** This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review **
It’s the end of the year, and I’m looking for something amusing and Fantasy to pick up to get me into the first bit of 2025. I was perusing synopses, and one caught my eye: pirate goblin with a ragtag group of swashbuckling/steampunk adventurers.
Yeah, I was hooked.
The engaging thing about Echoes of the Imperium is that it hit the ground running and spalled off lore, history, world-building and character development while we were in the throes of getting this adventure going.
William Blair is a goblin who went from being a lowly young cabin boy to the captain of his own airship: the Iron Rose. Wil, and his very eclectic crew have a very unique history and are attempting their best at trying to eke out a living in a post-Imperium world that isn’t always the most sympathetic to their cause.
Wil’s closest friends, and confidants, however, are his ever-supporting crew, and they will do just about anything for their captain.
The real adventure in Echoes of the Imperium kicks of in a two-fold action that gets the Iron Rose in a bit of a pickle. First, Wil agrees to deliver a “no questions asked” shipment of “something,” while, at the same time, takes on a mysterious passenger who seems to need to be getting out of town rather quickly: Miss Hawkins.
Oh, this is very important to know going into this. This world revolves around subservience and worship of the Seelie Fae. That little twist really carries a lot of weight on the history of this realm, as well as to the impending future of survival and conflict.
I’ll cut right to it: I loved this book. The characters were all beautifully developed, and a lot very likable. There were sufficient flaws that helped drive the story along while not being the typical cliches that often get thrown into High Fantasy. The dialogue is very diverse, and random enough to build a nice, tightly woven, story with an excellent variety.
To me, the characters were very autonomous. I never felt that I was on a predestined path, aside from the few parts that were actually intended to be that way.
Echoes of the Imperium is, already, one of my top reads of 2025. I cannot wait for the continued adventures of the Iron Rose, and I’m really dying to see what kind of pickles Wil and his crew can get into going forward.
The epilogue, alone, set the state for much more sinister things rising up in the future. I’m here for it.
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