Showing posts with label richard swan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label richard swan. Show all posts
Buy The Infinite State
FORMAT/INFO: The Infinite State will be published by Tor Books on August 4th, 2026. It is 416 pages and available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Infinite State is a dystopian sci-fi that's ironically undercut by succeeding a little too well at crafting a seemingly inescapable authoritarian police state. I admit, I had to sit with The Infinite State for a bit before I wrote this review. I was caught up in trying to figure out why the bleakness of the author's previous series, Empire of the Wolf, worked for me, while the bleakness of The Infinite State left me underwhelmed. But it has finally clicked. Bear with me for a moment.
In Empire of the Wolf, you are told from page one that the empire in this saga is doomed to fall. We know everything is going to fall apart, but the drama is in HOW it falls apart. More importantly, even though the empire is doomed, the characters we follow still have agency. They are making choices and they are still the ultimate drivers of the narrative. And even in ultimate failure, there are some successes to be found along the way.
In The Infinite State, we arrive at the very worst of times. The empire is a totalitarian surveillance state, where no one is safe from political murder. There should be excitement in watching characters break out of this nightmare. The problem is that success doesn't actually seem like a viable path for our characters. The government knows all their moves before they make them. Resistance is futile. A lot of the story is things happening to them, rather than as a result of their actions. Whatever victories our heroes achieve is because they are caught up in political machinations way above their head, not because they have some cunning plan of their own.
I don't hate the characters outright. Cyprian, an Inspecktor in the state police and by far my favorite of the three POVs, is a competent but disillusioned man who has realized the futility of trying to achieve any real justice. His job is to keep his head down and to make political assassinations disappear. His junior office, starry-eyed with patriotism, can't understand how things work and suffers for it. Cyprian is out here doing his best to survive because he's been around long enough to actually know how to survive. But surviving is all he really does.
Katherine, on the other hand, is a character that stumbles into success. Now there is plenty to be said about the fact that this woman even has the idea to begin with to start a new planet and government. She's the will that keeps the progress of this whole project moving forward. But really, that's all that she contributes: a will to succeed. She's not particularly smart or politically savvy, but somehow keeps moving the ball forward.
And lastly there's Julian, whose poor unfortunate arc is to be the guy who comes from a privileged life in a neighboring regime of planets; when he comes to spend his racing career in Pater Aeternus, he doesn't imagine that life could be THAT bad here. He quickly realizes his mistake when he violates the "morality" clause of his racing contract.
Interesting characters, for sure. But watching them trapped in an authoritarian state, knowing that none of them would break free without circumstances outside their control aligning, that was a level of bleakness I found a bit suffocating. I want to know our heroes can make things happen on their own. Sure, sometimes it takes a bit of luck, but there's got to be that glimmer of hope. And this story was decidedly without hope because for the most part, our characters are just passive prisoners in a nightmare.
Despite all my critiques, I will be continuing with the series. It's still an interesting premise, even if the execution was too bleak for my taste. There's also the fact that, as the first book of the series, our characters are just getting started. They're already more proactive in the final pages; there's every chance that will only grow with time. But if you're looking for an escape from our present world society, this may not be the one for you.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The Infinite State is a dystopian sci-fi that's ironically undercut by succeeding a little too well at crafting a seemingly inescapable authoritarian police state. I admit, I had to sit with The Infinite State for a bit before I wrote this review. I was caught up in trying to figure out why the bleakness of the author's previous series, Empire of the Wolf, worked for me, while the bleakness of The Infinite State left me underwhelmed. But it has finally clicked. Bear with me for a moment.
In Empire of the Wolf, you are told from page one that the empire in this saga is doomed to fall. We know everything is going to fall apart, but the drama is in HOW it falls apart. More importantly, even though the empire is doomed, the characters we follow still have agency. They are making choices and they are still the ultimate drivers of the narrative. And even in ultimate failure, there are some successes to be found along the way.
In The Infinite State, we arrive at the very worst of times. The empire is a totalitarian surveillance state, where no one is safe from political murder. There should be excitement in watching characters break out of this nightmare. The problem is that success doesn't actually seem like a viable path for our characters. The government knows all their moves before they make them. Resistance is futile. A lot of the story is things happening to them, rather than as a result of their actions. Whatever victories our heroes achieve is because they are caught up in political machinations way above their head, not because they have some cunning plan of their own.
I don't hate the characters outright. Cyprian, an Inspecktor in the state police and by far my favorite of the three POVs, is a competent but disillusioned man who has realized the futility of trying to achieve any real justice. His job is to keep his head down and to make political assassinations disappear. His junior office, starry-eyed with patriotism, can't understand how things work and suffers for it. Cyprian is out here doing his best to survive because he's been around long enough to actually know how to survive. But surviving is all he really does.
Katherine, on the other hand, is a character that stumbles into success. Now there is plenty to be said about the fact that this woman even has the idea to begin with to start a new planet and government. She's the will that keeps the progress of this whole project moving forward. But really, that's all that she contributes: a will to succeed. She's not particularly smart or politically savvy, but somehow keeps moving the ball forward.
And lastly there's Julian, whose poor unfortunate arc is to be the guy who comes from a privileged life in a neighboring regime of planets; when he comes to spend his racing career in Pater Aeternus, he doesn't imagine that life could be THAT bad here. He quickly realizes his mistake when he violates the "morality" clause of his racing contract.
Interesting characters, for sure. But watching them trapped in an authoritarian state, knowing that none of them would break free without circumstances outside their control aligning, that was a level of bleakness I found a bit suffocating. I want to know our heroes can make things happen on their own. Sure, sometimes it takes a bit of luck, but there's got to be that glimmer of hope. And this story was decidedly without hope because for the most part, our characters are just passive prisoners in a nightmare.
Despite all my critiques, I will be continuing with the series. It's still an interesting premise, even if the execution was too bleak for my taste. There's also the fact that, as the first book of the series, our characters are just getting started. They're already more proactive in the final pages; there's every chance that will only grow with time. But if you're looking for an escape from our present world society, this may not be the one for you.
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OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Richard Swan is a critically acclaimed British genre writer. His debut fantasy novel, The Justice of Kings, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into seven languages. His other work includes the Art of War and Great Silence trilogies, as well as short fiction for Black Library and Grimdark Magazine.
Richard is a qualified lawyer, and before writing full time spent ten years litigating multimillion pound commercial disputes in London. He currently lives in Sydney with his wife and three young sons.
Richard is a qualified lawyer, and before writing full time spent ten years litigating multimillion pound commercial disputes in London. He currently lives in Sydney with his wife and three young sons.
FORMAT/INFO: Grave Empire will release on February 4th, 2025. It will be available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Renata Rainer's job is a joke. As ambassador to the Stygion mermen, she largely has given up hope of ever being useful, given that the mermen want nothing to do with humans. But when two monks arrive claiming to have lost contact with the afterlife, suddenly Renata finds herself in the midst of a critical mission. The Stygion are some of the world's foremost arcana practitioners, and it's up to Renata to verify if recent portents do indeed herald an apocalyptic event known as the Great Silence. But Renata's not the only one interested in the Great Silence - and there are those who want help along the end of the world instead of stopping it.
Grave Empire is a haunting, harrowing journey that envelopes you in its atmosphere, while asking readers for patience in experiencing the actual payoff. This is a story of three individuals scattered across an empire who are realizing that a Very Bad Thing is coming. One is unraveling the secrets of a mysterious plague, another must travel through a warzone to consult with magic practitioners who can shed light on an ancient prophecy, and another is investigating strange reports on the frontier of the empire. Each story is compelling and unsettling, as our characters come to understand just how very wrong things are.
And yet when the dust settled, it felt like all that had been accomplished was learning that yes, a Bad Thing is coming and it is a VERY Bad Thing. The nature of the Great Silence is absolutely a satisfactory threat, and I look forward to seeing how our characters try to handle it, especially as some dominoes began tipping at the end of our story. But this first book is essentially all table setting. Here is the empire, here are the characters, here is the state of the mortal plane, here are some of the weird things that are happening. Will we explain how these weird things are tied together? Not really.
I do want to touch on the relationship between the Empire of the Wolf trilogy and this new The Great Silence trilogy. You do not need to have read the first trilogy to enjoy this new series; the events of Empire of the Wolf are as removed from the characters as the Napoleonic Wars are for us. Those events were definitely a big thing that happened, but they don't inform the characters' day to day lives.
The writing here is also more accessible than the previous trilogy. The first series was told first-person memoir style, while this new one is told across three third-person POVs. I think it also reflects the difference in tone between the two stories. Whereas Empire of the Wolf was a more personal journey of an individual caught up in world-shaking events, Grave Empire feels a little more big picture, a view of how several nations will grapple with a new threat.
CONCLUSION: I want to be clear, overall I really enjoyed Grave Empire, even if the ending left me a bit underwhelmed. I remain hopeful that the second book in this trilogy is going to take everything in the first book and use it for a fantastic sequel. In reading the first trilogy set in this world, I was lukewarm on book one, and then the sequel was one of my top reads the following year. Given how monumentally unsettling the nature of the Great Silence is, I think there's every chance this series will follow in its predecessor's footsteps.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Renata Rainer's job is a joke. As ambassador to the Stygion mermen, she largely has given up hope of ever being useful, given that the mermen want nothing to do with humans. But when two monks arrive claiming to have lost contact with the afterlife, suddenly Renata finds herself in the midst of a critical mission. The Stygion are some of the world's foremost arcana practitioners, and it's up to Renata to verify if recent portents do indeed herald an apocalyptic event known as the Great Silence. But Renata's not the only one interested in the Great Silence - and there are those who want help along the end of the world instead of stopping it.
Grave Empire is a haunting, harrowing journey that envelopes you in its atmosphere, while asking readers for patience in experiencing the actual payoff. This is a story of three individuals scattered across an empire who are realizing that a Very Bad Thing is coming. One is unraveling the secrets of a mysterious plague, another must travel through a warzone to consult with magic practitioners who can shed light on an ancient prophecy, and another is investigating strange reports on the frontier of the empire. Each story is compelling and unsettling, as our characters come to understand just how very wrong things are.
And yet when the dust settled, it felt like all that had been accomplished was learning that yes, a Bad Thing is coming and it is a VERY Bad Thing. The nature of the Great Silence is absolutely a satisfactory threat, and I look forward to seeing how our characters try to handle it, especially as some dominoes began tipping at the end of our story. But this first book is essentially all table setting. Here is the empire, here are the characters, here is the state of the mortal plane, here are some of the weird things that are happening. Will we explain how these weird things are tied together? Not really.
I do want to touch on the relationship between the Empire of the Wolf trilogy and this new The Great Silence trilogy. You do not need to have read the first trilogy to enjoy this new series; the events of Empire of the Wolf are as removed from the characters as the Napoleonic Wars are for us. Those events were definitely a big thing that happened, but they don't inform the characters' day to day lives.
The writing here is also more accessible than the previous trilogy. The first series was told first-person memoir style, while this new one is told across three third-person POVs. I think it also reflects the difference in tone between the two stories. Whereas Empire of the Wolf was a more personal journey of an individual caught up in world-shaking events, Grave Empire feels a little more big picture, a view of how several nations will grapple with a new threat.
CONCLUSION: I want to be clear, overall I really enjoyed Grave Empire, even if the ending left me a bit underwhelmed. I remain hopeful that the second book in this trilogy is going to take everything in the first book and use it for a fantastic sequel. In reading the first trilogy set in this world, I was lukewarm on book one, and then the sequel was one of my top reads the following year. Given how monumentally unsettling the nature of the Great Silence is, I think there's every chance this series will follow in its predecessor's footsteps.
OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Richard was born in North Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. He spent most of his early life on Royal Air Force bases in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and attended St Peter's School in York as a boarder. He studied law at the University of Manchester, and spent most of the following ten years as a lawyer specialising in multi-million pound commercial disputes.
Between 2015 and 2018, Richard self-published THE ART OF WAR trilogy, a sequence of epic military space operas, as well as a number of prequels, novellas and short stories.
FORMAT/INFO: The Trials of Empire was published on February 6th, 2024 by Orbit Books. It is 544 pages and told from the first person POV of Helena. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
Between 2015 and 2018, Richard self-published THE ART OF WAR trilogy, a sequence of epic military space operas, as well as a number of prequels, novellas and short stories.
FORMAT/INFO: The Trials of Empire was published on February 6th, 2024 by Orbit Books. It is 544 pages and told from the first person POV of Helena. It is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Richard was born in North Yorkshire and spent most of his early life on Royal Air Force bases in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. He studied law at the University of Manchester, and spent the following ten years as a litigator.
Between 2015 and 2018, Richard self-published "The Art of War Trilogy", a sequence of epic space opera novels, as well as a prequel ("Hadan's Reach") and two spinoff mil-sci-fi novellas ("VIPER One", and "VIPER One: Countervalue", the latter co-authored with George Lockett).
Richard's debut fantasy "Empire of the Wolf" trilogy recently sold to Orbit Books, with the first instalment coming out in February 2022.
Richard currently lives and writes in Sydney, Australia.
Between 2015 and 2018, Richard self-published "The Art of War Trilogy", a sequence of epic space opera novels, as well as a prequel ("Hadan's Reach") and two spinoff mil-sci-fi novellas ("VIPER One", and "VIPER One: Countervalue", the latter co-authored with George Lockett).
Richard's debut fantasy "Empire of the Wolf" trilogy recently sold to Orbit Books, with the first instalment coming out in February 2022.
Richard currently lives and writes in Sydney, Australia.
Order the book HERE
OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Richard was born in North Yorkshire and spent most of his early life on Royal Air Force bases in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. After studying law at the University of Manchester, Richard was Called to the Bar in 2011. He subsequently retrained as a solicitor specialising in commercial litigation.
Between 2015 and 2018, Richard self-published "The Art of War Trilogy", a sequence of epic space opera novels, as well as a prequel ("Hadan's Reach") and two spinoff mil-sci-fi novellas ("VIPER One", and "VIPER One: Countervalue", the latter co-authored with George Lockett).
When he is not writing or working, Richard can be found in London with his wonderful wife Sophie, where they attempt to raise, with mixed results, their two very loud sons.
FORMAT/INFO: The Justice of Kings will be published on February 22nd, 2022 by Orbit Books. It is 432 pages split over 30 chapters and an epilogue. It is told from the first person POV of Helena. It will be available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook formats.
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