The uber-manliness of the manliest of manly men

Surprising as it might seem, I’m not talking about Angry Robot’s publishing director, though the mistake is easily made. The quote above comes from the very first review of Gav Thorpe’s magnificent epic fantasy, The Crown of the Blood.

I’m impressed by the moral neutrality. Similar to the work of Tom Lloyd, this is a book about warring factions, each of them convinced that they are in the right… To paraphrase (badly), no one has ever marched into battle thinking they were the bad guy. Mr Thorpe had that nailed. Even the proper “hero” of the book is a dodgy character – Ullsaard is convinced of his cause, but, ultimately, he is left in judgement before the reader.

…this book is hairy, gory, sweaty, shameless… and perhaps even a little bit thoughtful.

It’s out in the UK on September 2nd and the US on the 28th of the same month.

If the review has left you wanting more, and you can’t wait the few short weeks until publication, here are the first 50 pages, complete with dinosaur-punching action:

Click for full-screen. You can embed the free sample in your own site – just copy the code (by clicking on the “menu” button in the bottom right corner of the sample, and selecting “Copy embed code”) into your site.