The first paragraph is more of a general overview of the author. Feel free to skip to the second paragraph for a bit about the book itself.    I first read David Gemmell in 1989, spotting a copy of his first book, Legend and deciding to try it. I wasn't a huge fantasy fan but a favourite author of mine is Robert E. Howard,  the creator of the sword & sorcery genre so I was interested in finding new fantasy authors. Or more specifically new heroic fantasy authors. There is a distinction between the two. Put simply in heroic fantasy if you see an elf - kill it! I always struggled with the more twee fantasy authors so Howard's work was a gods' send (multiple gods being a common factor in heroic fantasy.) David gemmell ticked the boxes for me. His work is very well written.  His characters compelling, flawed, dangerous and not always destined to live. The stories are told slowly building up from violent incident to violent incident but with a wealth of characterisation along the way. Magic play a huge role in his books with sorcerers and witches weaved throughout the plots. Not all of the books follow this format. Some are set in a future world, some in a distant almost recognisable past. Some take historic characters and weave fantasy into their lives. His final trilogy,  the Troy series takes a more pure historical approach, giving us a "what was the reality behind the myth" story. Recently two books were released, one unpublished work and another first published under another name.  The first has a fantasy element the other is a pure gritty novel of crime. I have enjoyed his books over the many years they were published.  Some I enjoyed more than others, which is to be expected but all were well written  and crafted stories. His characters live on harsh, unforgiving worlds.  Violent death is a constant companion.  But death walks on one side and honour on the other.  Unexpected characters become heroes as honour is reborn. Gemmell is an author I continue to reread to this day and I still find his as work enthralling as I did when I first read him thirty years ago. This is a brilliant start to a new series. It's a great book, with a clever storyline and everything that makes gemmell a joy to read.