In the Shadow of Lightning: 1 (Glass Immortals)

Product Information

I picked up this book after reading the blurb from Brandon Sanderson, who recommended it to anyone looking for a “new favorite fantasy series. I received an eARC of this via the publisher and was very much looking forward to it as my first McClellan read.

I also had a problem with how the main love interest is portrayed in this book - it feels very YA, and just made me eye roll at how predictable it was and just not really fitting with reality. While I do enjoy epic fantasy, I felt that the author tried to include too much into a singular work. I've heard very mixed things about Powder Mage as well, and this book certainly has scared me off of McClellan for awhile, at least. On the weekend you can find him visiting family, going to church, and most of all at home under a blanket while reading books, watching anime/tv shows, or playing video games with friends.

I perhaps could have gotten over this cringe-inducing dialogue, if it weren’t that on top of it, everything is simply told to readers. I have slightly mixed feelings after reading this review, and for the most part they have nothing to do with the review or the book. The priest could have been introduced earlier in the story to set up the rest of the series and still have served the same outcome. I’m not a big fan of big battle sequences, however his chapters help lay the groundwork for the end of the novel and the future of the series.

A powerful guild matriarch is assassinated mere weeks before her guild builds a world-changing device which will fix this scarcity. In the background of this, is a war against a nearby city-state, and it's up to the heroes to save the day. If you’re familiar with McClellan’s Powder Mage series, or even his mentor Brandon Sanderson’s work, you’d probably have some idea what it might be like, but at the same time, it’ll also be completely different than anything you’ve ever read. He didn’t do it often—not enough to attract official attention—but the reputation was well-earned enough that cudgelists in the know avoided his cantina. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.Baby Montego was likely the only other character of note but his personality can be summed up in three words: strong, smart, and loyal.

I didn't feel that there really was a big mystery and watching the characters flail around and make no real progress was frustrating. This change is true in both a literal way (her skills improve) as well as a metaphorical one (she increases in confidence and gains the leadership skills of a glassmaking master who runs a forge). However, there were some pretty big blanks still left concerning it – maybe it will be explored more in the next work. When I saw the cover art to In the Shadow of Lightning being revealed, the illustration done by Dan Burgess, my interest in it was sparked immediately. My rating is just because I know the author could do better, that's why I cannot wait for the next installment.This book is similar; for the first half of the book it appears like one sort of book (a conspiracy and war) only to have weird monsters occasionally show themselves starting at about the halfway point(Lovecraft). The last 150 pages had me riveted though, and also included more real moments with characters that made me care about them.