The Emperor's Blades

Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, Book 1

By: Brian Staveley

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Now includes special bonus content. Stay tuned after the audiobook to hear “The Last Abbot of Ashk’lan,” a short story by Brian Staveley.

The emperor of Annur is dead, slain by enemies unknown. His daughter and two sons, scattered across the world, do what they must to stay alive and unmask the assassins. But each of them also has a life-path on which their father set them, destinies entangled with both ancient enemies and inscrutable gods.

Kaden, the heir to the Unhewn Throne, has spent eight years sequestered in a remote mountain monastery, learning the enigmatic discipline of monks devoted to the Blank God. Their rituals hold the key to an ancient power he must master before it's too late.

An ocean away, Valyn endures the brutal training of the Kettral, elite soldiers who fly into battle on gigantic black hawks. But before he can set out to save Kaden, Valyn must survive one horrific final test.

At the heart of the empire, Minister Adare, elevated to her station by one of the emperor's final acts, is determined to prove herself to her people. But Adare also believes she knows who murdered her father, and she will stop at nothing - and risk everything - to see that justice is meted out.

©2014 Brian Stavely (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Great book

What made the experience of listening to The Emperor's Blades the most enjoyable?

Very worth your time. Not a lot of books out there like this one. Worth the money and time spent.

Amazing book and series

I gave this a shot since the overall ratings were high and it seemed like my type of book. I read the negative reviews before I read the series and after and I have to say that I don't agree with them. Character and world creation were on point and not slow in my opinion. It wasn't uncommon for me to be anxious about what was going to happen next in the story but that is just a reflection of the engaging story. I found the narration and story to be top-notch for this book and for the following books in the series.

Amazing!

Loved this. It took me a year to get to it, but I inhaled it in three days. I have already ordered the next book in the series. I'm looking forward to it.
The narrator is, as always, fabulous! He really knows how to read a book.

Admirable start to a new trilogy

I listened to the audiobook - narrated impeccably by Simon Vance - and really enjoyed this book. Okay, I hate that it is clearly a bridge to the next story in the trilogy, but it ended well enough. Sure, there could have been more closure and finality...because just about every loose end stayed loose...but, that's the nature of a trilogy, I guess. There were some pretty interesting characters, and the interactions were mostly credible. My only real complaint was that, right at the end, a few things happened that were just not very satisfying for the reader. The buildup of some of the major conflicts were not really concluded (when at ALL!) with must satisfaction for the reader - with one semi-major storyline being concluded completely off-screen. Oh, and (naturally - it's book 1 of a trilogy!) an entire new can of WTF was opened in the final moments of the book. I may continue on with this series, but I've read some pretty feeble reviews about book 2. We'll see. But, if I do move forward, it will almost certainly be with the audiobook, which is also narrated by Simon Vance! All in all, it was certainly worth my time - it was an interesting story, with some fairly unique elements, and was told pretty well.

Strong plot and delivery

I enjoyed the drama and the mystery behind the plot, but I do wish the female characters were stronger. It made me wonder if the author knows any truly strong women.
Other than that, the performance was great. I felt the trials of the characters.
Very enjoyable.

Blades aren't that sharp

Call them a well used set of kitchen knives that work but don't impress you

A lot of filler for a mediocre plot.

Well I didnt hate it.

I enjoyed the world and character building that went on and it was very well written with how it read as its overall structure was nice and easy.

It does have major pacing issues though of way too long stretches of time of not much happening.
The beginning of the book is great, a good few hours of great introductions to the plot set up and world. The middle though just drones along with just way too much 'day in the life' type story telling. Sure it's interesting to a point but after 10 hours I think i just felt overloaded with way too much slow day in the life stories. Nothing was particularly interesting about following around these 2 main characters fumble through life other then seeing more world building.
Nothing was really done with all that world building which I guess was such a disappointment.
There's a 3rd main character who gets no screen time that i felt like her entire story line could have just been thrown out and it would not have impacted the story at all. She does absolutely nothing. What she does eventually accomplish feels pointless by the end of the book that I was insulted my time was wasted.

The monk character was insufferable with how boring his story line was. I absolutely did not need as much of his story as was given as it was just getting repetitive.

The warrior character was interesting and probably the only thing that kept me going. His plot involved a more interesting overall mystery and some tropey training to be a warrior type stories. It was interesting but, again, not a very good reason to have to deal with the rest of this long book to get to these small psuedo interesting story bites.

I appreciated the world but with such mediocre plots I really don't think i will continue this series.

Excellent intro volume!

This book was great - the story was excellent - and it ended at just the right time to make me interested in the next book....it was also great that Audible gave us 30 minutes of the next book as well!

Great listen

Would you listen to The Emperor's Blades again? Why?

I find a good book is easy to relisten in a year or two

Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

If possible.

Action and Intrigue!

Mysteries big and small drive this book and series for me. It starts off quickly and draws you forward to delve deeper into the various plots and lore at play. It’s well written with good action, world building, and new takes on some old tropes (isolated monks, elite soldiers, assassins, ancient foes, etc.) There are characters that are likable, hateable, frustrating, tragic, mysterious, and all of the above. Even the various religions and how they bring the devout and agnostic alike into the fray is interesting.

I’ve really enjoyed the Kingkiller, Lightbringer, Night Angel, and Mistborn series, but this might be my favorite. The first book in the follow up series is really good so far too!

Oh and Simon Vance is great as always!