 Nekrod is a place of nightmares, vanquished and persevering. This city, covered by the eternal greenish gloom of its necromiasma, makes for the central locale in Gareth Hanrahans. The sword-defiant and ambitious and trope-defying fantasy novel that will appeal to fans of Tolkien, role-playing gamers and fantasy enthusiasts, well outside those two groups. If there is any place of origin for this city of wonders and terrors, it is to be drawn from the following Tolkien line. I quote, in Barad-duur would not have been destroyed but occupied. Excited from the authors' acknowledgment, the project of this gorgeous novel is to question what follows after the Dark Lord's defeat, what awaits the heroes once they stand triumphant, what challenges, what new battles, with all the spoils of victory, so too comes the risk of corruption. And as the world moves on from the clear demarcation lines between good and evil, what happens to those who still see the world in those terms? One such individual is the primary point-of-view character, Ulfric. Ulf is the old-school protagonist of a sword and sorcery novel, a man whose moral compass only points one of two directions, good or evil. This served him and his fellow companions, the Nine, well when they were fighting to rid the world of its Dark Lord, the mighty necromancer, Bone. He has continued to serve Ulfric well in his time since. He has spent much of the last fifteen years in the dungeons below Necrot, fighting side by side with another of the Nine, the shapeshifting, changeling Loth. Against prowling nightmares and monstrosities, making sure they never have the opportunity to cause ruin to the surface world. I quote, down there he'd killed things that shouldn't exist, war beasts grown in the alchemical vats of Lord Bone, necromanic horrors held together by sorcery and hate, monsters that deserved death, and he'd fought them fairly, sword against claw, against spell, against toot, filled maw, and grasping tentacle. Above him, meanwhile, Necrot and the other members of the Nine have both changed. Gareth Hanrahan has a special touch when it comes to fantasy cityscapes. Good on, in his black iron legacy, is similarly a place of nightmare and inequity, but also great opportunity. With Necrot, there's the essence of Barad-du in so many ways, also a touch of post-war, World War II, Berlin, isn't there, with several different zones of influence or occupation. Each held by the four great powers that took the city, the human lords of Semaphore, the dwarves of Dwarfholt, the wood elves who served the Earl King, and the Nine themselves. There is also the liberties, a zone carved out for the former prisoners of war, Necrot's original inhabitants, witch elves, olgas, all chemically fabricated creatures known as vatlings, less violent than the ones still spawning beneath the city itself. The Nine is not a name without association, and I don't believe for a moment that an author so well-versed with Tolkien, so involved with and inspired by the world of Middle-earth, would have named the band to which his main character belongs, without intent. Tolkien's Nine were lords of men, once the greatest and mightiest of their race, now corrupt. Hanrahan's story of heroes on the moral decline certainly recalls the possibility. As Ulfric reconnects with his fellow members of the Nine, eyes to the alert, scrutinising their every behaviour, and especially doubtful of every instance in which Ulf would think something like, it all made sense, he could trust his old companions. The Dwarf Gundon, the first of the Nine I've ever befriended, is impossible not to like, yet his blood-test, the gleeful slaughter he unleashes on the liberties and his authoritarian touch with the non-Nine members of Necrot's ruling council, portrays someone a lot more morally great than you might expect of one of the most famous Nine heroes in the world. You can tell much about Gundon by this exchange with Necrot's official ruler, Lord Vaunt. You're not above the law, Vaunt said. Yes, we are. We make the law. There wouldn't be any law here if we hadn't killed Lord Bone. We slew one ruler of the city, and he was a lot scarier than you. Others in the Nine have similar idiosyncrasies, Ulf loves and trusts them all, and tries his hardest to bring them under a common goal once more, punctuated by prophecy of dark times ahead. The task is harder than it should be. Ulf is a little like a tree bent by the wind in numerous directions, leaning whichever way the latest member of the Nine bends him towards, and as reader, you're in the same position. Every one of his friends, from Lost to the Wizard Blaze and Thief Barris, from the Dwarf Gundon to the Alvin Princess, Naelin, and even the Wilde Barbarian Thern, every one of them brings up points that sound both valid and morally just. Ulf finds himself in an impossible situation, his perspective skewed and the moral certainty he hopes for, impossible to pinpoint. Worst yet, the discord he finds among the Nine is something he feels responsible about, almost as if, by throwing himself into the fight with countless monstrous hordes below Necrod, he turned to blind an eye on the goings-on in the world. The Nine you see lost their leader in their moment of triumph. The Paladin Pair sacrificed himself to stop bone and, ever since, Ulf has felt that he could never feel those shoes. Whether they are for him to feel or not is beyond the point, really. It's a source of guilt and perceived failure that haunts our protagonist. Some of the others in the Nine, meanwhile, operate by a logic that can be best summarized with the following words uttered by Barris. We save the world. And that means we get a say in how it's run. I'll do this service to the secondary point of view character in this novel if I didn't mention her sections. Ulf is the sister to Ulfric, whom he has not seen in over 20 years. Her quest is out of apparent, trying to be reunited with her son. A young boy, Derwen, whose wanderlust pushes him towards running away from home as soon as Ulf tells him who his uncle's identity truly is. Well, she never told him about an uncle in the first place. On her quest to find and save her son from some unsavory folks, Ulf meets a mercenary, a dwarf, an elf. Only at the end of this journey awaits not a punchline, but a gut-frenching twist. I can't speak of the sword defiant without touching on the weapon Ulfric wields. The sentient sword Spellbreaker is a personable weapon, if there ever was one. His is not a nice personality mind, but nice is boring. I much prefer evil and devious in my own sentient weaponry. Spellbreaker is not much fond of Ulf and seeks to betray him. At every turn, he can, early on. Ulfric, meanwhile, dislikes the sword's unpleasant company, its combination of malign utility and lurking treachery. I quote from page 92 of the novel. Yet I genuinely tear up further into the narrative, seeing wielder and weapon develop grudging respect and something perhaps even deeper than that. Teardown Metro stands behind a gorgeous illustration on the sword defiant's cover, of Ulf as he holds on to Spellbreaker. Few others publishers can compare with Orbit's covers nowadays. I read Justice of Kings the same week as I did this novel, and the covers of both are the best kind of fantasy art you can hope for in a cover. Huge props to the team at Orbit for that. One element I regret to bring to your attention is the amount of areas throughout the novel. It's a bummer. There are as many typos here as I came across, and I'm surprised the proofreading folks at Orbit failed to catch as many as they have. Even the blurb seems to have something of continuity error to it. Many years ago, Sir Ulfric and his nine companions saved the world. The blurb begins. The blurb. But that's not quite right, is it? Ulf is part of the nine, but this description would have us think of ten heroes rather than nine. It's entirely possible I am overlooking something, but I don't think I am. These areas are a small blemish on what has otherwise been a genuine highlight of my year as a reader. Not only that. The Sword of Iron is an inspiration, showing as it does how the most well-known tropes in fantasy can be turned on their head, and made fresh again. No trope is ever truly tired, not in the capable hands of autos whose vision shines new light, for all its writers. I'm in half a mind to write an essay about Hanrahan's treatment of elves, and how that ties into the larger history of the portrayal of this species since Tolkien to this day. This is a genuinely fantastic read, one I hope you will get to experience for yourself very very soon. You'll enjoy this book if you grew upon the Lord of the Rings, or novels like the Dragonlands Chronicles, and now need something supercharged and more morally complex. Love cursed swords, gore, grisly betrayals, and genuinely tragic character driven moments. I mean come on, it's a fantastic premise for a fantasy novel, you should be reading it already. And more, probably. I have a deep rooted love for Hanrahan's fiction, this is the fourth novel of his I've read, and serves as a great jumping-on point for his work. He's also a talented tabletop role-playing game writer, and I can't wait to see his work on the second edition of the One Ring, I believe he's writing some adventures. That said, when his main character has nicknames such as Alph, I couldn't help but think about this. If you enjoyed this video, please share it with your friends, press the like button, and don't forget to subscribe. More is coming, I apologise for the lack of video, I had to record this whole thing, because well, I did a really excellent video with plenty of improv and fun visual cues, only for obvious to absolutely murder it, so I decided to re-record it as a simple audio version of my review. I think I'm going to do that for a little while in the future, simply because honestly, I'm just crushed by the number of shitty experiences I've been having with recording software lately, and it makes me furious and so deeply sad. But hopefully this works well enough. Again, if you enjoyed it, if you listened all the way to the end, thank you very much, that means a lot to me. I will see you again next time. I'm Philip Magnus, and you should go read The Soul Defiant. Bye!