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Title | The Emperor's Edge
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Self-published - 2010
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First Printing | Self-published - 2010
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Title | Dark Currents
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Self-published - 2011
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First Printing | Self-published - 2011
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Title | Deadly Games
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Self-published - 2011
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First Printing | Self-published - 2011
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Title | Conspiracy
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | ---
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First Printing | ---
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Title | Blood and Betrayal
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | ---
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First Printing | ---
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Title | Forged in Blood I
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | ---
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First Printing | ---
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Title | Forged in Blood II
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | ---
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First Printing | ---
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Title | Republic
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | ---
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First Printing | ---
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Title | Diplomats and Fugitives
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Author | Lindsay Buroker
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | ---
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First Printing | ---
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Category | Fantasy
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Amaranthe Lokdon, Sicarius, Books, Maldynado, Basilard, Akstyr, Sespian
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Main Elements | Wizards
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Website | lindsayburoker.com
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 The Emperor's Edge
The adventure starts here...
Imperial law enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon is good at her job: she can deter thieves and pacify thugs, if not with a blade, then by toppling an eight-foot pile of coffee canisters onto their heads. But when ravaged bodies show up on the waterfront, an arson covers up human sacrifices, and a powerful business coalition plots to kill the emperor, she feels a tad overwhelmed.
Worse, Sicarius, the empire's most notorious assassin, is in town. He's tied in with the chaos somehow, but Amaranthe would be a fool to cross his path. Unfortunately, her superiors order her to hunt him down. Either they have an unprecedented belief in her skills... or someone wants her dead.
Dark Currents
It's been three months since former enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon and the notorious assassin Sicarius thwarted kidnappers and saved the emperor's life. The problem? Nobody knows they were responsible for this good deed. Worse, they're being blamed for the entire scheme. With enforcers and bounty hunters stalking them, and the emperor nursing a personal hatred for Sicarius, it's going to be hard to earn exoneration.
When Amaranthe's team discovers mutilated bodies in the city aqueducts and a mysterious illness incapacitates thousands of citizens, she and Sicarius see an opportunity to solve the mystery and prove their loyalty. But they'll have to defeat vengeful shamans, man-eating predators, and deadly mechanical constructs, all while dodging imperial soldiers who would rather kill them than accept their help.
Nobody said exoneration would be easy.
Deadly Games
When you’ve been accused of kidnapping an emperor, and every enforcer in the city wants your head, it’s hard to prove yourself an honorable person and even harder to earn an imperial pardon.
That doesn’t keep Amaranthe Lokdon and her team of outlaws from trying. When athletes start disappearing from the Imperial Games, they may finally have an opportunity to show the emperor that they’re on his side. If she and her comrades can get to the bottom of such a public mystery, they’re sure to get the credit.
But plans go awry when Amaranthe’s own men start plotting against each other, the new ally she’d hoped to acquire tries to turn her in, and her best fighter—and closest friend—disappears.
Maybe getting involved wasn’t such a good idea after all…
When I first got my Kobo I got a free $5 I could spend in their store. I also got an 80% off one book. Deciding to go for quantity instead of quality I got that $5 to cover around 7 books, if you count the individual novels in the omnibuses. Now, there was risk doing that, I could have good some badly written amateurish stuff (which I think applies to one omnibus) but I was pretty lucky with the rest. The Emperor's Edge got some good reviews, and I feel they were quite well deserved, and my money was well invested.
The world - the trilogy was labeled as steampunk, which was one reason I bought it, but well, nowadays people like to attach that term to just about anything that has a single steam driven vehicle that just happens to drive by the characters ones day. This is not steampunk at all. But it is a more modern setting than your standard fantasy, probably late 1800's technology, they still use swords a lot but they have steam powered cars and machines too. The world was well done and consistent and that's a pretty important piece of writing a fantasy.
The characters - you've got the leader, in this case Amaranthe, a ex-policewoman (nice change from usual soldier, guard, etc) who is falsely accused of betraying her emperor (who happens to have a thing for her, which was one reason why she had to be gotten rid of) but is still trying to protect him and the empire by gathering a group of misfits she calls The Emperor's Edge. There's the assassin that no one is sure they can trust (but he's handsome in that mysterious, dangerous kind of way), the smart one, the thief (who also dabbles in illegal magic), and the pretty boy, who is really there just because he's bored of his life but he's handy for his contacts and he's good with a sword. Now, these guys don't really all get along, which leads to some fun and adventures, and if it weren't for Amaranthe they would probably have killed each other long ago.
And then what follows are some fairly episodic, standalone adventures that can lead to a long and enjoyable series.
So, the big question is, will I continue with the series? I'm not a big fan of buying e-books, I find I can read on the device for short spurts of time, but even though my Kobo is e-ink and not a tablet, so it doesn't glow, the screen, though matte enough, still reflects a little light which I've found over time bothers my eyes. And there is so much free stuff out there to keep me busy during my commute to work. Also, though I've only listed the books, there are a lot of short stories, as well as three spinoff series, and the money can add up over time. I'm tempted, very tempted, to keep reading this series, especially if another nicely priced omnibus comes out with the next three books combined together (or all the shorts collected). Maybe as the world forces me to switch over to e-books more and more I'll jump back in.
But I do highly recommend this. It's well written, looks edited, it's light, it's fun, ok the romances are a bit obvious, but hey, I said it was light right? Reading isn't all about the heavy stuff, sometimes you just want to be whisked away to another world for wonder and adventures and this series is perfect for that.
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