Wahida Clark

Emperors & Assassins

C. J. Daley 

I received this book while being offered an ARC reading link from (SF/F)or the Culture, which miraculously qualified me to download like NINE books?! Super cool. I will say the cover of this story really drew me in, as well as it being posed as an African American military fantasy epic. 

This might honestly be one of the most colloquially written books I’ve ever read, but that’s not to say that it was bad in any way, it was just super informal in ways that books usually aren’t. Because of that you get this gritty, raw realness that I’m not really sure I’ve read before. It was interesting, gripping, and seriously fun. 

Along with the fun of this story, the reader is also faced with the vast darkness that warfare brings: blood, guts, feces, severed limbs, the evilness of humanity, excessive death. And this book does not shy away from a single piece of it (there are a lot of chopped testicles???). The battles are fast paced, making you feel like you’re right in the center of them, and although they are somewhat tough to read because of the realness, I found I couldn’t get enough. The main character can be a bit hard to get behind, but there are snippets of heart in there that will have you following along. 

If it had to nitpick a bit: a gripe of mine would be that the cover—the armor, the sword—did make me feel more like it was medieval, meanwhile the emperors and names felt wholly Roman in nature. However this is a fantasy world, so it can be whatever you want it to be. There are literally races that are humanoid, but not human…so Gius can do and be whatever he wants…but so is the nature of the nitpick. 

Totally worth your time, money, or effort to read!