Review by Booklist Review
The empire presented in this first installment in Swan's (The Trials of Empire, 2024) new series is vast and greedy. This complex world is full of mermen, wolfmen, and monks who talk to the dead. Peter, a soldier stationed at the edges of the empire, and idealistic Renata, an activist working to further the rights of the mermen she has never met, are just two of the characters pulled into a quest when the monks come forward saying that they are unable to hear the voices of the dead anymore, which is the start of a sacred prophecy. There is nothing new in sf and fantasy in an empire that is getting too big or reaching too far, but what will be endlessly fascinating to readers is watching the political and social dynamics play out on the page. Change is slow and complicated, reflected in the pleasant cadence of Swan's language. All of the elements are here for this to be a series that will draw in epic-fantasy fans.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Swan launches the Great Silence trilogy, set 200 years after the Empire of the Wolf series, with this dazzling and immersive epic fantasy. After Peter Kleist's father buys him a Sovan Army commission, the callow officer confronts more than he bargained for at the so-called "fort at the end of the world," located near the Sovan Empire's front with its enemies, Casimir and Sanque. In addition to those adversaries, the Sovans stationed there are at risk from some possibly supernatural creatures, responsible for the grisly massacre of several soldiers. As Kleist struggles to survive, Sovan diplomat Renata Rainer joins an expedition investigating an unsettling claim made by two monks from a sect that regularly converses with the dead. They claim that the spirits have gone quiet, which may herald the Great Silence, a prophesied apocalyptic event. The pages fly as Swan alternates between the two plotlines, building the stakes of each sky-high. The worldbuilding is lush, enhanced by Swan's rich descriptive prose, and the characters are complex. Readers won't need to be familiar with the earlier series to be drawn in--and this promising start will leave them eager for more. (Feb.)
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