The Court of Broken Knives cover art

The Court of Broken Knives

Empires of Dust, Book 1

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The Court of Broken Knives

By: Anna Smith Spark
Narrated by: Colin Mace, Meriel Rosenkranz
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About this listen

Perfect for fans of Mark Lawrence and R. Scott Bakker, The Court of Broken Knives is the explosive debut by one of grimdark fantasy's most exciting new voices.

They've finally looked at the graveyard of our empire with open eyes. They're fools and madmen and like the art of war. And their children go hungry while we piss gold and jewels into the dust.

In the richest empire the world has ever known, the city of Sorlost has always stood, eternal and unconquered. But in a city of dreams governed by an imposturous emperor, decadence has become the true ruler and has blinded its inhabitants to their vulnerability. The empire is on the verge of invasion - and only one man can see it.

Haunted by dreams of the empire's demise, Orhan Emmereth has decided to act. On his orders, a company of soldiers cross the desert to reach the city. Once they enter the palace, they have one mission: kill the emperor, then all those who remain. Only from ashes can a new empire be built.

The company is a group of good, ordinary soldiers for whom this is a mission like any other. But the strange boy Marith who walks among them is no ordinary soldier. Marching on Sorlost, Marith thinks he is running away from the past which haunts him. But in the Golden City, his destiny awaits him - beautiful, bloody, and more terrible than anyone could have foreseen.

©2017 Anna Smith-Spark (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers Difficult Situations Epic Fantasy Fantasy Literature & Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction Dream Solider Haunted

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Critic reviews

‘Anna Smith Spark is a dynamic new voice in the field of grimly baroque fantasy, a knowing and witty provisioner of the Grand Guignol, a cheerful undertaker strolling across the graveyard and beckoning you to admire her newest additions.’
Scott Lynch

‘This outstanding, unputdownable debut holds and horrifies like a blood-spattered tapestry. There’s rough humour, high drama and a love of story-telling that shines through every page’ -Daily Mail

‘A confident first novel with deep veins of vice and brutality running through it, heralding the start of an atmospheric new series’ -SFX

‘Smith-Spark’s style, like her story stretches the envelope of conventions . . . the writing is skilful, the descriptions evocative, the dialogue sparks entertainingly, while the plot twists, turns and branches sinuously . . . an innovative and entertaining debut’ FantasyFaction

‘This is a tumultuous, often nihilistic world – but also one where there is potential for great beauty . . . I had to keep on turning pages to see what happens next’ -SFandF Reviews

‘Beautifully inventive as it is brutally evocative . . . Anna Smith Spark’s voice is equal parts mesmerising as it is magical . . . Once you get into the flow of things, you’ve dragged along, sucked down into the depths, and when you come back up you’ll be gasping for air’ -Fantasy Book Critic

‘Fierce, gripping fantasy, exquisitely written; bitter, funny and heart-rending by turns’ -Adrian Tchaikovsky
All stars
Most relevant  
Despite some odd meanders and occasional loss of momentum, this is an incredibly impressive debut.

The prose is poetic and frenetic by turns, doing a wonderful job of painting a vivid world and letting the reader feel it through the pores of some deeply flawed characters.

This world is definitely not a place for heroes but then I think that is the point. There are no heroes in any world, just people trying to survive.

Highly recommend to anyone who enjoys an interesting story with deep, human characters.

Dark. Very, very dark. Yet somehow beautiful.

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Promising but uneven, the book zooms in on some moments of the story (like in the sample) while glossing over bigger character development opportunities in a hurried way. For me this weakened the believability of the protagonists and their choices unfortunately and made the story feel like it was something explained mostly from a distance.

Uneven

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Brilliant in places, but in others flits between slow and over-dramatic. I just didn't really get into any of the characters- they felt a little wooden to me. Maybe it was because, as an audio book, it's difficult to tell when the character is speaking, and when they're just thinking to themselves.

Brilliant in places

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And that’s not because I found the book challenging I immersed myself in this book completely and was swept along on al the lows and even lowers that the characters create and escalate, in summary a bloody good book!

Hard to describe

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remember when a advert says perfect for lovers of such and such author it means the book will be a shallow imitation of them not a work that stands alone

dreary pasteche of better works

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The problem with calling it book one of the bidlybong series is the author has no compunction to tell a nice little story with room to expand into books 2 and 3.

This starts well, drops you into a fully realised world. Introduces the usual damaged hero, gruff old retainer, worldly wise companion and eventually love interest.. And then starts killing off the bystanders. G R R Martin has a lot to answer for.

Then it's a sort of holding pattern to get to book 2. The eventual finale has no real emotional clout as we never meet the victims or hear their side of things. We arrive and then they die. No real surprises.

There is enough to keep you interested, random dragoon appearance, lots of blood and slaughter, a bit of gay love and a classic hero love interest. But i struggled to really like any of the characters or really care what happened to them.
I spent the last third of the story wondering why everyone was so happy to have a murdering sociopath drug addict run the show. He seemed the least likely person to care about the muddy scum slaughtering his enemies.

An odd story, interesting but frustrating and too much in love with the modern whim of killing off the characters the author gets bored of writing about.

I await the second book with interest.

More and intro to a never than a opener.

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5* for the story itself, the prose and the narrators. absolutely stunning.

I've never read/heard a book written in such a way, but for me it worked... and oh did it ever!

Grim and dark for sure, and downright cringe worthy again and again. Emotional to say the least but injected with soldier banter that stops you collapsing into a well of despair.

Dragons and politics and betrayals galore.

Amrath! Amrath! Amrath!

One of the best novels I've ever listened to!

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So bit unusual for me I am not sure whether I like this book or not. Some of the writing is truly stunning, the way the author truly gets inside the mind and emotions of the protagonists is fantastic and truly skilled. The gritty and fantastic backdrop often captures you and you can smell the streets and hear the crunch of footsteps. All good so far.... but the story itself was not fun, I am pretty sure that was the intention, but, and I suspect this was deliberate to ended up hating the main character and wishing him dead. So I don't think I enjoyed this book, admired yes, enjoyed not so much. As I said it's complicated.

The narration took a bit to get used to but once I was there I found fully engaging.

It's complicated

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I was looking for something in the style of the blade itself or left hand of god; this is not. The pace is annoyingly slow, the characters are one dimensional and any action described monosyllabically. Regarding narration, I kept returning to the question ‘ is this being read by Ai?’.

Protracted and Unconvincing

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I'd read a lot of reviews of this book and it is well liked in social media forums, and admittedly people say this first book is the weakest in the series. I just found I wasn't gripped enough to continue the series.

The writing is poetic and beautiful, though I did feel sometimes overdone, maybe a bit indulgent. There are some really interesting worldbuilding elements, but the central one concerning godlike beings was so slow burn that I lost interest.

There are some good characters, but I didn't fall I to their distinct voices as much as I have on other books. Just when you think you know a character they do something that makes you have to reassess them. Many may like this, but I found it again sapped my motivation to read through.

The male narrator is very competent though occasionally a bit lacking in enthusiasm and isn't the strongest on characterisation and conversational cadence with the dialogue; it's very much tinges rather than a full palette. The female narrator I did find very inexpressive, though there was a dreaminess that worked well at times. Her audio quality was lacking; bad processing.

Wanted to love it; struggled

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