Clumsy coming of age assassin story. This should be tagged as ya.
It suffers from all its typical tropes and flaws.
The mc is a whiny big baby with incredible assassins training somehow.
Nothing really fits together in this story. Started skimming at 1/4 and dropped it soon after. ( )

This was an incredibly enjoyable read from start to finish. Well-written, excellently paced, and full of twists and turns I didn't see coming. I think more work is needed to add depth to characters, namely more of a backstory, but I still found myself cheering for and cursing them along the way. World-building is solid, but could be fleshed out a bit more. Everything I read was interesting but I spent much of the book wishing I knew more about this world, its history, its magic-system, its politics and geography. But these are things we get from well-established authors of fantasy... and given this is an earlier book, it absolutely blows me away. I've read Barker before, but the solidness of this series just added him to my list of "always read his books."

Definitely read it. ( )

It took me such a long time to get through this.

But the story. Ugh. It has everything I like. Is it perfect? No but to me the best stories aren't. They are amazing despite the flaws or even because of the flaws. I just really enjoyed this and even the audiobook is amazing. In the end I'm glad I got to experience both.

Ugh so good. So good. ( )

A crime novel wrapped in a fantasy. A refreshing new voice in fantasy. I particularly liked the two lead characters, one of them being disabled helped shape a different voice. ( )

I received this novel from Orbit Books, in exchange for an honest review.

Age of Assassins is a definite example of what I’ve come to call “book vibes”, that impossible-to-define combination of factors that draws me to a book on the basis of little or no information about it: over the years I’ve learned to listen to this subliminal urging (or its opposite twin that warns me about a book I might not enjoy), because 99 times out of 100 it proves absolutely right. When I glanced at Age of Assassins’ synopsis I felt that vibe, and after the first chapter I knew it had guided me well once again [...]


FULL REVIEW at SPACE and SORCERY BLOG ( )