Fiction Reviews
The Blackfire Blade: The Last Legacy
(2025) James Logan, Arcadia, £22, hrdbk, 585pp, ISBN 978-1-529-43283-1
This is the second fantasy novel in the Last Legacy series. It follows on directly after the events in the first novel, The Silverblood Promise.
We meet again rogue and petty thief, Lukan Gardova, who after the events of the first book is now with his young companion Flea travelling to Korslakov, City of Spires. There Lukan hopes to retrieve the unknown legacy his father has left for him in the vaults of the Blackfire Bank.
It sounds relatively straightforward, but of course it is not. Lukan finds that a person from his nefarious past has other ideas and is determined to catch and no doubt kill him.
Not only that but when Lukan and Flea get to Korslakov, they find that the key to the fault has been taken by a mysterious thief known as The Rook.
To retrieve the key means that the group become embroiled in a murder and a complex web of deceit. In desperation, Lukan requests the help of Lady Marni Volkova, scion to Korslakov’s most powerful family. Yet Lady Marni has secrets of her own. Worse, she has plans for Lukan and his friends. Plans that involve a journey into Korslakov’s dark past, in search of a long-lost alchemical formula that could prove to be the city’s greatest discovery… or its destruction.
If you haven’t read the first novel, or just need a recap, there’s an effective summary at the beginning of this hefty book: you do need it to follow some of the twists and turns of the plot in this novel.
Being set mainly in the cold city of Korslakov rather than the hot desert region shown in The Silverblood Promise gives a nice degree of contrast to the series so far. The Blackfire Blade all feels a bit Eastern European but in a fantasy setting, all snow and furs.
Where Logan scores here is as before in that whilst the world-building is impressive, it is the characters that really work here. After the setting up of the world and characters in the first book, this one feels like we are starting to get to know these characters in more detail here – just as you would hope a second book should do. In particular, the developing relationship between the incorrigible thief Lukan, the taciturn assassin Ashra and Flea, his younger yet world-wise hanger-on, is written with enthusiasm and humour. They generally exude likeability, which keeps the pages turning. I found along the way that I cared for them a great deal by the end of the book.
In terms of world-building, The Blackfire Blade is an exciting combination of fantasy tropes with arcane technology that steers a line between fantasy and science fiction quite nicely. I’m always reminded of Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote about technology being indistinguishable from magic in such situations as here.
As much as I enjoyed this book, it has to be said that there are a lot of coincidences here to propel the plot. At times, I did feel that it was at times a little clunky, in a “Plot A connecting with Plot B, leading to Plot C” kind of way, Furthermore, although the characters (and the author!) point it out in the narrative, there’s many times here when things happen because, as I often complain about, ‘stupid people do stupid things’. Many of the book’s events are based on characters doing things that they know are wrong and yet still do them. Whilst I accepted that this is an intentional character flaw, especially on the part of Lukan, it still felt that there were a number of times when that it did take me out of the narrative.
The pace isn’t always constant, although there are times that it is pretty rapid. This means that you don’t think about such things too much until you’ve finished. Whilst there are places that might make you think that as a reader we’ve been here before, Logan throws in enough twists and surprises to keep you guessing where it will end up whilst also maintaining the reader’s interest.
In summary, though, I enjoyed this one a lot. As it is a large novel of nearly 600 pages, Logan manages to expand his world created in the previous book, whilst still keeping the successful elements that made the previous one enjoyable.
Of course, there’s a bit of a cliff-hanger ending which will no doubt be continued in another book. The good news is that the world setting and the characters are big enough to deal with that. I look forward to reading how this series continues in future.
Mark Yon
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