Traitor Son Cycle #1
Dark Fantasy, Epic
Orbit; January 22, 2013 (US) / Gollancz; October 25, 2012 (UK)
648 pages
4 / 5 ✪
With a dark twist and immersive story, historical author Christian Cameron makes his epic fantasy debut. The Red Knight is a true epic; featuring brutal and bloody combat, a picturesque if dark world, and one of the most precisely detailed fantasy worlds out there. Though it occasionally reads more like a dictionary than a novel (especially when expounding equipment and etiquette) when the story is allowed out of the narrow confines of realism it thrives. Though the world itself is basically a mashup of Europe and the New World—complete with cultures and Catholicism—and the magic system is fairly uninspired, the story itself provides more than enough reason to read, while the combat kills it every step of the way.
All in all, the Red Knight on the whole is a must-read, beginning an epic quintet; the Traitor Son Cycle, which compiles roughly 3,000 pages of excitement and imagination. Throughout it all, Cameron never abandons what makes this series truly great—the ideals of hope, despair, and the ability to kill off any character, regardless whether it’s your favorite one.
