Industry runs the nation of Torwyn, with the Guilds who oversee each of these industries. Prominent among these guild families is the Hawkspur family, who control transit, though their grip on this power is tenuous yet influential. The Hawkspur family provides readers with a lens into this world powered by magical pyrestones. When matriarch and Guildmaster Rosamon sends her children, youngest son Fulren, daughter Tyreta, and eldest son Conall far away, the action R.S. Ford’s Engines of Empire begins.
The nation of Torwyn is run on the power of industry, and industry is run by the Guilds. Chief among them are the Hawkspurs, and their responsibility is to keep the gears of the empire turning. It’s exactly why matriarch Rosomon Hawkspur sends each of her heirs to the far reaches of the nation.
Conall, the eldest son, is sent to the distant frontier to earn his stripes in the military. It is here that he faces a threat he could have never seen coming: the first rumblings of revolution.
Tyreta’s sorcerous connection to the magical resource of pyrstone that fuels the empire’s machines makes her a perfect heir–in theory. While Tyreta hopes that she might shirk her responsibilities during her journey one of Torwyn’s most important pyrestone mines, she instead finds the dark horrors of industry that the empire would prefer to keep hidden.
The youngest, Fulren, is a talented artificer, and finds himself acting as consort to a foreign emissary. Soon after, he is framed for a crime he never committed. A crime that could start a war.
As each of the Hawkspurs grapple with the many threats that face the nation within and without, they must finally prove themselves worthy–or their empire will fall apart.
Those four characters provide the primary points of view of the novel. Rosamon is a widow and sister of the Emperor. She’s clinging to the vestiges of the power and influence of her guild as the world approaches a precipice of change. As a sorceress, her daughter Tyretta has the ability to channel the power of the pyerstones so she’s charged with mission to learn more about where the pyrestones are mined. Eldest son Connall is the military man sent to earn his stripes and Fulren is the one who tinkers and manipulates magic and machinery. When an emissary from Malador, a foreign land Torwyn has little contact with over the years and with whom they have a strained relationship arrives, a great many things are thrown asunder. Fulren is charged with guiding the emissary and is soon embroiled in a conflict that sees him charged with murder.
Ford does many, many things very well in this novel, which launches The Age of Uprising trilogy. He’s nailed the character portion of the novel, each of the Hawkspur family members came across as believable and empathetic. One of Fulren’s driving forces was to see revenge against Lancelin Jagdor, the man he sees as murderer of his father. To be fair, Fulren’s father challenged Lancelin to a duel and lost, but the outcome was the same – Fulren’s father was killed. The death of their father also weighs on Connall, but he’s caught between devotion to his family and the duty placed upon him as military man. Tyretta finds herself embroiled in a conflict far from the borders of her home, but affected a great deal by her homeland. Rosamon….poor Rosamon. She’s just stuck in the middle of everything and sends Lancelin to bring Fulren back after he is exiled to Malador where he will be tried for murdering the aforementioned emissary. The thing that works most strongly with the characters is Ford’s ability to make each character’s storyline seem the most important thing in the book when you are with each POV chapters. This element made for an extremely compelling and immersive reading experience that made the pages fly past rather quickly. Never once did I feel I was reading a hefty tome of nearly 600 pages. Conversely, I was happy to be immersed the novel and was a little sad to see it end at “only” 575 pages.
Perhaps my favorite element of this novel is the world-building. The way the magic of the pyerstones powers the technology, like airships and engines, is borderline steampunk. In fact, I’ve seen the setting described as “aetherpunk,” a term I surprisingly (having been reading this stuff for a few decades) wasn’t aware of before reading this book, even if I was familiar with the definition. Anyway, it is a fun setting and “-punk” varietal. Jim Butcher’s The Aeronaut’s Windlass comes to mind, as does Tad Williams’s War of the Flowers as standout novels that sort of fit in this descriptor. Ford’s novel and world, despite the glittering magic and fancy machines it powers, also has a dirty and gritty feel to it, especially in the underbelly of how these things are crafted by artificers like Fulren. In other words, he brings care, craftsmanship, and balance to his world.
Ford does a fantastic job of balancing those two elements – characters and world-building in Engines of Empire all with some really cracking prose and a narrative that takes quite a few twists, turns, and surprises. I was extremely impressed, thoroughly engrossed, and eager to see what happens next. I’m on board for the Age of Uprising trilogy.
Highly recommended
© 2022 Rob H. Bedford
Published by Orbit Books | January 2022 | 575 Pages
Excerpt https://www.grimdarkmagazine.com/exclusive-cover-reveal-and-excerpt-for-engines-of-empire-by-r-s-ford/
Author Web site: https://www.wordhog.co.uk/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
