Ninth City Burning (War of the Realms, #1)

by J. Patrick Black

For fans of Red Rising, Starship Troopers, and Ender's Game comes an explosive, epic science fiction debut...

We never saw them coming.

Entire cities disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but dust and rubble. When an alien race came to make Earth theirs, they brought with them a weapon we had no way to fight, a universe-altering force known as thelemity. It seemed nothing could stop it-until we discovered we could wield the power too.

Five hundred years later, the Earth is locked in a grinding war of attrition. The talented few capable of bending thelemity to their will are trained in elite military academies, destined for the front lines. Those who refused to support the war have been exiled to the wilds of a ruined Earth. But the enemy's tactics are changing, and Earth's defenders are about to discover this centuries-old war has only just begun.

As a terrible new onslaught looms, heroes will rise from unlikely quarters, and fight back.

• ISBN13: 9781101991442
• Publish Date: 6 September 2016
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Out of Print: 25 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 496
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jane]

I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for a review. As always, my opinions are my own and not based on how I came to receive any product.

I'm surprised I enjoyed this book. I was excited to receive the email from B4B about series pilots available to review, and they all sounded exciting, but Ninth City Burning intrigued me, so I selected it.

I seldom read books over 300 pages and beyond 400 pages, but I feel I accomplished something reading a book with 536 pages. :)

The gist:
- Character development is ON FIRE.
- There's not a lot of romance, which is GREAT, but I'd've preferred to know how two major characters came to develop feelings for one another instead of just being told they did; I'd rather have fallen with them.
- 'Twas beautifully written.

Full review up on my blog: https://janepedia.com/ninth-city-burning/

[ayla_abbott]

I didn't think I'd like this much, it has a vibe of other stories that are pure classics. I tend to not enjoy children and teenagers as main characters, and lengthy military fiction often bores me. But I stuck with it and by the end I was genuinely interested in how this all plays out. A great blend of magic and technology. A good mysterious baddie that I'm sure has a backstory.

[Beth C.]

TK