A Veil of Spears – Unbe-veil-ably Point-iant

Sand. It’s coarse, irritating, hot, encumbering, and all around unpleasant. I have spent a lot of time in sand, both in reality and in fantasy books. However, despite sand’s difficulties, it often provides settings of profound beauty and wonder. When it comes to books set in the desert, I have been championing one series in particular for years now: A Song Of Shattered Sand, by Bradley P. Beaulieu (whose name I just now spelled correctly on my first try for the first time ever). Now, the good news and the bad news. The good news – Bradley just released the third of six books in the Shattered Sand Series, A Veil of Spears. The bad news – I lied, there is no bad news, everything about this news is good.

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, you can check out my earlier reviews from the first books here and here. These novels have not failed to place in my top books of the year whenever they come out, and I am happy to say that I am sure Veil will perform similarly. I am going to avoid talking about the plot of Veil, because I think many of you who read the site haven’t picked up this series yet (it is criminally underrated). If you need to know what happens, suffice to say that the story picks up immediately after With Blood Upon the Sand. Ceda’s war against the kings of Sharakhai has been making progress, but every time a threat is dealt with a new one seem to arise. Instead of talking about plot details let’s jump into why you should be reading this series.

I have talked in the past about how I love the setting, characters, story, magic, and other elements of the world – but as I was reading A Veil of Spears I found myself amazed with the complexity and depth of Bradley’s writing and thought this was the perfect time to talk about it. The Shattered Sand series starts with a simple quest: find the 12 poems of the 12 kings of Sharakhai – each poem detailing a king’s power and the way to kill them. Most epic fantasies would be satisfied with just this plot line, and if it was the only thing happening in the series I would likely still be reviewing it positively because it’s a blast. Ever since Harry Potter set out to find the horcruxes and Bilbo Baggins had to solve Gollum’s riddles I have had a love of collection quests and solving riddles. They tap into something primal for me from when I was first learning to read and discovering my love of fantasy, and the poems and riddles in Sharakhai are extremely well done.

However, reading A Veil of Spears you will see that the poems of the kings were just the tip of the iceberg for the Shattered Sands. The conflict has grown, new players have joined the board as both protagonists and antagonists, the scope and rules of the conflict have changed, and changed, and changed again. A Veil of Spears feels like some sort of bizzaro Matryoshka doll, where every time I open it up and look inside I find an even larger space and story. I frankly don’t understand how Bradley continues to continually expand the size of this story while keeping it so tight and well paced. His storytelling is some of the best I have read and his prose is top notch as well.

As usual, Bradley’s newest Shattered Sands novel has surpassed my high expectations and set the bar higher. A Veil of Spears has every strength of its predecessors but builds a bigger and better story than I could have imagined. This series is now halfway done, and I am giddy with excitement to see what the next three books have in store. Finally, I hope my annual “why aren’t you reading this” has continued to chisel at the resolve of the many holdouts I have met that have Twelve Kings in Sharakhai in their to read pile.

Rating: A Veil of Spears – 9.5/10
-Andrew