Dark Forge (Miles Cameron)

Cameron inverts the plot structure of Cold Iron for the middle book of the trilogy: where the previous book broadly was focussed on conflicts within one city, with those conflicts finding expression in duels, Dark Forge is a travelogue with the conflict finding expression on full-scale battles. Likewise, where the first book is temporally flat, showing Aranthur's modern world, the second has key foci which are artifacts older than the empire and in some cases older than humanity.

Thematically, and on the level of the bildungsroman which underpinned the first volume, it continues the arc of Aranthur's both figuring out what is actually going in around him and discovering the limits of the martial skills - both magical and mundane - which he has depended on until now. With knowledge and experience, his choices become more difficult and ethically complex.

Cameron's use of languages of the real world to map the differing languages of his sub-created one ensures consistency at that level of world-building, although some effects of that had me getting small flashbacks to Flashman's various adventures in the Indian subcontinent and the Kizil Kum. Other than that, the details revealed in this book are well integrated.

This book moves at a run, and returns home to uncover a whole new level of crisis, setting up the third book for an even more complex struggle. It is not meant to be read on its own, and should be read as the central part of a single book - it points towards a payoff which is beyond its own scope.

Well worth the read.