The Second Empire

The first book did not totally grip me, but by the time the third and fourth appeared I was fully enthralled. A truly gripping story with all the intrigue and twists you could want. The characters are gritty and composed of the kind of flaws that bring them to life. I agree with some of the editing comments, but it did not reduce my enjoyment of the yarn as a whole. Bravo and I eagerly await the next one.

This fourth book of "The Monarchies of God" is full of action! The Second Empire mainly concentrate about Torunnas war against the Merduks. We also learn what happend with Hawkwood, Bardolin and Murad and their return to Hebrion, not to mention the Ramusian Church and their internal struggle.This book describes war in a very realistic way, with the heroic warrior, what they think before going to battle, the death and the sorrow afterward over dead comerads. For those of you who don't like to read about war and battles this is not the book for you! I think that you then easely can read about it in: "what went before" in the fifth book. But then again, if you can't handle to read about war... Well, then why read this serie? It's full of violence and describes human kind as we can be at our worst, and we can also see parallel to the European history where the church controlled the lives of the people and it's struggle with the different king/s.The first three books are just as good as this one.This serie is a fresh contribution to the world of fantasy.I can't recommend it enough!ENJOY!

"The Second Empire" is book four of "The Monarchies of God" and is even better than the first three novels. Most of the book deals with the war between the Merduks and the Torunnans. Unlike the the last book of the series, people such as Richard Hawkwood, Murad, and Bardolin do make appearances, but this book really centers on Corfe Cear-Inaf. Corfe is the leader of Torunna's army and is battling a religous war with the Merduks. In the last book the monks Avila and Albrec have brought forth a document that says that Saint Ramusio, the Westerners savior, and Ahrimuz, the Merduks (Easterners) savior, were the same person. This is a fascinating discovery since the enemies really idolize the same God and the war is frivolous due to religous reasons. The plot of this book made me think about certain things that are going on in our world. There are religous clashes happening today and this book makes you wonder if Paul Kearney borrowed from current events as well as history. Kearney borrows greatly from Renaissance history and this makes for a different feel to the book compared to others. I am used to reading books that take place in the medieval times but this is different as this book has guns and other things that weren't present back in medieval times. Most epic fantasies are known to be long books that are well over the five hundred page mark. "The Second Empire" is amazingly under three hundred pages and this book is better than some of the very long stuff that you could read today. Because of this this series would be great for somebody that is not willing to read door stopper size novels. The fourth book of "The Monarchies of God" is a truly amazing read that will be enjoyed by fans of the series and fantasy fans in general. This is a great read.Happy Reading!