REVIEW: The Lie That Binds Them by Matthew Ward
Last Updated on May 15, 2025
Matthew Wards wraps up The Soulfire Saga with an expansive and explosive ending in The Lie That Binds Them. Ward pulls back the veil on his world for some epic twists and reveals, while our favourite characters hold on to hope by their shredded fingernails.
Tyzantia, the last of the free cities is about to fall to the Eternity Queen, and Kat Must flee upon the last rail runner.
Mirzai is the governor of a frontier town, and also the engineer keeping its crumbling infrastructure ticking over. When a redcloak dhow lands with a damaged buoyancy tank, his carefully cultivated peace with the people the redcloaks came to kill puts he and his people in danger.
With the rubble of one city behind him, the Eternity Queen tasks Damant and her council with bringing another of the cities of Kahalad back into the fold. As he turns to leave, the being closest to a goddess in this life, young and powerful, collapses.
As with The Fire Within Them, I enjoyed Ward pulling back the curtains on the wider world he’s created to advance the story. The characters fight and connive and claw their way to survival in the hope of finding a way to defeat the Eternity Queen, all while trying not to become who they fight against. The Eternity Queen is a worthy foe, with plenty of weight behind her character to make sure we don’t get a black and white cardboard cut out. The ending twist to set up the climax was excellent, far-reaching, and eye opening—exactly what you hope for when at the end of a trilogy of doorstoppers.
Ward is a master of building a story that sends you and the cast into the depths of despair—where hope is lost and desperate stakes are all that’s left—and then bringing home an action packed finale. His ability to construct long form story arcs in trilogies across what I can only assume must be over 750,000 words showcased in this trilogy and the Legacy trilogy makes it obvious why Orbit continues to publish these beasts.
From the perspective of what a grimdark fan would like, while this book did lean heavily on helplessness and hopelessness, I don’t think it was as far in our wheelhouse as the previous trilogy. The Lie That Binds Them sits more firmly in the epic dark fantasy genre. Definitely plenty of darkness to get your teeth in to, but not as much moral greyness as I enjoyed in Ward’s previous trilogy.
Swirlingly epic, dark, and at times gut punching sad, The Lie That Binds Them is the epic dark fantasy you need in your life.
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