The story is set in Ostia, a city inspired by the Italian city-states of the Late Middle Ages. Think a vibrant city, full of trade, crime, noble houses intriguing against each other, rapier duels... And magic? A little bit, but not much, since mages, filled with power and arrogance, were exterminated long ago in the Mage Wars that marked the end of the imperium.

The book tells the story of Soren, initially a street urchin who struggles to survive in the ruthless streets. His agility and potential for training with the sword is recognized by a former dueling champion, who sponsors him to attend the academy where the city's elite swordsmen are trained.

So far so good, we get a typical hero's journey where a kid from humble backgrounds attends an aristocratic academy and gets himself involved with the affairs of the ruling class. One thing that's different is that the book has a grim view of social mobility in this society. Soren can never belong to the aristocracy, no matter how accomplished he is with the rapier, and his role can be assassin, soldier or bodyguard, but always a pawn to be used or manipulated, rather than one of the chessplayers.

This is not the best fantasy book ever, and it has its share of flaws as one would expect of a self-published first novel, but I will say something for it: it's entertaining and the story really moves along. Do you ever think when you are reading one of those epic fantasy doorstoppers, "gosh, I wish it would stop describing the armor and the food and just get on with the story!" Sometimes I feel that bloat is the main problem with epic fantasy, and there is no bloat here. Perhaps a bit more bloat in this one would have been good. I mean, Soren can go to war, distinguish himself on a couple of occasions and come back, all in 6 chapters, all of them short, maybe 30 pages all in all. As I say, the author gets on with the story. And when reading, I always felt that the story was progressing and I wanted to know what would happen, and read one chapter more, always easy because chapters are short. I found it quite addictive.

I kind of like Soren, even though the fast pace does not allow for much character exploration. He is practical, has little pride and remembers where he came from. Because of that, for example, he is reluctant to do anything that might get him in trouble and expelled from the academy, even if it makes him look bad in the eyes of his peers. But he knows what he would be going back to, and wants none of it. There is a love story for him, but like the rest of the plot it goes so fast that some readers may find it unconvincing. For me, it was a matter of getting used to the pace and style of the story: we are shown the highlights, and then we immediately move on to something else.

As I said, it's certainly not perfect. I thought Soren was way too skilled. He has a magic-like ability that makes him almost unbeatable, and sometimes I felt this took some tension out of the story. If he fights under normal conditions you know he's going to win. And I felt that it was unrealistic that such extraordinary ability would not be priced and sought more than it was. Why didn't he pursue a career as a professional duelist in the city arena, earning furtune and fame? Sometimes things happened that made me think "nah, this is too simplistic, it's not how war works", and other times the intrigues and class consciousness rang true.

All in all, however, I had a good time. It was a fast and addictive read. I was entertained.

This is the first book in a trilogy. Soren's story continues in other two books, but even though at the end of the book there are open threads, there is enough closure that it could work as a standalone. ( )

I just finished reading the Society of the Sword trilogy by Duncan M. Hamilton and need to share my thoughts while they're fresh. The series is available in one unit in audiobook form on Audible, which is what this review is based upon.

Duncan M. Hamilton is the author of The Wolf in the North series which is set in the same world as Society of the Sword and follows it. I've given much better ratings to those books and as a TL;DR I recommend you go read them instead of these.

I felt that this trilogy missed the mark for many of the same reasons that Brandon Sanderson's early work, Elantris, also fell flat. It comes down to 3 elements:

- The action is told and not shown.
- The main characters do not drive the action
- The characters to not evolve

In the case of Society of the Sword I could also add some extras:

- It feels like 1/3rd of the scenes end with the main character falling unconscious
- The entire second book seems to have forgotten that the love interest and main character fell out with one another (and that pesky prostitution thing)

Ultimately it's the top failings that kept everything at arms length. Our hero struggled for a year at war in the eastern lands, of which we saw his first two days and a summary paragraph. So much of his time there supposedly influenced his character and made him grow (we are told) but we never see the fruits of it nor do we witness it. Did he make friends? Did he learn to lead men? Instead, the character was left at a distance and described almost in outline fashion as having moved from one place to another, gaining such-and-such skill or reputation. These don't seem to have much effect on anything later on except in the most basic of terms (a rank carried forward, or noticing a soldier's bearing). The cloak collected through a harrowing experience in book one never matters again, despite its legendary status and the world-recognizable tale that accompanies it.

The Soren of book three is the Soren of book one, but with more listable accomplishments, money, and titles. His attitudes to those around him are not changed through exposure to various cultures and friends made from afar. He is single-minded in his purpose at all times...

Which makes it utterly remarkable that he doesn't actually make any decisions for the vast majority of the series. He moves from one emergency to another, pulled along by shipwrecks and piracy. The very moment he will wrap up one task introduces another that hijacks his actions and pushes him along. This stands out clearly as a sign of early Brandon Sanderson as well, and something that he learned from and fixed in his later books to great effect.

Duncan M. Hamilton is a good writer. His Wolf in the North series shows that. Not a lot of time has passed from this book to those, but he has shown tremendous growth in that time. It would be very interesting to see him come back now and rewrite scenes and selections missing from this story. I'm sure he could humanize Soren more, give him living and changing hopes and dreams, and so on. I think this chapter is closed, though, and it's probably for the best. He has more stories to tell of this world and I'm eager to read them. ( )