The main character Tamas is initially comes across as a hard and chiselled personality but as you progress through the story you get that he is a committed man who is trying his best to do the right thing, which sometimes includes hard choices with hard outcomes. There is a realism and quality that I found appealing in Tamas.

The novel takes place in the kingdom of Adro, one of the Nine Kingdoms founded by Kresimir, a semi-mythical figure now worshiped, along with his nine siblings, as a deity. Magic users are usually divided into three classes: Inspector Adamat’s search for answers — when the Privileged were dying, each and every one of them cried a certain phrase in death, ‘You can’t break Kresimir’s Promise.’ Adamat has his hands full in what turns out to be a more dangerous investigation than he imagined.

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a b David Gemmell Legend Awards, 13 June 2014, retrieved 13 June 2014. "Gemmell Awards 2014 - THE WINNERS! - the David Gemmell Legend Awards". Archived from the original on 2014-07-07 . Retrieved 2014-06-14. White, Peter (January 14, 2021). " 'Utopia Falls' Showrunner Joseph Mallozzi To Adapt Fantasy Novels 'Powder Mage' As TV Series With No Equal Entertainment & Frantic Films". Deadline . Retrieved January 15, 2021. Sometime after the failed negotiation, a Warden (a human mutated by magic and used by the Kez as bodyguards for their Privileged) unsuccessfully attempts to assassinate Tamas in the secret lair beneath the Skyline Palace where he and his co-conspirators had planned the coup. As only he and the members of the council knew where he would be, Tamas hires Adamat again to discover which one of the Councilors is a Kez agent.

The use of gunpowder, the abilities the Powder Mage’s have, and the way that they conflict with other magic users, makes this story even more captivating. The overall concept of magic in Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage world is one that I cannot wait to return to, hopefully again and again. Add to that the overarching plot that has been set up, and my own tendency towards disliking monarchies, and Promise of Blood is a book I can easily recommend to anyone. Powder Mages are wizards with the ability to metabolize gunpowder and use it as fuel for various magical powers, including telekinesis; they can also manipulate gunpowder, such as causing it to explode spontaneously; Brian McClellan's PROMISE OF BLOOD, a debut trilogy set in a world inspired by the revolutionary turmoil of 18th-century Europe complete with guillotines, starving peasants, fanatical royalists and a hero whose survival depends on a small group of honorable mages, including his own estranged son, to Devi Pillai at Orbit , in a good deal, in a three-book deal, for publication in Summer 2013, by Caitlin Blasdell at Liza Dawson Associates (World English).Nila finds herself confronted with soldiers killing her noble employers one night. But she can't let the same happen to their little boy, so she smuggles him out in the hope find a safe place for him and to start a new life of her own. Taniel, the Field Marshal's son and a talented powder mage, who is able to consume gunpowder to give himself supernatural powers, is given the task to hunt down an uncommonly powerful member of the Royal Cabal who managed to escape during the coup. Soon it becomes clear that overthrowing the monarchy was just the beginning.

Privileged are powerful sorcerers; being exceedingly rare, they are almost exclusively gathered into "Royal Cabals" in direct service to the Nine Kingdoms' various monarchs. Sanderson himself has praised it as a good magical system and I thought it read great. There’s plenty of depth as well, as the novel progresses — and the next two books in the trilogy add a lot to make the magic systems feel even more distinct. I’m not just mentioning Sins of Empire out of melancholy for by-gone times; rather, I mean to venture into a small comparison. If you came to me, asking which of these two books to get, I would point you to Sins of Empire. The writing is better, the twists and the action more memorable. The beginning of McClellan’s second trilogy is an established writer’s fourth novel, where Promise of Blood is Brian’s debut. I like to think that most writers, as they continue working on the craft, grow in skill, find more and more distinct voices and Brian is an excellent example of that. Brian now lives on the side of a mountain in Utah with his wife, Michele, where he writes books and nurses a crippling video game addiction. After the royalist uprising, Tamas and his council prepare to receive a delegation from Kez. Manhouch had been preparing to sign accords with Kez, effectively turning Adro into a vassal state in exchange for gold to pay off his mounting debts. Tamas is aware that Adro is in a precarious position and cannot currently afford to go to war with Kez again, but his restraint dissolves when the leader of the delegation is revealed to be Duke Nikslaus, the Kez Privileged who personally executed Tamas's wife, Erika. Tamas throws Nikslaus into the ocean and, fully aware that the Kez intentionally sought to provoke war with Adro, prepares his army.The next day, Manhouch, his queen and many of the arrested nobles are executed by guillotine, ending the monarchy in Adro and leading the country on the path to civil war. Dark Matter creator Joseph Mallozzi has a new project: adaptating Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage books for television. Deadline reports that Mallozzi is set to write the pilot episode, “with a view to” showrunning the one-hour series. A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.