Seven Forges
The people of Fellein have lived with legends for many centuries. To their far north, the Blasted Lands, a legacy of an ancient time of cataclysm, are vast, desolate and impassable, but that doesn’t stop the occasional expedition into their fringes in search of any trace of the ancients who had once lived there... and oft-rumored riches.
Captain Merros Dulver is the first in many lifetimes to find a path beyond the great mountains known as the Seven Forges and encounter, at last, the half-forgotten race who live there. And it would appear that they were expecting him. As he returns home, bringing an entourage of strangers with him, he starts to wonder whether his discovery has been such a good thing. For the gods of this lost race are the gods of war, and their memories of that far-off cataclysm have not faded.
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James A. Moore
James Arthur Moore is an American horror novelist and short story writer.
In 2003, he was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for "Best Novel" for his book Serenity Falls. In 2006, the novella Bloodstained Oz (co-authored by Christopher Golden) was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for "Best Long Fiction". He wrote the novelization of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Chaos Bleeds (based on the video game written by Christopher Golden). Many of his books have been released by small press publishers like Earthling, Cemetery Dance as signed hardcover limited editions.
Seven Forges
Seven Forges consists of six books — considered a complete series. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
Reviews and Comments
I was originally attracted to Seven Forges by the novelty or the uniqueness of its setting. It seems like the fantasy genre has taken a swing from forests to deserts over the past few years, but rarely does it do frozen wastes. Cover art to to the contrary, however, this really isn't an icebound tale. Despite that, I'm going to stick with the theme and declare that I never quite warmed up to this one. Being that it's an Angry Robot title, and they've rarely disappointed, I kept going back to it, hoping to find that 'hook' to keep me reading, but we never quite connected. Don't get me wrong, this is by no means a bad book. It's imaginative, well-detailed, and full of action. Suitably epic in terms of both world-building and mythology, it has a lot to offer fans of the genre. I found myself admiring James A. Moore a great deal, and desperately wanting to like it. The opening chapters were extraordinarily slow, requiring a great deal of dedication to get through, but I found it did get better, before ultimately exploding in a wild and frantic race to the finish. In terms of narrative, however, I found the telling a bit impersonal. I never really settled into an easy flow with it, and found myself fighting through some passages. Similarly, I didn't really find a character to latch onto as a comfortable point-of-view. The men were strong, the women gorgeous, and the monsters . . . well, monstrous. Some of the characters were interesting, particularly Merros, whom I liked a lot more than Andover, and Desh, who has some great confrontations with the likes of the Emperor, but there was nobody with whom I found myself so deeply invested in their fate that I was anxious to get back to reading. With all of that being said, the final few chapters were absolutely fantastic, with several twists and revelations that had me nodding my head and wondering where that narrative flair was early on. Like Jeff Salyard's Scourge of the Betrayer, it's not a book that is likely to make my top list for the year, but one with enough promise to make me genuinely excited about what's coming next. Despite its flaws, Seven Forges definitely showed promise, and had enough glimpses of breakthrough potential to make me wish there was a second book readily at hand to see whether that potential is developed.