Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Justice of Kings

This took a bit to get into. It's is an interesting consideration of justice, morality, and power. As a lawyer, Swan is clearly invested in the exploration of these themes. The conceit of the story being told via the recollections of the protagonist in the distant future was an interesting choice in that it prompts curiosity as to what happens in this book that warrants keeping a record of it. But I found that sometimes that compulsion to keep reading was offset by wondering, "To what end?" Transcription and the recording of events is a running motif in the plot, but the fact that I kept getting distracted by what might be happening outside of the story - by what possible event, outside of the story we're actively following, prompted Helena to commit everything to paper - detracted from my engagement with the actual story. Even when I was engaged with the story, though, I found myself feeling somewhat detached from the main cast of characters, though that may just be an effect of the temporal distance of the older Helena's recollections.

I'll pick up the sequel because I'm curious as to where this all goes, but I'm not dying to find out.

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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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wishbea's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Starts out as a murder mystery, which quickly becomes an empire ending threat. Justice Konrad is a very mysterious character and as the story is told from the POV of his apprentice/clerk Helena as an older woman we get to see his character shift and what seems to be the start of a moral decline from an outside POV. Helena herself is very dull and a victim of insta-love unfortunately, she has no idea what she wants in life, her streetrat orphan background is barely relevant to her character, and for some reason older Helena stands by her insta-love as her "first true love". Sir Radomir develops into a wonderfully charismatic character by the end of the book and the climax makes for a compelling start to this trilogy. I will be reading the sequel and hoping for better characterisation for Helena.

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ohmage_resistance's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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booksaremythirdplace's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

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erin84263's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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mikarala's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Finally, a fantasy trilogy where the first book actually has its own contained plot! Not only that, but the tension rises throughout the novel and leaves us with a really good sequel hook! That probably shouldn't be refreshing, but so often I find this is something multi-series works struggle with. There's so much to like with this novel.

First of all, I really enjoyed the world-building. This is a relatively low-fantasy world, and up until the climax I probably wouldn't have called it quite grimdark, as the world was a little too...orderly. Honestly, it really strongly reminded me of the world in the middle school/YA series The Rangers Apprentice, which is not super glamorous, but also doesn't reach the bleak levels of some more notable crapsack worlds, such as ASOIAF or First Law. However, things did get fairly gory near the end, so it's probably somewhere between neutral to fairly dark. But anyways, not the point.

I found this novel did very good job of developing the world without overwhelming the reader with exposition. There's maybe a page near the start that was a little heavy-handed in that regard, but overall I think the author managed to slowly build up the world naturally through the narrative. The narrative, of course, is centered on a Justice of the Sovan Empire, who travels from town to town dispenses justice. While magic isn't common in this universe, Justices hold a very high place in society and some use and knowledge of magic is a part of their training. As a result of this, Sir Konrad Vonvalt, our protagonist/deuteragonist, has the ability to compel people to reveal the truth and also some limited necromancy skills. This magical knowledge is a zealously guarded secret, and I really enjoyed how this became an important aspect of the plot.

I really enjoyed Vonvalt's character journey throughout this book. I picked up this book because the description gave me very strong "Ned Stark in King's Landing investigating Jon Arryn's death" vibes. However, while I do think your opinion on that story may be a good indicator for if you'll enjoy this novel, it's not really too similar. First of all, this novel takes place in a town a fair distance from the empire's capital, and as a result, the political intrigue is fairly limited. Although some political machinations still definitely form an important aspect of this story, it doesn't quite permeate the whole setting and atmosphere the way it does in Game of Thrones. In other words, I definitely wouldn't describe this as a political thriller.

Vonvalt is also not Ned Stark, lol. I really like him as a character, and he shares some traits, such as his belief in the law and justice, as well as his lack of political instinct. But the differences also become more clear over the course of the novel, culminating with some blunt foreshadowing

that reveals Vonvalt is headed down a dark path. Vonvalt's belief and trust in the strength of governmental institutions is challenged to the point where he basically turns to vengeance and vigilantism, which I thought was an absolutely fantastic character arc. In the comparison with Ned Stark, it's quite clear by the end of this book that Vonvalt is more blood-thirsty and probably a fair bit more arrogant.

In any case, though, I thought his characterization was really well done and one of the most compelling parts of this novel.

However, I can't say I feel the same about Helena, his clerk and our actual narrator. I don't think I dislike Helena, necessarily, but something about her narrative voice was frustrating to me, and I think I would identify it as my biggest/only dislike with this story. Basically, this story is told from the POV of an elderly Helena relating the adventures she lived as a 19-20yo following Vonvalt around on his journeys. This resulted in some moments where she interjects with commentary about how she realized so-and-so "in hindsight" and some heavy foreshadowing--and by this, I mean she more or less reveals some major developments, while omitting how they happen. It takes the tone of an old person assuming you have some fundamental knowledge of the historical events occuring at the time of the story and their subsequent outcomes. Personally, this really took me out of the story and was something I didn't enjoy. I felt like it really detracted from the immediacy of the action and lessened the overall tension when things were happening in the natural course of the narrative and the older Helena sort of stepped back to offer some perspective and interpretation of her actions at the time. Honestly, something about it almost seemed genre dissonant, like this narrative technique belonged more in a historical fiction or lit fic book, idk. In any case, I did find it to be a distraction that lessened my enjoyment of the story.

That being said, I still think this is a really good book and a very strong first entry for a trilogy.

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