 What a stellar debut Justice of Kings makes! Fantasy can be a violent genre, replete with blood, guts and gore. The gratuitous use of violence, without more than a moment's reflection, has its place in its audience, of course, but I find my personal preference has shifted away from those types of stories. Little wonder, I read through Richard Swan's debut in three settings over two days. Justice of Kings is not a work that portrays violence, without contemplating the full weight of what perpetrating it does to a person, nor does it treat the enactment of justice in a cavalier way. Swan shows a deep engagement with the questions of law and jurisprudence, mapping the ideal form of both before creating scenarios which see justice placed well outside the bounds of the law of the land. At its core, this is a novel preoccupied with querying the relationship between justice, the law, and retribution. Justice of Kings' narrative is that of the moral and ethical decline of its main character, Sir Conrad Von Volt, one of the Sovan Emperor's justices. Like many of my favourite fantasy series, this one has more than a hint of tragedy to it. Indeed, Von Volt's tragic flaw brings about one error of judgement after the next. By the time he recognises the path he's on, these areas have multiplied, turning into a landslide whose effects spread out far beyond. What at first glance seems like a fairly limited scope of the story we're shown. This is owed to a kind of naivety within Von Volt who, I quote, had embraced the ways of the servants with the zeal of the convert. And though he was no fool, I knew that as a consequence of his other lessons, for the man had only been 15 years old when he had gone to war, the very kernel of his worldview was softer and more vulnerable. Than any would believe. Close quotes. The world Von Volt and his retainers in habit is covered in muck and soggy with blood. The narrative is stole from the first person point of view of one of his two retainers, Helena Sedanker. The somewhat rebellious protégé of Von Volt, Helena is an unreliable narrator, true and true. The narrative is stole through the voice of an older, wiser Helena, who often provides value judgments and commentary on her own actions, as well as a great deal of foreboding as to the fate of Von Volt, the other retainer, Bresinger, even the empire of the wolf at large. This is a widely successful storytelling strategy, and though I cannot speak to whether a swan will deliver on every promise contained within these pages by the end of the trilogy, I love his handling of it over these 400 pages. As for Helena, she is a spitfire in written well. The hot temper of her use is stampered by the more experienced voice, which provides both context and reflection of those choices I might have otherwise found off-putting. To see her struggle to discover her identity and eventually set a concrete part before herself is a joy. Helena grows a great deal throughout the narrative, and more and more takes up the role of foil to Von Volt. Where his moral certainty begins to diminish, hers calcifies creating fresh new possibilities for conflict by novel's end. There is much beyond the characters to commend. The world-building of the empire borrows from Imperial Rome and the fanaticism of the crusades. The notion of civilising an influence over many barbarous people is stashed on in a way that suggests the very concept will be problematised further throughout the next two books. The magic of the world is violent, harsh, even average. This is a low magic setting, which makes those rare occasions when Von Volt uses his voice, a sort of violent Jedi mind trick that justices may use to force someone to tell the truth despite themselves. Well, it makes its use alarming to all who witness it. Other displays of this world's magic are rarer, still and more disturbing. The use of necromancy is downright disquieting for the characters, and I can see why. As a detective novel, The Justice of Kings sets up an engaging series of mysteries that tie together to reveal the frailty of the social fabric that envelops our cast of characters. The idea of empire, large and powerful and held together by its venerable institutions, becomes feeble when those institutions are cracking under our very foundations. It's a sobering lesson for the characters, and not without its relevance outside the novel too. I return to the question of violence. Taking a human life, even the life of someone monstrous and intent on hurting Helena is not an act she treats brazenly. She recognises this, I quote. Of course, it was easy to assume that these two soldiers were soulless automatons, but for all they deserved death and hate. They experienced emotion as keenly as I did and had probably been close friends. It made the second man reckless with anger. Close words. I very much appreciate that this fantasy novel, unlike so many others, has a table of contents at the very beginning. This might well be a pet peeve of mine, but I dislike that most fantasy novels skip on that particular what I would call a key part of any novel. As someone who occasionally works with science fiction and fantasy novels in academia, navigation is made so much easier when publishers put a table of contents in, so please do so in your books, if any publishers are watching, which naturally none are. I also enjoy the epigraphs that open each chapter. They tie thematically to each of them, providing foreshadowing that kept me guessing about the ways in which one would connect with the other. Epigraphs can be a powerful world-building tool, and Swan uses them well in that fashion. You will enjoy this book if… 1. You hate lawyers. The ones in this book do not have a great time. 2. You love lawyers. The ones in this book are really badass. 3. You're indifferent to lawyers. They're a bunch of other characters and they do things too. Probably. Oh, and you know, it's a really bloody good fantasy novel, examining the questions of what is right and what is wrong in a complex moral framework that might deepen your own understanding of justice. I adult reading the interview at the back of my paperback edition of The Justice of Kings, Swan's responses to several engaging questions are erudite and show a deep love and understanding of the fantasy genre. I look forward to digging into the tyranny of fate. And if you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to subscribe, press or rather smash that like button, ring that bell for notifications and leave me a comment down below. Let me know, did I convince you to give Justice of Kings a shot? I sure hope so, it really deserves it. I look forward to next time seeing you all making fun of me as I make fun of you in your illiterate ways. I'm Philip Magnus, so long, bye!