As I may not be able to do a full FBC rv close to the US publication date, I will try to have a longer "raw thoughts" review here.

The book is secondary world fantasy at its best and in addition it has a writing style quite above the usual "utility English" of the genre; maybe not quite at (the top of) literary fiction levels (see Hari Kunzru's Gods without Men for recent such), but close, while pretty much all the things that I would mark as negatives come from the nature of the genre rather than from the author.

I would try to avoid spoilers so I will talk only a little about the storyline, just to mention that it is a direct continuation of The Dragon's Path and a lot of things happen by the end of the novel (at a good stopping point with no cliffhangers but not much global resolution beyond tbc either - in this sense the first two volumes of the intended 5 book series are truly volume 1/2 of a huge novel)

The structure is similar with Dragon's Path and features POV chapters from Cithrin, Dawson, Clara, Geder and Marcus with interludes from Master Kit. As mentioned lots of things happen including intrigues, conspiracies, wars, pirates, deaths of named characters, while the world is expanded to some extent and the roles of the 13 races are made a little bit clearer here, though again mostly regular humans aka "firstbloods" are of importance (and Cithrin of course who is half-blood Cinnae but much closer to her firstblood half by upbringing)

There is an appendix written from the pov of a scholar of one the "superior bloods' (of course he would claim that...) and discussing the 13 races, while many secondary characters - some new, some old and some who may become important later appear and some have really great moments

The pages turn by themselves and I literally could not put the book down and read it in one very long sitting, but i expect to revisit the world and probably reread Dragon Path too soon.

I put 2 paragraphs below in spoiler tags as they discuss my expectations about some characters in future volumes - this implies said characters will be part of future volumes (though I would say that is not a surprise from the way the series is structured); other than that (showing that these characters survive), no real spoilers, but still read this at your choice

(view spoiler)[ As for the main 5 POV characters I would say that all but Marcus truly shine in this novel - Marcus has little to do for most of the book, give or take a confrontation with pirates, but his storyline starts getting interesting towards the end.

The only major qualm I have is that in future volumes the author will do a "Fall of Thanes" with Geder who together with Cithrin (clearly marked as "the" heroine so far, so there no worries and I expect her only to grow and deepen) is the most interesting character imho (you can look my review of Fall of Thanes but in essence one of the main characters of that series - Godless World/B. Ruckley - who was very interesting in the first two volumes as a conflicted "villain" but also driver of action becomes a pure caricature with scenes like the Emperor and Luke in the last original Star Wars movie that are truly laughable and I hated that transformation from a nuanced and deep character to a cartoon villain) (hide spoiler)]

As for negatives - as mentioned mostly due to genre - the book like most sff is about politics and the organization of society and like most fantasy it is a retrograde such where "what is your blood" counts more than anything else outside of specific commercial cities - true that say Geder who is minor nobility raises himself with luck and a strong dose of magic, but he is still noble - nobility and blood with the role of women very traditional in the "high society" - again the lower and commercial classes are different but over 60% of the book is about the nobility, a bit smaller world building than expected and occasionally feeling like a sandbox - but ultimately the novel captivated me again and showed that great writing and characters and a reasonably well thought secondary world (with the caveats above) still can keep me interested in traditional fantasy despite my feeling of "exhausting the genre" in the last 4 years.

A few more thoughts - the book also has an elegant rather than visceral feel and consequently the more emotional moments are still cerebral to a large extent rather than pure emotion and the action flows naturally rather than twisting and turning - here I tend to prefer the more visceral feel and the twists and turns with "what..?" moments, but as that is a pure personal preference, I would not count it against the book especially that it executes so well in these two categories (elegant style, natural story lines)


All in all King's Blood was the first 2012 fantasy that satisfied my expectations and of course it will have a place on my top 25 list of the year and i hope the series will continue to keep this extremely high standards all the way - i also believe that there is scope and depth for 5 books though I expect considerably more universe expansion