Book Review: The Thousand Names

So I was browsing my local library when I came across this gem of a book. To be honest, I had never even heard of the series or its author prior to reading it. Having read it though, I have come to like the series very much.

About: 

The Thousand Names is the first book in The Shadow Campaigns series, written by Django Wexler. This first book follows the story of two soldiers serving in a colonial garrison of the Vordanai Empire, as they attempt to retake the country of Khandar which has suddenly gone through a religious revolution. However as the campaign reaches its end, there are hints that the new colonel in charge of the army has ulterior motives for taking part in this war.

Plot:

The story takes place on the coast of a country with a great desert, where the soldiers of the colonial garrison of the Vordanai Empire, are trapped in the foreign land with natives who hate them. There are two main protagonists in the story. First is Senior Captain Marcus D'Ivoire, who was in charge of the entire colonial garrison up until the arrival of the mysterious colonel at the beginning of the story. Then there is Winter Ihernglass, a woman who is pretending to be a man in order to serve as a soldier at the garrison. A good majority of the story follows how they get their soldiers ready for war, and then the huge military battles they take part in. One of the more interesting points in this story is the detail Wexler puts into military strategies and knowledge of how one goes about fighting an enemy capable of using artillery

Overall:

This was a great story, and an excellent start to what may be a long series. The main characters have their stories clearly laid out, and by the end of the story you understand their motivations to continue their struggles into the next book in the series. I especially like how an event would start in the point of view of one of the protagonists and grow into a greater event in the view of another character. The explanation for the existence of magic and demons in the story is very complicated and I personally felt that there were a few holes in the explanation. Considering that it was only revealed towards the end of this book, and that the characters in the story seemed just as confused by the existence of magic as I was. It may be that the following book(s) will provide a greater explanation for magic.

This novel follows the stories of an army in an age where they are just discovering the use of guns, as such there is a lot of mature and graphic detail to various events battles and the end results of those battles. While I wouldn't recommend this book to a teenager, it wouldn't be out of place with most fantasy novels that are rated for young adults.

In the end, I highly recommend heading to your local library and finding this novel, it is a fresh and different type of story than most I've read. This is definitely one of 2013's hidden gems