To The Last Page

It seems to me that the biggest challenge of any fantasy writer is to find an innovative way to make its inevitable warring kingdoms storyline interesting, without straying too far away from the familiar aspects that define the genre in the first place. I don't think Alex Marshall comes up with anything new in A Crown for Cold Silver , certainly not with a rather bland generic title like that (even though it takes place on the 'Star', I don't think Star Wars is an option either), but there's strong characterisation here, a richly developed world that has potential for further expansion and plenty of meaningful incidental detail. Whether this is further developed remains to be seen, but the best thing about A Crown For Cold Silver is that even coming in at 650 pages, there's never a dull moment. As conventional as it might sound, the best part of the book is the lead-up to the Big Battle. The battle could by no means be described as anti-climatic (the Star will ...