Blood of Empire

Blood of Empire is a fantasy novel by the American writer Brian McClellan, published by Orbit Books in December 2019 as the third book of the Gods of Blood and Powder trilogy.

The series is flintlock fantasy, which means that the armies fight with muskets and cannon while magic is a matter of powder, privilege and the politics of who is permitted to use it, and this volume is the one where the earlier books' arrangements come apart. Michel Bravis is a spy inside the government he is trying to sabotage, and the novel's chapters from his point of view are a study in how much a person can be asked to betray. Lady Vlora Flint has been blinded by her last battle and has to hold an alliance together with argument rather than force, while Ben Styke's twenty Mad Lancers are what is left of an army. The three strands converge on the occupied capital and on the question of what the Godstone will do if it is used, and McClellan gives the invaders reasons of their own rather than leaving them as an enemy with a name. He writes battle scenes with a soldier's interest in ground, supply and timing, and he keeps faith with the trilogy's promise that the consequences of the first book would have to be paid in the last. The trilogy follows his earlier Powder Mage books and is set in the same world.