Some of you may recall that I reviewed books 1 and 2 on Tuesday, and announced that book 3 had been released. Yes, it took me two days to read all 600 pages of King’s Shield. I am not embarrassed by this at all. I might have finished it, had Ben not plucked it out of my hands the minute he got home, with the entirely reasonable suggestion that I finish it tomorrow while he was at work. I grumbled, but let him read. I finished it about twenty minutes after he got home from work on Wednesday, but that was close enough for jazz, right?

I’m going to admit up front that I have a bit of a conflict of interest in reviewing this book; I got to read it in draft form. However, it’s not as if I’m getting paid to review books, and I didn’t get paid to read the draft, so I’m just not going to give it a number of stars at the end. Since book 2 ended with a bit of a cliffhanger and book 3 starts right where it left off, though, I’m going to cut the plot discussion. (My apologies for those reading it on Livejournal.)

Inda has just returned home to Iasca Leror (what will become Marloven Hess) from nine years of exile; he has found out that the Venn are going to attack, and must warn his king. The king is now Evred, one of Inda’s best friends from his short time at the academy. Evred was the second son, and now he’s married to Inda’s sister, Hadand. In any case, Inda’s homecoming is very emotional, for so many reasons, but they haven’t very much time to dwell on them: they must march off to war nearly immediately, if they want to be able to meet the Venn there. Even more surprising, Evred wants Inda for his Harskialdna — his Royal Shield Arm, or the top commander of all the armies. Inda’s never conducted a land battle before. Will he be able to come up with something that can beat the Venn in time?

The pacing of this book is one giant gradual crescendo to battle. While, in Inda’s personal storyline, there isn’t a lot of action until they finally get to the battle, there are three or four other side stories (including an expanded one with a group of children that was simultaneously charming and heartbreaking) that have a good deal of action and fighting. I love how we get to see both sides of the story, to some degree; the Venn are really quite interesting. Their religion/spirituality is centered around a concept named Ydrasal, which is viewed as a golden tree, and represents honor and connectedness, among other things. The Venn sea commander, Durasnir, is one of my favorite characters in the story. He’s very well-realized and very human — and he’s a ‘bad guy’.

In addition to the Venn there are the Idayagans, who have within the last few years been conquered by the Marlovans (the Marlovans conquered Iasca Leror, but they apparently won’t rename the country for a few years yet). A group of them has decided to revolt against the Marlovan overlords, but they are much conflicted over how to do it. Should they aid the Venn? Should they try to throw off all overlords whatsoever? Whatever it is, they’re caught between a rock and a hard place (and the ocean), and their story was quite emotionally charged, for that they spend very little time on stage.

Ms. Smith does very well at making battles human; while there was a good section of the book that was people fighting, she always managed to focus on the individuals who were fighting — and dying, and living, and wounded. I found the battle scenes interesting; they didn’t overwhelm me or the story, even though it was one of the peaks of the book. Overall, despite all the action, a lot of the drama is character- and relationship-driven. While a lot of it is friendship, I have to admit that a certain unrequited passion held my attention very strongly for the entire book.

Obviously I’m going to recommend this story, but it’s not one that can be read without reading the two previous volumes. They’re still books for adults, and again, the majority of the reason is the amount of politics. Still, go read it!