Product Description

The Estorean Conquord has stood for 850 years. Its Advocate, Herine Del Aglios, knows that she presides over the greatest civilisation in history. But she wants more. And in Estorea's recently conquered territories dissent is brewing. Forced to fight old friends and neighbours in the cause of the ever-growing Conquord, they face brutal choices and savage demands for money and men to be fed into Estorea's wars - demands made by Paul Jhered, head of the Gatherers and the iron hand of the Advocate, With Jhered by her side, Herine believes that nothing can go wrong. Until a disastrous and bloody reversal in the war to overrun the Kingdom of Tsard puts Estorea's armies on the back foot and has Tsardon troops flooding into the Conquord. As the empire trembles, far from the war four unique children are discovering their powers. They are the first true Ascendants, in touch with the elements, able to shape the world. An empire descending into war is about to discover the wonder and terror of magic . . . James Barclay's new series is a triumph of epic plotting and heart-stopping action.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #513610 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 800 pages

Customer Reviews

Good things come if you wait...!
After his highly entertaining Raven series, many of us were waiting this new series with eager anticipation.

This is set in a world where a Roman type empire is expanding and funding itself through taxation and the drafting of local armies. Very much the key elements are expansion, tax and religion. Into this world comes the birth of four children with exceptional powers that are at odds with the agreed religion of the empire.
This comes at a time where the empire over-expands and becomes involved in a war that they are on the verge of losing, the future of the empire is at stake! And what of the powers being wielded by the four children…?

This is a brave attempt by the author to move away from his Raven chronicles and to venture into new territories. I loved his Raven stuff and was really looking forward to this….

Initially I was quite depressed and frustrated, the story gets off to a very slow start and some of the hierarchy was confusing and over detailed. For 100 pages or so I thought the author had delivered a stinker but then suddenly it all kicked off and the story sucked me in. The story became exciting, the characters started to flesh out and the action became intense.

In the end I really enjoyed it and all credit to the author, it is another winner.

Epic and spectacular
I bought this as soon as it came out. I read the Raven novels with great enjoyment, so I had very high hopes for this.

I wasn't disappointed. It is a little slower in pace than Dawntheif at the beginning, but once it builds up the momentum, you cannot put it down. Again James Barclay has created a wonderfully visual and brilliantly imagined magic system, a set of characters beautifully realised, some you will love, others you will hate. Paul Jehred in particular is a blazing character :) utterly brilliant stuff.

I'm currently reading Shout for the Dead, which is continuing the series in excellent fashion.

roll on the next one
After the simple blood and gore plotlines of the raven books that i enjoyed so much i struggled with the first few pages of this book. I am glad that i kept with it. This is an excellent book and Barclay has weaved a much more complex and mature story that is the best that i have read in this genre for some time. Roll on the next installment!