The Black Coast

By: Mike Brooks

Narrated by: Paul Panting

Brought to you by Penguin.

War dragons. Fearsome raiders. A daemonic warlord on the rise.

When the citizens of Black Keep see ships on the horizon, terror takes them because they know who is coming: for generations, the keep has been raided by the fearsome clanspeople of Tjakorsha. Saddling their war dragons, Black Keep's warriors rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own land by a daemonic despot who prophesises the end of the world, the raiders come in search of a new home....

Meanwhile the wider continent of Narida is lurching toward war. Black Keep is about to be caught in the crossfire - if only its new mismatched society can survive.

The start of an unmissable fantasy series.

©2021 Mike Brooks (P)2021 Penguin Audio and Rebellion Publishing

Life changing

Trying to explain how beautiful the vast worlds and stories that start here is impossible. I am in awe and I believe this should be a required reading. This is truly a magnificent piece of art.

A true epic fantasy

With the publishing industry mired in YA “lite” epic fantasy and the adult epic fantasy genre consumed by the grim-dark sub genre, The Black Coast is a breath of refreshingly crisp air. This is my favorite start to an epic fantasy series since reading A Way of Kings in the Stormlight Archive. Mike Brooks’s worldbuilding is masterful, addressing real world issues in a fantasy setting with authenticity as opposed to just “checking boxes”. 5 stars isn’t enough for this story!

Not... what I'd hoped for

I'm a big fan of Dark Run etc, and picked up this book out of hope for the same interesting characters, the same intricate, tight plotting, and the same dark sense of humor.

This book has none of that. It's 100% fantasy tropes, with characters who are so flat that I honestly cannot remember their names. They show no introspection, no growth--and no wonder, when they live in a world that has nothing new in it at all: just any given fantasy novel, with a new cover.

Moreover, the author clearly has A Gender Agenda that he's going to shove down our throats. What is in Dark Run an occasional instance of gender-neutral characters, providing a varied and rich background of a universe, has become an entire society who is completely obsessed with their gender roles--and the author spends chapter after chapter harping on it.

In listening I kept thinking, I guess this is old stuff and the author has improved since then, since Dark Run et al don't show any of these weaknesses and I figured Brooks has simply grown as an author. But the audiobook at least came out only recently.

Very disappointing.

The most dull

I can’t fully convey how boring this book is. The dialogue is pretty flat and stilted. The “this man thanks you” manner of speech does nothing for the world building, just an uninspired affectation that feels forced. Wanted to like it because of a non-binary take on gender but it’s overshadowed by an equal amount of homophobia that wasn’t worth suffering through. By chapter 32 I had to give up. Bored to tears I couldn’t even keep track of the characters and storylines. Some truly dreadful writing.

Bored

I made it as far as I could, but it's just a boring story about vikings. There's a bit of mystery about displacement, but there was so little happening for so long that I just tapped out before getting there.