The Sword Unbound

Information

• Ratings: 4.19 out of 36 ratings
• Genre: High Fantasy
• Age Range: Adult
• Series: Lands of the Firstborn

Summary

Alf and his friends saved the world from the dark lord 25 years ago. That means all the bad things are done and over with, right? Not exactly. As seen in the last book, there have been invisible hands pulling strings that are working directly against our crew. Those hands helped build up the 9 twenty-five years ago, now it seeks to bring them down. We follow Alf, Olva, and Bor as they go through this world and fight against these invisible strings pulling them – some more so than others. Not only are they dealing with that, each has also been elevated to a new status: Olva is Queen and mother to the uncrowned king, whose going, whose going through some strange things of his own as his is not the only soul held within his body. Af is once again The Lammergeier, a title he has never held comfortably. He still has Spellbreaker and is bidden to protect his family and Necrad with it. Bor is just going with the motions, which has led to him facing how he has been pulled in numerous ways by invisible hands. Poor guy is struggling with his actions within the last book, but doing nothing to actually change as a better person.

Review

Alf is consistent in his desperate need for having his friends a ll get along. The man doesn’t want to fight, he just wants everyone to talk and get along. This can get really annoying. He has tried so many times to just have everyone talk everything out and consistently fails in that endeavor. It is always going to shit for his and he is simply never learning his lesson. Still, I kind of love it to be honest. He’s just so simple in his need to just be with all of his friends and have everyone get along that, even though it gets annoying and can feel lot like he’s just going in circles, there’s also something so sweet about this big dummy trying his best. Alf is still struggling with his reputation as the Lammergeier – it’s interesting to see how much he hates the title is also protective of the reputation he’s built. He doesn’t want it but he doesn’t want it being ridiculed and torn down either. Olva is also interesting in this book, maybe a little more so with how she comes to terms with her role as the ruling Queen of Necrad. No one else is taking care of business, so she may as well, right? Each character goes through a journey of figuring out who they are and what they are willing to do for their side. Yes, let’s use the evil creatures of Necrad – it doesn’t make us evil, we’er just using what we have for the greater good. Are you still good though? It was also really interesting to see how each person handled learning that their religion is what what they initially thought it was. Some refuse to believe it, some begin to actively fight against it, and some continue within their faith because they feel that they still need and love their faith even if it isn’t completely true. I absolutely love the world within this series. It feels classic and fun, but adds in new flavors here and there. It’s so fun and interesting with a pretty soft magic system – I’m sure the magic has rules, but those are only known to Blaise. There are so many cool. creatures such as vampires, elves, dread worms, wizards, wraiths, and more. Each of these creatures have incredibly interesting origins, though, with the Elves being at the root of it all. I think the miasma was interesting and continued to add more of that classic fantasy feeling for some reason. It was just wonderful. Unfortunately, the pacing and plot twists felt too predictable for me and I don’t know if how they were handled by our main characters really made up for it. It was pretty easy to see that the Dark Lord tagged along with Pier into Alf’s nephew – who was honestly so flat and boring that I’ve genuinely forgotten his name. Bor ending up with Spellbreaker was surprising and interesting to see and I wish Alf hand’t left the sword b behind, but I get it. It’s what his character has been leading up to. He is allowed to rest now. I kind of love that he ended up back at home with his sister and just living his simple life. His arc was interesting, I just wanted it to be different, honestly. I wanted the Lammergeier and I got the man behind the name struggling with his role and his title. It was still great to read, though. This was overall a super fun and interesting book Even with the issues I had, I still found it so engaging and quick to read. I definitely want to do back and read more from the author.

Thanks for tuning in and absolutely let me know of any book recommendations you have! And let me know what you thought of the book as well.