The Assassins: Forged In Blood by Goran Zidar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I think the universe is trying to tell me something.
When I pick up a book (or virtually “pick it up” – bad pun) these days, it’s about assassins. No, I’m not saying assassins are old news – I’m saying they’re throwing all their potions and ninja-stars and shit at me.
I’m quite liking it – however, I can come to only two possible reasons for this. 1) I’m destined to become an assassin, or 2) I’m destined to be killed by one.
Regardless, both are seriously cool options. Anyways, on to the review!
“Forged in Blood” acts as an entrée of sorts – it introduces us to important characters, important concepts, and starts off with the world-builiding.
It’s a not-too-long short-story set in the Lands of the Inner Sea. I haven’t read Zidar before, but I liked Forged in Blood. It introduces you to three characters (Tallow, Atilen and Bran) and basically is about how their paths meet [I would like to add here that I think Tallow is such a hot name, and that I might have a mini-geek-crush on him. Just maybe.]
It’s clear that Zidar loves his world very much – even in this short story there are many underlying hints of a well-developed world. I think this short story is a prelude to Zidar’s upcoming novel (titled The Grandfather’s Blade on his website) – I wish the best of luck to him, and commend him on a light, yet entertaining read.
[Forged in Blood is available in the Kindle store here
