Storm Seed is the penultimate Sacred Band novel and it’s all you’d expect from Janet and Chris Morris – dark in places, complex and multi-layered, exciting and full of action, sad and yet joyous. As with all of these novels it’s not for the faint-hearted, those who like an ‘easy read’ or those who don’t understand the nuances and lyricism of these two writers. This novel ties up many of the plotlines from previous books; the complex relationships between the Sacred Band members, estranged though they are; the re-emergence of old enemies and old bonds; the reaffirming of loyalty and friendship and, of course, a great big fight😊
What I love most are the characters in these novels. Nikodemos, especially, is such a wonderful creation. He’s the most human, the most troubled and the most courageous. Of all the characters Niko loses the most, but is, perhaps, the only one who can truly understand what it means to retain one’s humanity and sense of self. Surrounded by immortals Niko understands mortality and death more than the others, yet faces it head on and doesn’t quaver. Surrounded by the immortal Commander Tempus, Jihan the Froth Daughter, and a host of more than humans Niko, Strat and Crit fight and work as only those commanded by an immortal can – doing more than they thought possible, for the love for Tempus and each other.
Past decisions and mistakes come a-knocking and when a half-god and Death’s Queen seek revenge a world or two are ravaged. Prepare for blood, for sacrifice and for loss in this book. But be heartened by the unbreakable friendships, the courage and the glory of the Sacred Band. Cleverly woven in is the land of Sandia – a place where the inhabitants plundered their land and seas until their world was mostly barren, their children born in a laboratory and a people dying the slow death of a world ravaged at their hands. Sandia is not so far from home for us. A warning and a lesson, perhaps. Tempus himself finds it hard to understand how a people could destroy their own world in such a way.
It’s a great adventure, a great saga and a great read.
Life to you and everlasting glory.
5 stars.
Library of Erana 
Reblogged this on Legends of Windemere.
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Reblogged this on sacredbander and commented:
We have had some wonderful reviews over the years, for many books we loved writing. But no reviewer has ever topped A.L. Butcher’s ability to absorb, metabolize, and reassert the values and tensions in a novel. In this novel, the most experimental of the Sacred Band novels, set where humanity has nearly destroyed its world, Butcher reached into our souls and recast cause into effect so completely that we want to read the book again, keeping in mind the Wisdom of the Reader that Butcher brings the stories she reads. Thank you, Alex Butcher, who has proved to be as much a Sacred Bander as any of us.
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Thanks:)
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