Gene Dark's Reviews > The Revenge of Thousands

I came into this blind, having not read the two main books (I will now!) and not seeing any book marketing - it was purely through X that this came up on my tl. The first chapter hooked me - Lorcen is my favourite - and by the second I had a pretty good idea of the stakes and the mystery ... which led to a twist I didn't see coming (although I should have, because it made sense for the characters.

The story was like a cross between The Godfather (my family right or wrong) Game of Thrones (everyone's a player) and The Binding by Bridget Collins (the impermanent writing in this setting is the exact opposite of the impermanent memories in that one!) and I would say Surrender None by Elizabeth Moon, except here (at least in this novella) we don't actually *see* the Reachmen being oppressed - I mean, we see that the other side are rich, chinless and snobby but we don't see any evidence of cruelty/police state/starvation/unfair taxes ... in Surrender None it was blindingly obvious from the first few chapters why the thousands had to rebel against the aristocrats, but here we're just told they do, from the perspective of the Reachmen and a few hints elsewhere. Then again, maybe the history is more spelled out in the longer books.

I’ll buy the next two books on the strength of this one. Glad I gave it a shot!