A Dead Man & Ruins of Smoke
A Dead Man:
How many lives do you get?
A man faces death but strikes a deal with his executioner.
'A Dead Man' is a genre-bending tale about redemption, wasted opportunities and overcoming the odds.Ruins of Smoke:
The Usharian Empire rules the Known World with an iron fist.
Imperials protect their world from the tainted hand of the Deceiver, but he is back with an avatar capable of breaking the Empire and grounding humanity into ash. JEHA is a sentinel of the Empire, willing to fight and die for kinship and duty. AGOR is an imperial general. Disgruntled by the darkness he sees seeping into everything he loves, he makes his move. MATALA is a young smokesmith who sees his courage tested as Ushar burns. ALAMAKAR is the world’s most powerful man, but even strong blood ties can hold him down and tear him apart. As the Deceiver threatens the Usharian Empire’s heart, fiends walk the streets of the capital.
Men and monsters clash in a battle fit for gods. And the smoke follows them.
-Goodreads
Title: A Dead Man & Ruins of Smoke
Series: Smokesmiths #0.5
Author: João F. Silva
Page Count: A Dead Man (14), Ruins of Smoke (95)
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: A Deadman 4.0/5.0 , Ruins of Smoke 5.0/5.0
Date Read: A Deadman December 27th, 2024 - Ruins of Smoke December 29th, 2024
Opening
With the end of year coming to a close I was seeing a lot of discussion regarding Seeds of War from Joao F. Silva. Though I might not have put together a 2024 favorites list or post yet, that is definitely up there as one of my favorite Indie reads of the year. I decided to finally get around to both the short story (A Dead Man) and novella prequel (Ruins of Smoke) in hopes of getting to book two Thorns of War early in 2025.
Since my usual review format does lend well to combining two reads, I'll just give a brief review of the short story A Dead Man first. This along with the novella are available for free (at the time of this review) for signing up to the author's newsletter. I was able to knock this out and rather enjoy it while eating lunch one day. It flowed nicely and was rather entertaining. As the story came to a close it was quite predictable but that didn't lessen my enjoyment of the story in the least. If you enjoyed Seeds of War and haven't gotten to either of these yet, make sure you pick this one up. As I said, it's really short but a great little tale. Now onto the meatier of the two Ruins of Smoke.
Pacing
The pacing is on the faster side but that didn't lessen my reading experience at all. It was just a lot of excitement going on in such a short read.
World Building
The world building adds a great deal of depth to this series. This sheds a bit more light on the deities or powers introduced in book one. It was also a considerable amount of history added to this world and characters.
Character Development
The character development was solid. Even though we don't know much history about these characters as it's already a prequel to Seeds of War, we do learn quite a bit in what time we have with them. One of the biggest character takeaways I had was the fact many of them struggle with what they are capable of and they must decide what they will do. The other is the realization that family can be both a blessing and a curse when looking at the big picture of things.
Closing
This was a very nice addition to book one before I dive into book two. With that being said, I don't know if I'd feel the same way if I had read this before book one (Seeds of War). I've seen or heard some mixed feelings on this topic so my best advice is simply to go the same route I did and wedge this in between books one and two as that worked very well for me.
With that out of the way, I would high recommend this series if you're looking for a fantasy series with some well thought out history to the world and its characters. You like a good mix of martial and magical aspects and aren't afraid to grow attached to flawed characters.
Scoring
Pacing 5.0 / 5.0
Worldbuilding 5.0 / 5.0
Character Development 5.0 / 5.0
