The Emperor's Knife

Book One of the Tower and Knife Trilogy

By: Mazarkis Williams

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

There is a cancer at the heart of the mighty Cerani Empire: a plague that marks each victim with a fragment of a greater design. Geometric patterns spread across the skin, until the victim dies in agony or becomes a Carrier, doing the bidding of an evil intelligence. The lost prince Sarmin, the emperor's only surviving brother, lies locked in a hidden room. As the pattern draws closer to the palace he is at last remembered: now he awaits a bride, Mesema, a Windreader from the northern plains.

She is accustomed to riding free across the grasslands and finds the Imperial Court stifling, but she soon realizes the politicking is not a game. It is deadly earnest. Eyul, the imperial assassin, is burdened by the atrocities he has committed. As commanded, he bears the emperor's Knife to the desert in search of a cure for the pattern-markings.

As long-planned conspiracies boil over into open violence, the enemy moves towards victory. Now only three people stand in his way: a lost prince, a world-weary killer, and a young girl from the steppes who saw a path in a pattern once, among the waving grasses.

©2011 Mazarkis Williams (P)2013 Audible Inc.

wow long ouch

very hard to get into it had to drop it three times and finally caught the threads of the book and started piecing together what was going on near the end it made a lot of sense and I thinking about getting the sequel because I know something about the characters now

hmm

yo. this narration is too poor for me to track what's happening. the inflection and emphasis on particular words and clauses in sentences does not seem to represent the same scene the words are meant to depict.

not bad

This was well written with an interesting plot and dynamic characters. My only issue was that it's a little obtuse and confusing at parts, but I generally felt like that was intentional for the mystique, and it never really hurt the story itself. also, it was a little on the dryer side, but not to a point of being bad.

might be hard to follow for some

I first want to say that I enjoyed this story. However it does change perspectives many times which is probably easy to see when reading since paragraphs are probably separated. It is a bit difficult to follow because it's all read by one person so you have to listen closely to know which people you are hearing the story from at different times. I still liked the story overall and will probably read the sequel, although I might try to find it at the library and see if I'm right about the perspectives being easier to follow when reading myself. I was able to follow the story and found it more enjoyable once I realized I just had to listen for changes in characters( usually it was separated by chapter making it easier at the beginning). once I learned the characters it was much easier to follow and I found that I enjoyed the story overall. I will be reading the second and third story of the series to find out what happens next. thank you.

Entertaining

Entertaining and different. Not too predictable (though it is a bit).

Nice sounding reader with okay sound quality.