MINI REVIEW: WHEN SWORDS FALL SILENT

Shadows, spells, and subterfuge...

I'd backed this book during its Kickstarter as it was fairly reasonable to back and had a very interesting premise. I received it quite some time ago and am just now getting around to checking it out. 

HOW I RATED IT 

4/5 As with any anthology, some stories within this collection are absolute fire and some proved to be extremely lackluster. Overall though, I think there were far more engaging tales spun here than there were forgettable flops. 

CONTENT

This collection features fourteen short stories written by fourteen different authors ranging from around twenty-ish pages to fifty or so, though most do not exceed thirty. As you might expect, the unifying theme tying these different tales together is that each of them has something to do with assassins. In some cases this means that the main character is an assassin, but in others they are actually trying to stop an assassin from doing their deadly deed. There are a number of stories which spin more of an insurgency type of narrative which merely involves the main character needing to slay a dangerous dictator in order to liberate themselves and their people. In any case, these main characters are always highly skilled and incredibly dangerous people who generally have no moral quandaries with spilling blood either due to following their orders or in the name of killing someone for the greater good. The result is a mostly fun grab bag of action-packed episodes. Telling a story that is satisfying, memorable, and engaging throughout is a very precise art indeed and I am so glad that most of these stories hit all the notes I wanted them to while being different enough from one another in terms of narrative, setting, characterization, and theme where I never felt a sense of redundancy when going from one story to the next. I think this point is also of great credit to the editor who compiled and arranged these pieces into a cohesive package. That said, there were certainly a couple of stories that I think would have been better had they been just a little bit longer. There were others where I'd love to see a whole collection featuring that character, but that was less because what I got wasn't as satisfying as it could have been and more just because I found those stories to be incredibly fulfilling and I'd love to have more. There were only a couple of entries which severely missed the mark for me. Unfortunately, these also happened to be two of the longer selections, but two out of fourteen is really not a bad ratio at all when it comes to collections like these and it wasn't hard for me to just speed read through these until I got to something more enjoyable. It's also worth noting that even with the stories that I enjoyed there is a range in the quality the writing with some of the authors showcased being noticeably more engaging in their prose than others. 

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I won't opine on every story in the collection, but the top picks for me in terms of the quality of the writing, depth of characterization, and my level of engagement with the plot included: 

• War Powers
• Mortopia
• Why I'm Tired of Stones and Symphonies
• Sons of Nightfall
• Ghost of the White Woods

HARDCOVER

To my knowledge, the hardcover edition is not widely available (I got my copy through backing the Kickstarter campaign), but this collection is still purchasable in digital formats. For what it's worth, this is quite a nice hardcover edition if you are able to get your hands on one. The cover design is gorgeous and the colors are pleasantly bold. The "naked" hardcover is also very nice with a bright red color and a pair of black swords inset into it that matches the design on the back of the dust jacket. There are also some gorgeous full color endpaper images that seem to feature different looks at the character depicted on the jacket. Sadly I don't believe this is a character from any of the actual stories, but I really love their design and enjoyed how this mysterious figure served as a kind of mascot for the book overall. There is also a ton of interior illustration work within with every single story in the collection beginning with some awesome character art that depicts someone of importance to the plot (usually the main character, but not always). Beyond the luxurious interior formatting, this is otherwise a fairly standard hardcover, albeit one that is quite solid in it's construction and choice of materials. It's just nice enough to feel premium while reading, but not so extravagant where one is likely to worry that it's "too nice to read." Overall, this is a very solid pickup that I'm pleased to have in my collection. I don't know how much of the lovely book design translates into the eBook editions, but hopefully the amazing character art is still present there at least. 

CONCLUSION

This collection is perfect for fantasy lovers who enjoy a little bit of an edge to their stories. It's not so dark that it ever felt uncomfortable to read, but most of these tales certainly had me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. The book itself is gorgeous, but I think the stories within are the real treasure. 

(+) A diverse collection of stories told by different authors

(+) A handful of stories proved to be incredibly memorable and extremely satisfying

(+) The use of the assassin/assassination theme was a lot of fun and never got too dark to enjoy

(+) The hardcover is brimming with gorgeous details 

( ) The Hardcover, while amazing does not appear to be easy to get one's hands on

( ) There is definitely a mix in terms of overall writing quality (which is to be expected)

(-) A couple of the stories were a complete miss for me