hate Hulagu. So much.

The prose was a bit meh. I found it okay with no real engagement or drive to pull me into the story. However I was determined to stick it out and I'm glad I did

The story picked up around the 60% mark. This isn't to say there wasn't a story or Hook before but the story really stood on its legs by that point. Characters were doing things and I was interested to read more.
I do wish that feeling was with me through the whole book and some of the scenes and character arcs could have been brought forward in the story. Temujin storyline for instance. While the most interesting I would have liked to see more of his arc earlier on.

There was also an issue with the pacing. It jumped a lot, some scenes were rushed and there was little room for character moments. It felt as if the author was trying to cram so much into only so little word count.

I'm glad I read this. The ending struck it for me And as a historical fantasy (the fantasy being very little) it was enjoyable and I was never lost. I know little about this particular history

This book was decent, some really good parts mixed with some not as good for me personally.

It follows four POVs, all co-mingled around Hulegu, a grandson of Genghis, and his quest to subdue the middle East. The twist here is that all the POVs (besides Hulegu's) are trying to prevent him, one way or another. I really liked three of the POVs, particularly Hulegu's which dealt with the political and cultural politics back in Mongolia with his brothers as well as his desire to fulfill his grandfather's wishes.

Kaivon's POV was also really good; a Persian general turned bodyguard for Hulegu who wishes to undermine him. Where this book fell apart for me is almost everything to do with the fourth POV; Temujin.

Temujin is one of Hulegu's sons and the one that everyone hates. My first issue is that people's views of Temujin felt a bit too modern or...not Mongolian enough? They hate him because he's fat. Okay. I am not an expert on Mongolia but Kublai Khan is in this book and a few decades later he is supposedly very large and it's not treated as a big problem. There's also a rumor that Subutai was fat, even if it's untrue the evidence suggests this wouldn't be a big issue with the Mongols. The second reason they hate him is because he's not a fighter. This again feels like someone trying to think of WHY a strong warrior would hate their son and not considering cultural context. If this was Genghis's generation or before, sure. But Genghis' whole thing was finding uses for people that suited their talents. His brother Temuge was not a good fighter, but was a highly trusted administrator and counsellor in the khanate. So everything to do with why Temujin was utterly rejected just fell flat for me.

Beyond that, I found his internal struggle to be not very compelling. He flips switches on his father on a dime and his sensibilities feel so modern that it's jarring. Finally, most of his story doesn't get started until near the very end; he basically spins his wheels until 80% into this book, and even then, he is basically just training. I'm sure there was a way to bring this forward or make his storyline more dynamic in this book. Kokachin's storyline also had a lot of training, but it has way more going on to keep it interesting. Temujin's just didn't do it for me. I will read the sequel though; the combat and political stuff in this book was good, and the set-up seems over.