The Dark Defiles

 Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs Series (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies) introduced me to his style; the Land Fit for Heroes series (The Steel Remains, The Cold Commands, and this book) represent his style growing in clarity and complexity. The Kovacs novels are linked stand-alones, like the noir fiction they emulate... you can read them in any order and not lose too much for it, whereas the "Land Fit for Heroes" series is a single story spread across three volumes. Morgan has a style I ascribe to modern cyberpunk, where things are simply mentioned, but not explained for some time, leaving you to build an image in your head of how the world works, and only gradually get those images filled in with how the author envisioned it. I find it leads to a very organic feel to the knowledge you gain, but it can also lead to some sharp disconnects.

The Dark Defiles is the final book in the series; Ringil Eskiath, disgraced scion of a noble house of the northern League, is working with his friends, the immortal half-Kiriath Archidi and the barbarian horseman Egar Dragonslayer, to attempt to stop the dwenda, ancient masters of his world, cast out several thousand years ago by Archidi's father and the rest of her people. To this end, they've enlisted the help of the southern Empire, but find themselves immersed in the politics of the day... a war between League and Empire, the return of the dwenda, and the machinations of demons bound by the Kiriath. Ringil's growing mastery of sorcery helps to drive the plot, setting him up as something of a demigod in a world somewhat similar in feel to Abercrombie's Circle of the World, seen in Red Country... a world where there is magic and abandoned super-science, but where both are rare and poorly understood.

I noted above that the series represents a growth in Morgan's clarity; with earlier books, I felt most comfortable with them on a second read... where I knew what was going to happen, and could sink myself into the details that Morgan packs the book with. This held true even with The Steel Remains, though I made it through Cold Commands without too much trouble. I didn't feel that with Dark Defiles; I devoured the book, with it's alternating chapters of Gil on the one hand and Egar and Archidi on the other, moving through the world and towards an end that felt like a frustrating cliffhanger... while the dwenda plot is resolved, some secondary machinations are set in motion and enough is revealed in an epilogue to make you say "I want to see that story, too, dammit."