Book Review | Grave Empire

Grave Empire by Richard Swan brings an exciting new flintlock fantasy filled with mad science, muskets, and vicious mer-men. This series takes place a few hundred years after the events of Empire of the Wolf. However, I feel like it’s still accessible to newcomers and could be read as a standalone series.

I’ve got to say, hands down, my favorite storyline had to be Peter’s. He’s a disgraced officer who is assigned to a remote military outpost where he hears strange weeping at night and a mysterious entity is picking off the men one by one. His sections felt wonderfully atmospheric and gothic and almost reminded me of The Island of Doctor Moreau.

The worldbuilding itself is well-fleshed out and fascinating. The Sovan Empire is on the cusp of industrial revolution. Magick has largely been prohibited (save for the Corps of Engineers who are allowed to practice thaumaturgy). The author even goes through the pains of creating in-world languages, so when culturally specific words from our real world like “Argonauts” cropped up or when the writing breaks out into random French phrases like with "pièce de résistance" and "raison d'etre," it stuck out like a sore thumb to me. That is my main gripe with this book and I wish certain words and phrases had been swapped out for ones that tied more into the book’s own worldbuilding.

Other than that nitpick though, this was an intriguing start to The Great Silence series and it's a solid pick for epic fantasy fans.

Thank you, NetGalley and Orbit Books, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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