Crucible of Chaos

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By Sebastien de Castell

Publisher Description

A mortally wounded magistrate faces his deadliest trial inside an ancient abbey where the monks are going mad and the gods themselves may be to blame!

Estevar Borros, one of the legendary sword-fighting magistrates known as the Greatcoats and the king's personal investigator of the supernatural, is no stranger to tales of ghosts and demons. When the fractious monks of the abbey rumoured to be the birthplace of the gods begin warring over claims of a new pantheon arising, the frantic abbot summons him to settle the dispute.

But Estevar has his own problems: a near-fatal sword wound from his last judicial duel, a sworn knight who claims he has proof the monks are consorting with demons, a diabolical inquisitor with no love for the Greatcoats, and a mysterious young woman claiming to be Estevar's ally but who may well be his deadliest enemy.

Armed only with his famed investigative talents, his faltering skill with a blade and Imperious, his ornery mule, Estevar must root out the source of the madness lurking inside the once-sacred walls of Isola Sombra before its chaos spreads to the country he's sworn to protect.

Investigate alongside Estevar and the most heroic mule ever to appear in print in this thrilling swashbuckling fantasy mystery by Sebastien de Castell, author of the Internationally acclaimed Greatcoats and Spellslinger series!

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40 Reviews

3.5

Metaphorosis Reviews

Created 16 days ago

“3 stars, https://reviews.metaphorosis.com/review/crucible-of-chaos-sebastien-de-castell/ Summary Estevar Borros, overweight magistrate and dueling investigator for the King, has been called to the Isola de Sombra by its abbott. But on arrival, Estevar, already wounded in a previous duel, is first met by a mysterious representative of a local noble, and then swept to sea with his mule. Their rescue is just the first of a set of odd occurrences as he tries to determine what happened to the monks of the abbey. Review There are some good elements in Crucible of Chaos – the Greatcoat magistrates, the characters, how gods are created and destroyed, and an intriguing backstory. Unfortunately, that backstory also works as a negative in some ways. I’m new to this series, and there are so many references to how the gods were killed (I assume in previous volumes) that I often wished I were reading that story rather than this one. That story sounds intriguing and novel. This one refers to intriguing novelty, and has a few interesting features, but at many points threatens to boil down to something quite mundane. It’s not that the characters or the plot points are weak in themselves. I felt that what held the story back was the prose. It’s technically smooth, but very dry and often stilted. The characters speak in declamations rather than dialogue, and it rarely sounds natural. It kept me from getting as deeply involved in the story as I’d have liked. The tendency of some sentences to run on and on through convoluted loops didn’t help. For what’s labeled as a prologue to a series, the book is slow to start – prologue within prologue within prologue. To its credit, the major worldbuilding is fairly smoothly done, though there are at times so many names and elements that it’s hard to keep track of. There are some minor inconsistencies. Overall, my reaction was that the prior quartet of books (ISFDB tells me there was one https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?36099 ) sounds interesting, but that the prose of this book is stiff enough to keep me from trying them out. If you’re new to the world and looking for fantasy detectives, this is okay, but I think there are better options. On the plus side, the art, layout and design, are attractive. I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.”

DickGrayson2012

Created 30 days ago

Ceri Wylde

Created about 1 month ago

Likeable Limited character growth Strong relationships Strong villain

sherbetnebula

Created about 1 month ago

Maria Might Read That

Created about 2 months ago

About Sebastien de Castell

Sebastien de Castell had just finished a degree in Archaeology when he started work on his first dig. Four hours later he realised how much he actually hated archaeology and left to pursue a very focused career as a musician, ombudsman, interaction designer, fight choreographer, teacher, project manager, actor and product strategist. His only defence against the charge of unbridled dilettantism is that he genuinely likes doing these things and that, in one way or another, each of these fields plays a role in his writing. He sternly resists the accusation of being a Renaissance Man in the hopes that more people will label him that way.

Sebastien's acclaimed swashbuckling fantasy series The Greatcoats was shortlisted for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fantasy, the Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut, the Prix Imaginales for Best Foreign Work and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His YA fantasy series Spellslinger was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and is published in more than a dozen languages.

Sebastien lives in Vancouver, Canada with his lovely wife and two belligerent cats.

Other books by Sebastien de Castell

Play of Shadows

Crucible of Chaos

Publisher Description

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40 Reviews

About Sebastien de Castell

Other books by Sebastien de Castell

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