I am not sure how we got here, but I find myself in the unenviable position of reviewing a book I simply did not enjoy at all. Today I am taking a look at the third and final entry in The Empire of the Wolf series, The Trials of Empire (by Richard Swan). I have reviewed both of the previous books in the series, The Justice Of Kings and The Tyranny of Faith. My thoughts on book one can be summarized as: wow, what a cool premise with some rough edges, if this gets better it’s going to be a beast of a series. My thoughts on book two can be summarized as: well, that was a little bit better but there are still some issues, I guess I will keep going. Finally, my thoughts on the third book can be summarized as: turn back, beware, do not enter, I have made a mistake.
The Trials of Empire is ostensibly a magisterial fantasy about a group of lawmakers who travel the realm, administer its laws, and take care of the court system. The entire story is told from the perspective of Helena, clerk to Justice Konrad Vonvalt (who is the actual main character of the series). In book one they spend a bunch of time in the woods, stop some lawbreakers, and discover a plot to destabilize the empire. In book two, we start to explore the supernatural world the laws are built on as the downfall of the empire begins. In The Trials of Empire, we abandon literally any resemblance to the original premise at all in favor of tired tropes, refuse to close any character arcs, dump enough lore to overwhelm an editor of Encyclopedia Britannica, and are bored from start to finish.
Let’s start with the plot. I don’t understand how or why we got here. The Trials of Empire trades in the creepy occult mystery for a sweeping military epic, and the power atmosphere from books one and two does not survive the transition. Also, I miss the lawyering, it was the best part. The third entry is devoid of a single legal ‘gotcha’, and that was the main reason I showed up in books one and two. Instead, our ragtag group of lawyers and accountants find themselves at the forefront of armies and long battles with sweeping page counts. Minor characters I could barely remember from book one are brought back without a satisfactory explanation to expand the supporting cast and I could not give a single iota about them. Instead of changing from a single POV with Helena to multi-POV across the cast, we find increasingly contrived reasons to place Helena in the center of everything so the reader can understand what is going on. The series worked well in small scary homes and backwood hamlets and as soon as it is placed in a huge open battlefield it dies of agoraphobia.
Speaking of Helena, I really want her to die to arrow fire. I feel like I entered a social contract with Richard Swan that I would accept that his protagonist was unbearable and useless in book one because this was a retrospective history where she ends up important and good and we would get to see the evolution of her character. Having now finished the final novel I can say with certainty that Helena ends the series exactly as useless and annoying as when she started. Why was she even in the book? Her only purpose is to make bad decisions for plot contrivance to give Vonvalt a backdrop against which to perform. Actually, her only purpose is to watch the real main character, Vonvalt, do cool shit and exclaim, “holy shit that was cool.” Every time. Speaking of which, why is there a subplot where Helena (really) wants to fuck her adoptive dad. It was disturbing, and distracting, and eventually goes nowhere. I feel like it was only included to show Vonvalt is actually a good person because, after a ton of internal conflict, he finally decides not to have sex with his adoptive daughter. Which like, zero fucking points dude. Actually, negative 1000 points, you are still a garbage person for even entertaining the idea and not providing better mentorship.
Vonvalt also is the center point of a large amount of confusing and nebulous social commentary. Vonvalt’s theme in book three is victory at any cost, as we watch him commit increasingly evil acts all in the name of “saving the world.” However, Swan’s stance on this avenue of thought is never clear to me from the narrative. We see demonstrable instances of this mentality paying off both positively and negatively, to the point where it feels like the lesson is simply “people make choices sometimes.” I am not really sure what to do with that, but then again, that was my general feeling across the book as a whole. Either argument would be fine and interesting on its own, but the muddled delivery left me feeling like I was reading stream of consciousness and not a well-organized point.
As previously mentioned, The Trials of Empire also dropped an astronomical amount of lore. It would feel like a lot in the first book, but in the third book, it feels particularly deranged. It feels like setting up for a party that has already been canceled. Additionally, a lot of the lore is incomprehensible and just makes the entire story more confusing. While I recognize that this next plot point was technically mentioned in book one for a brief second, an absolutely insane introduction in book three was the fleshing out of a neighboring country to The Empire of the Wolf. While we are watching The Empire collapse Rome style in real time, Swan casually mentions that there is an entire empire of wolf-human hybrids living next door that is absolutely not a part of The Empire of the Wolf. Calling your Roman Empire of only humans The Empire of the Wolf, while there is an entirely separate and antagonistic empire of wolf people next door, is a creative choice that pulled me out of the story with the force of an explosive decompression. I know it seems like a (funny) nitpick, but The Trials of Empire is chock full of these strange lore introductions that simply do not gel with the established world from the first two books.
To top all of this off, the book is just boring. There are sections of logistical operations that move about as fast as a glacier. Discussions of plans to make plans that seem to just loop endlessly. Character introductions and deaths feel like they have zero stakes because the only thing that has been consistent throughout the entire series is Helena and Vonvalt and their terrible sexual tension. I don’t normally review third books because once I get someone on a series they can usually figure out for themselves if they want to spend the time reading more of it. This is the rare instance where a final book sniped me through a window from across town and I am here to tell you that The Trials of Empire turns The Empire of the Wolf from a series with an intriguing spooky premise to a baffling bad time. I do not recommend this book or series at all.
Rating: The Trials of Empire – 3.0/10
-Andrew
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
