A Book Review: The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark (Empires of Dust #1)

I like fantasy novels, especially those of the grimdark persuasion. This is why The Court of Broken Knives has been on my radar for a while. This book, is the debut for the British novelist Anna Smith Spark. The readership for this book grew rapidly following its release. Readers in the grimdark circles are raving about this book. Meanwhile, some are hailing Anna Smith Spark as the new queen of grimdark.

However, the opinions about this book are divisive. Some readers loved it, while some are less enthusiastic of it. As for me, I loved this book. The Court of Broken Knives tells the type of story that I like, and I am committed to reading the entire trilogy (when the author completes it)

Synopsis:

The city of Sorlost is ancient and unconquered. From its throne the emperor governed the richest empire the world has ever known. The imperial glory and wealth, however, were but facades veiling an ugly truth, for decadence was slowly killing the empire.

But one man, Orhan Emmereth, saw the heart of the problem, and he planned to heal the empire with a surgery.

Out of the desert came a band of mercenaries. They looked like killers. The band was destined for the imperial palace in Sorlost, where Orhan contracted them to assassinate the emperor.

Among the band walked one strange, beautiful boy. His name was Marith, and he was no ordinary soldier. As the band moved closer to Sorlost, it also became apparent that Marith was a man walking with a darkness within him. But no one could have known the horror and the beauty Marith would unleash upon the world when he finally stepped into the Golden City...

My thoughts on this book:

The Court of Broken Knives has everything I like about the grimdark subgenre. The story is morally ambiguous, featuring a cast of characters whose motives and moral compass point to shades of grey, and so there was no obvious "hero" or "villain" in the story. There are 4 major characters in this book, I particularly enjoyed reading about Marith, whose story sets the centre stage for this saga. Marith is tormented by his past. He knew a special power resided within him but he shunned it, fearing what he might become if he embraced it. Marith reminds me a little of Elric of Melnibone, where both men were cursed by destructive talents they do not wish to possess, yet cannot live without, and so they are doomed to destroy their enemies as well as those closest to them. This book foreshadowed the sort doom and destruction which Marith can unleash upon his world. We see the conflicts within Marith and the irony, where the more he tried to escape from his hidden power, the closer he came to become the destroyer whom he believed he may become. In many ways, Marith is both the main protagonist and the antagonist in the story. He is a deeply conflicted man.

The second character I liked was Thalia. She was a high priestess in a temple, whose job was performing rituals of human sacrifice for her god, until a civil unrest forced her into leaving her clerical works behind. In this book, Thalia constantly reflected on her past life as a temple priestess. She felt guilty about the killings. This part of the book was very interesting. Later on, Thalia would become Marith's romantic interest, and she was the only character in the book who sympathized with Marith, because of her own past. The book did really well at portraying Thalia's feeling for Marith – admiration and disgust. Talia adored Marith for all his finer qualities, yet Thalia's disgust of Marith was born out of her own past, because what Marith had within him, the side of him that would bring many deaths and destructions, it reminded Thalia of all the people she killed as a temple priestess.

I also liked Orhan, he was a politician in Sorlost who plotted the emperor's assassination, because he wanted to save the empire from further decline. In this book, Orhan engaged in a series of political games and court intrigues to achieve his mission. He was like a spider laying down the web. I enjoyed reading Orhan's part of the story. I found his character, and his motive, complex and interesting. This is the sort of characterization that makes grimdark my favorite literary genre above all!

Many in the grimdark community have praised this book, but some readers don't share the same enthusiasm. The divisive opinions about this book, it appears, is based Anna Smith Spark's writings.

Is this a badly written book? No. Anna Smith Spark's writings are beautiful and exquisite, it has a poetic and bardic quality to it. Her writings made me feel as if it was meant to be read out loud, like a bard standing in front of a camp fire and telling a tale. However, I think this is also why some readers didn't like this book, because her writing style is unusual in the fantasy genre. Most fantasy novels use plain and simple writings to tell stories. But Anna Smith Spark's wrote as if she was writing poetry. Her writings are emotional, lyrical, and also descriptive. This also means The Court of Broken Knives is not easy to read. To appreciate this book, a reader has to read it carefully. I adored her writings even though I am not a guru of English literature. When I was reading The Court of Broken Knives, there were times when I paused just to admire how beautifully written the sentences were in this book.

I am gushing over this book, but I also think the book has some weaknesses, especially in its pacing, which was a bit uneven. For the most parts, this book was very fast paced, but several travel scenes felt drawn out and slow. I believe this book would have been even better if the lengths for the travel scenes were edited down a bit. However, the pacing issue is minor, because it occurred only at a few places in the book. On the whole, I adored The Court of Broken Knives, this is a very impressive debut novel, and it shows a promising start to (what I believe) a would-be grimdark classic. I highly recommend this book.