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    The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini
    Unavailable
    The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini
    Unavailable
    The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini

    Written by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

    Narrated by Dan John Miller

    3/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Venice is at the height of its power. In theory Duke Marco commands. But Marco is a simpleton, so his aunt and uncle rule in his stead. Within the Serene Republic, their word is law, but for all their influence, Venice’s fate still lies in other hands.…

    Lady Giulietta is the Duke’s cousin. She enjoys greater privilege than many can even dream of, but her status will demand a terrible price.

    Atilo Il Mauros is head of the Assassini, the shadow army that enforces Venice’s will—both at home and abroad.

    Prince Leopold is the bastard son of the German emperor and leader of the krieghund—the only force in Venice more feared than Atilo’s assassins.

    And then there is Atilo’s angel-faced apprentice. Only a boy, Tycho is already stronger and faster than any man has a right to be. He can see in the dark, but sunlight burns him. It is said that he drinks blood.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJan 27, 2011
    ISBN9781441887610
    Unavailable
    The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini
    Author

    Jon Courtenay Grimwood

    John Courtenay Grimwood's novels Felaheen and End of the World Blues, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. He has been shortlisted twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award, the August Derleth Award (UK), John W Campbell Memorial Award (US), among other awards.

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    Reviews for The Fallen Blade

    3/5

    97 ratings12 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Complex & dark fantasy book
    • 4/5
      Imprisoned in a Mamluk ship, Tycho arrives into a parallel Venice, ruled by a simpleton Doge, and populated by mages, girls fleeing unwanted betrothals, streetwise thieves, scheming assassins and witches and beset by supernatural enemies. He has come though fire from a land of ice, and must find himself soon, or perish...... John Courtney Grimwood delivers in 'The Fallen Blade'. First of a trilogy.
    • 5/5
      Excellent! Set in early 15th C Venice, also taking in Vineland (Viking settled America) and the whole heaving Levant/Mediterranean, this book is a great blend of history/alternate history ad the fantastical. As befits the first of a trilogy, there are many points open to wonder about, but the characters and action are gritty and plausible, huge themes of death & love resonate, and I want the second book NOW!
    • 1/5
      I started reading this and couldn't finish it... it manages to be a boring "action" book.
    • 1/5
      I went into this book with no knowledge of the author and little of the plot. All I knew was that it was the first book of a historical fiction vampire series. My expectations were pretty low. In this context, I liked the book far more than I anticipated.

      This story caught my interest early and managed to hold it. There is quite a bit of action and the characters are so odd that I wanted to figure out what was going on. Though I would not have had the story develop the way it did, it was definitely decent.

      I had two main quibbles with the book:

      There is only one non-attractive woman in the book, the one-armed old woman who raised Tycho, the boy in the box. All of the others are described by words like 'lush.' Unlikely.
      Few chapters (of which there are many) pass without someone voiding their bowels out of fear and/or pain. This strikes me as unnecessarily gruesome, graphic and gross. Sure this is a natural thing and does happen to people, but every time violence happens? Really?

      Some people will quite enjoy this book, which I thought was pretty decent for what it was. If you have no problems with violence or constant discussion of scatalogical happenings, give this a try. It also has a bunch of action scenes, political machinations and paranormal fantasy. I will not be returning for book two, but this was not an awful read.
    • 4/5
      Great book with interesting characters and lots of acton. Set in Venice and it gives you a feel of the place in the 15th Century when the book is set. The history is fictional.
    • 3/5
      I didn't love this book, and I really thought I would based on the premise and other reviews. There were a LOT of structural problems in my copy (ie, some of the worst editing I have ever seen!) Many parts were hard to follow because it wasn't clear who was part of the conversation; things like that really bug me.It also took a long time for me to get through this book. I had other things going on which took a lot of time, and it didn't really bother me to put it down. There are moments of excitement, but even those are not executed well.Tycho is the most interesting character, and I would like to know more about him since readers are just as ignorant of his past as he is. However, most of the other characters were very one-dimensional and never really stood out. This book had serious potential, but for me it did not follow through.
    • 3/5
      Well written, atmospheric historical fantasy. This would have gotten a higher rating from me if it weren't for plot holes one could drive a truck through, and characters whose actions were maddeningly weird, given their context and personalities. It feels like someone randomly hacked about a quarter of the book away, leaving giant,unexplained questions as to why certain characters acted (or failed to act) the way they did. On the other hand, the rich, gritty, and, to my eyes, fairly convincing descriptions of a 15th century Venice as a cultural and trading hub where life is cheap and morality a luxury made up for the sometimes frustrating plot lines.
    • 3/5
      This book roared off to a wonderful start, painting a vivid picture of alternate-history Venice, mixing in the always-intriguing supernatural elements of vampires and werewolves and mysterious magic, adding the spice of assassins and political intrigue and the gritty realism of life in the past.But after a promising beginning, this book failed to deliver. Grimwood's talented descriptions were astounding in some areas and completely missing in others, making it so that I had a great mental picture of the architecture and the smell of the street kids, but a poor picture of just what the hell happened with the plot and important characters. Really, when I have to reread a scene three times and even then only have a vague picture of what the author was trying to describe, I know something is seriously lacking. That inconsistancy spoiled the story in some many places.It was the same thing with characters, too. For instance, when you've got a line that amounts to, "Person A would change the life of Person B," you don't exactly expect them to vanish in two paragraphs and then not show up again for another quarter of the book, even then for only a short time. A'rial does change Tycho's life in a dramatic way, but not until the very end of the novel, so when she pops up from time to time to taunt him, it was pretty easy to forget why I was supposed to think she was important in the first place. Things you think are going to be important because people spend a fair amount of time discussing them, such as a glass-blower's escape, turn out to be dead-ends that never get mentioned again, thus leaving me with the feeling of a dangling plot-point with no resolution.Tycho was quite an interesting character, I must admit. Seeing him discover the secrets of his past was one of two things that kept me reading (the other thing was seeing what would happen to Giulietta and her child). However, I felt like sometimes this was all written like it as supposed to be an episodic TV show, where the chapter ends with somebody about to explain something important, and then we find out what that important thing is halfway through the next chapter, in the form of a flashback. Potentially interesting to see, mildly annoying to read.It's obvious that Grimwood has talent, and that there is potential for this story to shine. When the details were clear, they were stunning. When the characters were in the spotlight, they were fascinating. But the balance faltered, and the execution was off, and that, most of all, was what killed this novel for me. Which is a true shame, considering what a promising start it seemed to have.If I read the others in this series, it will probably only be for the sake of completion, and even then most likely if I can borrow them from the library. I can see myself being interested in the story, but if Grimwood's writing style stays the same, then I can't see myself being eager to wade through another book filled with the same problems evident in this one.
    • 3/5
      When a beloved author of fast paced sci-fi and noir starts a series in well known (some would say over done) field, it makes me wary. Especially so when I have no love for vampire/werewolf fiction and I guess anyone reading my review should take that into account, you may like it more than I.There is much to like about the 1st in series, he can write a great action adventure and the setting is wonderful dirty and beautiful Venice surrounded by enemies and full of intrigue is a major star. I found the politicking fun if not mind bending and Grimwood isn't afraid to explore mature areas of death, love and sex. However I really didn't like the characters or buy into the romance(s). In fact I actively found the main character boring.. although because the plot veers in an unbalanced way between characters I was given false hope as to who the main characters were. Nope sadly it's the bland vampire assassin.I feel pretty apathetic about continuing with series and so I recommend only to fans of the genre.
    • 4/5
      The setting is Venice, 1407. La Serenissima is effectively ruled by the Council of Ten, responsible for the security of the republic. Titular head is Duke Marco, descendant of Marco Polo, but the real ruler is his uncle Duke Alonzo, Regent because Marco is a halfwit. To maintain its role as one of the most powerful of the Italian city-states, alliances are necessary, and Duke Alonzo has the power to dispose - in all senses of the word - of family members to meet political expediency; to this end he has decided that his niece, 15-year-old Giulietta, will be married to the King of Cyprus. Desperate to evade her role as a political pawn, deserted, she thinks, by the aunt she has trusted, Giulietta flees, but is caught and returned by Atilo (until recently, Admiral of the Venetian Fleet, and still secret head of the Assassini), after witnessing a terrifying street battle. The night before she is due to sail to Cyprus, Giulietta, filled with horror by the knowledge that she is to bear a son to the King and then murder him, escapes again, this time to the Basilica San Marco, where she intends to kill herself. Instead, she meets a mysterious, silver-haired boy. We've already seen his arrival in Venice, incarcerated in the hold of a Mamluk ship, bereft of memory, nameless, and shackled with silver chains.There are books that draw you in from the very beginning, and this is one of them. There is a flow to the story that keeps you turning the pages long after you should have turned off the light and settled down to sleep. The cords of the story are expertly woven, each character's thread - and there are more to follow than Giulietta's and silver-haired Tycho's - reappearing just when the need to discover what has happened to them becomes too insistent to ignore, so that you feel just one more chapter can't be resisted. If it lacks quite the savage brilliance of some of Jon Courtenay Grimwood's earlier books, The Fallen Blade is nonetheless very hard to put down, and as Act One of The Assassini, it promises great things. As usual the characterisation is excellent - he's particularly good at young women - and he has a gift for keeping you absorbed in the dangerous characters as well as the sympathetic ones: they might be brutal, ambitious and ruthless, often charming, sometimes appalling, but their motivation is always understandable and their single-mindedness can even at times seem laudable. In other words, they are complex, multi-faceted individuals, and your interest is held because they seem real and unpredictable.JCG mostly eschews the long descriptions that some authors use for scene setting - where they are used they are sparing and always advance the action, or your understanding of it, but such description as is included builds a strong sense of place - at times, you can almost smell Venice. There's grandeur here, and squalor, and a cast of warring factions whose allegiances could never be relied upon, liable to turn at the slightest spark. It's an alternate history so close to reality that it's utterly plausible, and the reader slips between the real past and the imagined one as easily as Tycho slips between his real city and the invisible one which shelters him when he is first cast adrift in Venice. Vampires and krieghund seem native to this dark and watery city, where assassins lurk not only on every calle but also in the palazzi of the rulers, and poisoning is the quickest way to get rid of a rival. At the end of the book much about Tycho's nature, too, remains to be revealed - bring on Act Two.
    • 5/5
      Pros: political intrigue, gritty realism, great setting, lots of plot twists, gorgeous coverCons: so much is happening I didn't get to connect with any of the characters as much as I'd have likedIt's Venice, 1407. Marco IV, 'the simpleton', is Duke in name only. His mother, Duchess Alexa, co-rules with her hated brother-in-law, the Regent, Prince Alonzo.One thing they agree on is the upcoming wedding of their niece Giulietta di Millioni to King James of Cyprus. But Lady Giulietta is 15 and unwilling to wed. And Alonzo has sinister reasons for agreeing to the nuptials.Meanwhile, the numbers of Venice's royal assassins have dwindled. Their head, Atilo il Mauros, needs an heir and fins potential in a chance meeting with a pale faced, silver haired young man. A young man named Tycho, who was freed by chance from a special prison aboard a Mamluk ship.The plot changes focus frequently, dealing with the politics of Alexa vs Alonzo, Atilo and his new apprentice, Giulietta and others. In this book alone are: werewolves, a vampire, a stregoi, several fights (including a naval battle), unrequited love, frustrated love and true love. Many people die.The Venice of the story is gritty, dirty and dark. The underside is better detailed than the palace scenes, which are brutal in their own fashion.While going back to the origins of his creatures (Tycho can't abide sunlight or cross water comfortably), he still makes them unique. The one downside to the book is that scenes change so fast you can't really connect with the characters. On the other hand, this makes it easier to move on when principle characters start dying.A fantastic novel.