The Adamantine Palace- Stephen Deas

The Adamantine Palace- review

Stephen Deas

Rating: 3/5

The short version: Not a bad read, but not one to go back to either.

This review will contain spoilers.

There’s nothing wrong with The Adamantine Palace, but unfortunately there was very little that struck me as particularly good, either. Some of the characters and premises were intriguing, but they were let down by a plot which went backwards a little too often and characters who didn’t leave an impact on me. More than anything else, there was little to distinguish this book from other fantasies.

The book begins with the assassination of a queen, setting up the tangle of political intrigue which is the spine of the plot. From here, there are two halves to the plot. Several different monarchs are aiming for power, whilst away from the palaces the dragons they have enslaved are beginning to wreak their revenge.

There are a lot of different POV characters in this book, which means that the reader has to keep up with every new plot and who wants what. This does deepen the political intrigue and the characters have interesting motivations- particularly Nastria, a military advisor (I think), whose undying loyalty to her queen had the potential to be explored further. Unfortunately, it also means that the reader knows every plot twist in advance, up until the very end of the book. This might have been more effective if there was only one monarch’s point of view, and the reader was left to guess what the other characters were plotting. It would certainly have made the book a little more gripping, and made the reader worry for the fates of their characters.

An exception is the end of the book, which I thought vastly improved on the rest- by this point, only a few dragons are aware that they have been enslaved, and then, seemingly, they are all killed. I’d known what plot twists were coming for a lot of the book, so killing the dragons felt like a game-changer. It was very refreshing, and the revelation of Snow’s survival certainly made me want to find out how she survived.

The scene where Jaslyn mourns her dragon was genuinely heartbreaking and gave me hope for their society- if one of their princesses can care for her dragon so deeply, what’s to stop the rest of them learning to as well? In fact, a lot of these characters were let down by the book. Jehal would have been a truly compelling villain if he wasn’t a point-of-view character, but as it was his plotting felt a little lacking in motivation. It was also hard to keep track of his plots at the same time as everyone else’s.

The relationship between Sollos and Kemir, two mercenary cousins, was also refreshing because it gave morally villainous characters heart. Unfortunately, Sollos’ death halfway through was a  symptom of another problem I had with the book- there seemed to be no reason for him to be a point of view character because all he really did was die. Several characters like him were set up for big roles, but there was no payoff for those setups.

I think my biggest problem with the book was that even the bits I liked tended to remind me of Game of Thrones, which was much easier to follow. The dragons were just as vicious, characters were just as disposable, and politics were just as deadly. So there was very little to help me distinguish this book from any other fantasy.

The Adamantine Palace did manage to mislead me at points, but I’m not sure whether or not this was intentional. And that can probably sum up why I won’t be making the effort to buy a copy of this book (mine came from the library). It had an interesting setup and characters with potential, but the confusing plot let them down and gave away too much. I might give the next book a try, but only if I can’t find anything else to read.