 Hello and welcome friends. I'm Philip Magnus and today I will be talking about The Broken God, the third book in the Black Iron Legacy by Garrett Hanrahan. I really apologise if I did not pronounce that right, I hope I did, but anyway I'm very excited to talk about this here dark fantasy and it is indeed a darkly inventive tale as James Islicton said about the gutter prayer and I probably said something similar to that fact or wrote rather because Darth Review and the review of the previous book The Shadow Saint both only exist as written reviews. You can find them in my blog, follow the links below. Anyway that's that doesn't matter right now. Let's talk about The Broken God. As I said the third novel in the Black Iron Legacy series, The Broken God has awakened my slumbering love for dark heart-ranging fantasy. Following the three-part tight armistice that saw Gerdan divided in three influence zones a la Berlin and Germany post-World War II, the precarious balance of three powers is all but sure to break under the manoeuvring of the powerful criminal syndicate of the Gerdana. Its power hungry dragons and its loyal Sion, Raskay. The cast of characters swells with new faces some more devious than others and Raskay is not quite chief among them but he is very close. This young chosen of the Gerdana, he does a lot of manipulations, plenty of machinations and they are a direct product of his almost rabid loyalty towards his family. It is a search for approval that I couldn't help but feel was fated to end badly. Order to take over the city's all-chemical supply trade and in case you are unfamiliar totally unfamiliar with this series of novels let me give you a very quick breakdown Gerdan, a city of alchemists in the middle of or rather trying to avoid the so-called God's War which we're going to get to in a bit. Spotless doesn't quite succeed that's all I'm going to say but anyway the city lives and breathes on a chemical supply trade and so Raskay's task given to him by his uncle is to take over that and to do that he will allow nothing absolutely nothing no friends no love no loyalty to anything but the Gerdana to stand in his way and certainly not the uneasy truce that offers Gerdan a degree of peace and definitely not the defendants of that peace either and least of all not the voice of the new city a voice that only Raskay can at present hear as for that voice it is the last remnant of Spa a familiar character to those of you who have read the black iron legacy thus far Spa's ability to hold on to parts of himself is slipping more and more and that is something that returning main character and my personal badass of the book carillon Tay has traveled half the world to find a cure for her continually dissipating friend the former saint of blades is not having an easy go of it though far from Gerdan's new city I quote she's powerless as a fucking fly unquote unquote what close quotes anyway Carrie wasn't a major POV character in the shadow saint just as Eladora isn't a major point of view character here and to follow her once more is like coming home after years of wandering it's a pleasure and a comfort that's not to say that a lot of what she goes through isn't bonkers insane that's who that that is tautology isn't it oh well I like it some old friends lots of backstory and a new sorceress ally whom I will forever ship would carry on show themselves and play very important parts in the book most horrific and exciting by far is seeing the gods war and what it has done to the outside world the sections of the novel that deal with this so the most powerful in the black iron legacy series thus far true sheer force of imagination here's a good morsel for you I quote carillon and Mary risk being remade by these vanished gods both women are fortified against the touch of the divine one through her sorcery the other through the remnants of her sainthood through her eldritch heritage and both have enough willpower to resist direct assault by these diminished spirits these gods are still perilous in an oblique manner at times carries attention strays from the dusty part in alien thoughts infiltrate her mind once she imagines what it would be like to tear mary's throat out with her teeth to cowl to howl and call her vanished pack another time she finds herself reciting poetry her words so sweet that honey comes dripping from her mouth she has the presence of mind to keep reciting for a few minutes after the fit fades and mary collects the honey so that they have something to eat at least there is more so much more that shows the boundless creativity hannah is capable of and it makes me eager to the point of desperation to see where the next novel goes but that's far from the author's only strength with garret hannah's writing there is this pervading feeling that no detail he includes is extraneous no detail incidental both the political intrigue he weaves here and like in the shallow sains we leave behind the hybrid political intrigue for the sake of gangster dealings and spycraft so both the political intrigue he weaves and the character work at this play are impressive that is exhibited well in the character arc of bastion who is a formerly tenant of the brotherhood from the first book whose progression turns the stomach in a good way by the novel's end good only is remade once more the cost of raskas ambitions having marked it in ways you'd never expect at the broken god's opening what i want to find out most days what's next will the peace hold what of carri and eladora what of spar and the gods war it's only going to get worse much worse before it gets better isn't it well only time will tell i don't know how many books there will be in this series but maybe seven is in my head i cannot wait for the next one at present it doesn't have released eight yet i know that the author is also a writer for some fairly large row playing game handbooks like the one ring and so on and so forth and reading something like the broken god it makes me really excited to just check out all that he's done in this other system medium if you will very different but also one of the coolest things about the broken god is that you can really feel the inspiration and the effect of the authors being so familiar with role-playing games there are ideas here which feel very much the kind of bread and butter that really good dark fantasy lives and dies by especially in collaborative storytelling like all tabletop role-playing games are in effect and one of my favorite things about the broken god is that i can just grab concepts about the whole black iron legacy series i can just grab concepts and drop them into my dnd game for example and my players absolutely love them i tried this with the crawling ones recently and i can't tell you how how well it fit into my own homebrew world but that's a conversation for another time for now i leave you with this the latest hashtag summer of sequels video in the hopes that you if you've never checked this series before will find yourself inspired to in fact go and look up the gutter prayer the first in the black iron legacy series go and get the shadow saint the second book and absolutely ordered the broken god which i think is every bit as strong as the previous two building up on that very solid foundation and who knows what's next i know i don't but i'm excited to find out see you next time bye