Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-Il Kim

Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-Il Kim (translated by Anton Hur) is epic fantasy that opens with a gripping first chapter. A young woman makes a deal with a chained dragon – she will restore the kingship to the repressed people of Arland and free the dragon from his prison, in return the dragon gives her a flaming sword and takes one of her eyes for himself. Two other characters are then introduced who have their own roles to play in the coming battles.

Readers, moviegoers and game players will recognise the set up of Blood of the Old Kings. An evil, bureaucratic Empire (called “the Empire”) has taken over the whole of the fantasy world, subjugating various different races and peoples. The three main characters are Arlanders, but they will start to unite the other peoples in a revolution against the Empire. Loran, who lost her husband and child when they sang protest songs, has taken up the dragon’s sword and starts to inadvertently gather people to her cause. Cain, who was sent to the capital when he was twelve, is trying to solve the mystery of the death of his friend Fienna who helped Arlandian refugees. And Arienne is trying to escape from the sorcery school at the Imperial Academy, because it turns out that being a sorcerer is not all it is cracked up to be; and she has help from an unusual and dangerous source.

The magic elements of Blood of the Old Kings are the most unique. It turns out that the bodies of dead sorcerers are encased in special iron cases and used as the power source of the Empire. The better the sorcerer, the more power they generate. All of the Empire’s technology and weaponry is powered by this method and has been used to repress other forms of magic (such as the dragon). But other than that there is very little here that readers of fantasy will not have encountered before.

While translated from South Korean by Anton Hur, Blood of the Old Kings is not specifically South Korean-inspired fantasy. While Kim might bring some of his cultural perspective subtly into the story, this is straight down-the-line epic fantasy in the current western mode. But all that said, Blood of the Old Kings is a fun read. The characters are engaging, there is some greyness in the plot (how far do you go to overthrow a tyrannical system?) and Kim delivers plenty of great cliffhangers along the way. Also, refreshingly, Blood of the Old Kings delivers a complete story in itself. The war is far from over and there are plenty of threads left dangling but Kim wraps the short term stories up in a satisfying way, leaving plenty of options open for the next book in the series.

Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-Il Kim

7.5

7.5/10