This is a reasonable story.
Unfortunately I had difficulty following it due to the amount of names thrown around.
The further I read though the more it improved.
Certainly worth reading the next in the series.

I didn't enjoy this book very much unfortunately. It suffered in comparison to Robin Hobbs' Farseer trilogy which I read just before it - it is just not in the same league. Also it reminded me of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss which I also disliked. It is very much a novel that is setting the scene of what's to come. While no-one likes info-dumps, the frequent dropping of various names, places, events and concepts without explanation or context began to be alienating and somewhat tedious. There were a lot of detailed sword fights that some might love but I found over-long and boring. And character after character was introduced without them seemingly having any point in the plot other than to bump the numbers up. The plot is a little confused/confusing and I felt I wasn't invested in the world of the story. Just not for me.

Gave up on this book, not only because I wasn't enjoying it, but because it felt pretty racist.

At one point, when talking about people from a part of the world where the people are a mix of races, they are called "mongrels". A hostile racist sailor saying that is one thing, but for the protagonist - who is one of these people - to also refer to his people as "mongrels", like it's nothing, and not a highly offensive way of describing people of mixed heritage.

Then, not too much later, when seeing a woman who is in shadow, so not being able to see her face clearly, he thinks her beautiful - but as he can only see a paleness with two black smudges for eyes, he assumes it's her paleness that makes him think her beautiful.

So he and his people are mongrels because of mixed heritage, but the white woman is beautiful, because she's white?

Nope. No. Not having it. Couldn't get past it.

I might have read this book at a time when I was feeling fatigued from too much fantasy. I believed Cold Iron is a well-written book for those who enjoyed the technicalities of swordplay. However, I was left feeling a bit detached from the story. The very long chapter format, or to be exact, lack of chapters made it difficult for me to find a natural break from the story. And this made me even more tired from reading this book. To be fair, I still think I was either not in the right frame of mind or the book was just not suited to my taste.

I was initially interested in reading this book, however my tastes have shifted and I do not think I will be able to get to it now. Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a digital copy!

For lots of different reasons, authors often feel the need to change their name when writing different stories. For Stephen King it was Richard Bachman, for Tom Holt it was (and I think still is) K J Parker. In the same way, perhaps, it is not a great secret that Miles Cameron is also historical writer Christian Cameron. He’s not entirely new to Fantasy writing, though. I really liked The Red Knight (reviewed here) the first in the now five-book series, The Traitor Son Cycle, although its rapidly changing points of view did frustrate some readers.

Cold Iron is a new series and a fresh start. And the good news is, it’s very good indeed.

From the publisher: “Aranthur is a student. He showed a little magical talent, is studying at the local academy, and is nothing particularly special. Others are smarter. Others are more talented. Others are quicker to pick up techniques. But none of them are with him when he breaks his journey home for the holidays in an inn. None of them step in to help when a young woman is thrown off a passing stage coach into the deep snow at the side of the road. And none of them are drawn into a fight to protect her.

One of the others might have realised she was manipulating him all along . . .


A powerful story about beginnings, coming of age, and the way choosing to take one step towards violence can lead to a slippery and dangerous slope, this is an accomplished fantasy series driven by strong characters and fast-paced action.”



So where does this book get it right? From the start, it is clear that the author is an experienced writer with a considerable amount of knowledge used to enhance the novel. The prose is tight, precise and skilfully developed, with few of the common errors often seen in less-accomplished work. Things develop smoothly and logically, and details are dropped into the plot carefully without massive info-dumping. There is clearly a well-developed backstory and history that is drip-fed to the reader to give a sense of the wider world that don’t feel bolted-on.

The world-building is imaginative and detailed, enough to make the reader feel like they are wandering through the streets, fighting or living in the decrepit hovels of ‘The City’. Though the city itself is not named, there’s a really nice sense of place here that I haven’t felt as strongly about since reading Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora, in its imaginative details of buildings and streets. The world is medieval-esque, but with touches of other cultures and ideas that are combined to make a world that seems to work. Whilst there are admittedly medieval elements shown, this one is more Bradley Beaulieu’s Sharakhai than Steven Erikson’s Malazan, though there are aspects of both here. The city feels like a huge Mediterranean-style urban area, and the society a combination of Renaissance and Roman Italy.

Secondly, the characterisation is excellent. Aranthur is charming, polite and blithely-unaware of his effect on other people. He often seems to go where he feels he should, unknowing of his own limits. We do not have young characters able to achieve magical things within hours, without a logical and reasonable explanation for it. The story takes its time to unfold and does not make massive leaps of faith or coincidence. Any action is given reason that is appropriate. Whatever happens seems right, logical and sensible, and this creates a feeling to the reader that the place seems real.

Most of all, there is an almost casual level of detail that is so well-done that this feels as if you are there. The details on horses, weaponry, housing and urban and rural life given are not superficial, nor are they there to show off to the reader the writer’s knowledge and research. Duels are described in detail, the effects of weapons used grimly effective. It is the sort of thing that is written so well that it feels like it can only be written from experience. It’s thoughtful and clever and yet eminently accessible. Miles knows what details to include and what to leave out, managing to balance details of weaponry, horses and fencing with religion, magyk and politics.

Of course, none of this would work unless there is a plot to follow and develop. Most of all, perhaps, Cold Iron is a story about choices and how decisions made can lead to unexpected consequences, be they good or bad. As the book progresses, Aranthur finds himself drawn more to a life of swordsmanship than study, although it is clear that he has some magical (or magikal) ability, which is why he’s at college.

I guess that if the author had wanted, he could have made this a historical novel, but I liked the point that this is unashamedly a Fantasy novel. The fantasy element is integral to the story and not just bolted on, with mention of ‘magyk’ essential to the plot and the use of crystals for generating various magikal actions being an important element. What was a nice development was that the fighting and fencing, that Aranthur clearly develops a taste for, affects his magikal abilities. Indeed, much of the book is about the choices he has to make, and being a young man, it is not always clear which is the right one.

In terms of plot, there’s a bildungsroman-esque story of the growth of Aranthur, in that ‘farm-boy to important-person’ kind of progress. It’s quite old-school in its style and tone, though there are definitely grim moments. As Aranthur is an Arnaut, from the less progressive South, he is unused to many of the social and cultural aspects of ‘The City’, which would normally limit a person’s progress. Here it seems to be less of an issue, although by making Aranthur someone ‘on the outside’ it does allow both the author and the plot to observe events with a degree of objectivity and also discuss aspects of racism, immigration and inequality.

Such actions do lead to two weaknesses in the book, although at least one is commented on by the characters themselves. It is quite uncanny how Aranthur makes progress socially and politically through the book, as the people he meets and aids are often then connected to others. It is not for Aranthur to start socially low and remain low, for by the end of the book he is known by academics, military leaders, swordsmen, princes and even the Emperor himself. Whilst it could be argued that there is a degree of manipulation on some of the character’s part for this to happen, there were times when this aspect of the novel seemed rather too frequent and coincidental.

The second issue is that there is an unusual pace to the novel. To begin with, there are no separate chapters in the novel – somewhat different to the Traitor Son series – although there are breaks in the narrative. It is the antithesis of the Traitor Son series, I think deliberately so. I didn’t find it to be too much of an issue, but some readers might.

Perhaps more frustrating is the fact that, having spent 350 pages of the novel in “Book One”, the last 80-or-so pages end on a rather abrupt note that will clearly be continued in Book Two. Whilst things are resolved in these last pages, the imbalance and the abrupt conclusion does seem a little odd. When the whole trilogy is complete, I suspect that it will be published as one volume where such issues will be less apparent.

Despite this, my overall impression is that Cold Iron is a terrifically good novel that epitomises how good Fantasy novels can be when done right. This is an author with a tale to tell and the skills to do so admirably. I couldn’t put this one down. Reading this story, compared with other recent Fantasy novels I’ve read, felt like I was reading a university-level piece of work compared to essays written at high school. Put this up there with The Name of the Wind and, more recently, Twelve Kings for me. Definitely one of my best of the year – I look forward to the next book with excitement.

Classic fantasy from a very capable author. The story centres around Aranthur who leaves his farm to study at the academy in the big city. Nothing out of the ordinary about that, however it is the authors contribution to the tale that gives the story more interest.
Aranthur is a likeable character who isn’t very worldly wise and finds himself thrown in at the deep end. Coming from a farm he has seen little of the world and finds himself confounded by people from all walks of life from drug addicts, nobility and even the Emperor. Through these introductions he finds himself involved in politics which lead him to a conspiracy and the knowledge of the existence of a mysterious character known as the Master.
The characters are well written and varied. I also found the world building and action scenarios of note. Interested to read more.

I've been a big fan of Miles Cameron since I met him at a Gollancz event and really enjoyed talking to him about swords and herbs, so when I saw his latest book was up on NetGalley, it was an instant request for me. Cold Iron is a coming-of-age fantasy in the classic style - though it's got some very clever things to say about life, politics, and swords, it's not going to impress those who don't normally read male-authored epic fantasy.

First things first - if you don't like detailed sword fights, this is not the book for you. I admit that I usually skim through fight scenes, because I don't find them particularly interesting, but I was fascinated through every single sword fight in Cold Iron. Cameron has a real knack for describing action, and you can definitely see his passion and knowledge of how to fight with a sword. It's extremely easy to picture every move each person makes, and by the end of the book you have enough knowledge to wince when a character does something stupid in a fight, because you know it's stupid!  The majority of the action scenes are duels, rather than huge wars, and this was definitely more interesting to me.

So, Cold Iron is the story of Aranthur Timos, a student at a magical university who gets drawn into an enormous conspiracy of the save-the-world-from-those-weird-cultists variety. He's a normal guy, more or less - pretty good at magic, but not exceptional; has some friends, but isn't wildly popular; owns a fancy-ass sword, but is by no means a sword-master. What is unusual about him is that he has a knack for showing up in exactly the wrong place at the right time, which means that he becomes embroiled in political situations far above his head.

Most of the book has Aranthur floundering as he tries to work out what's going on. He's been asked to study sword-fighting with a master, and assigned to learn a new language and translate a grimoire that could be the key to stopping the end of the world. He gets, and loses, a girlfriend. He becomes an officer in the army. He somehow befriends a master spy, the general of the army, the prince of an eastern country, and the emperor's mistress (all of whom, luckily, are on his side). But he essentially has no idea how any of this happens to him. He's extraordinarily passive and actually kind of dumb, for all that the spymaster keeps telling him he's brilliant. There are a lot of scenes where people in the know have to explain what's going on to Aranthur, and although this is pretty realistic given that he's supposed to be a normal guy, it's a little bit annoying for the reader. He kind of reminds me of Garion from the Belgariad, but at least he shut up and did as he was told, rather than keep putting everything at risk through ignorance. The thing is, Aranthur is a very minor player in the world events happening, and limiting the reader's understanding to his makes for a slightly vague and dissatisfying read, rife with info dumps when someone explains something to him. 

The magic is an interesting mix of ideas. On the one hand, you have a fairly tried-and-tested system where some people have magic and can pretty much do anything as long as they have the energy and a spell to do it with. On the other, there's a more interesting system of 'compulsions', which is a form of mind control that relies (in some part) on the caster having a good relationship with the person they are trying to control, which is very interesting. This also introduces some moral elements to magic, since killing people hardens you, making it harder to do spells that rely on empathy. Oh yeah, and there's also randomly a unicorn and a dragon. They really stuck out to me as not being fully explained.

My major criticism of this is that every single non-family female character in this book appeared to be attracted to Aranthur, even those old enough to be his mother or grandmother. For someone who's supposed to be just a normal guy, this seemed a little OTT. He's never mentioned as being particularly good-looking. He's also kind of a dick to all the women he gets involved with - he sleeps with them and leaves, or sleeps with them and then ignores them, or kisses them and then writes them letters about his relationship troubles with someone else. I feel like this was meant to illustrate that he's still a fairly young man who's learning to deal with women, but it really made me respect him less when he consistently treats the girls around him like crap. There are a lot of women in leadership positions, with a variety of personalities, so it's not at all warrior-mother-or-whore, don't get me wrong, so it's not a problem with the world. Just a problem with Aranthur.

There's also a lot of racism in this world, and not all of it is condemned. It's a good choice to have your protagonist be an outsider from a particular land to create conflict, but a terrible choice to have him refer to his own people as 'mongrels'. The Arnaut-hating is constant and really rather wearing. The setting is more-or-less European, with Arnauts seeming Middle Eastern (turbans and beards being the norm) and Zhou being ambiguously "Eastern". One of the main threads underpinning the central plot is the displacement of thousands of refugees. I do think that Cameron was trying to include it as opinions of his characters, since he does condemn the bigotry of the political families, and appear sympathetic to the refugees, but it's not doing anything new. There's also a lot of borrowing of Greek words and culture (here referred to as Ellene, presumably derived from Hellene), but it's unclear as to whether this world ever had an Ancient Greece and to me, muddied the world-building.

The 'cold iron' of the title has nothing to do with fairies, which was a shame. It's a sort of password to let people know you're on the same side as them in the defeat-the-cultists way - and once Aranthur learns this, he basically drops it into every single conversation. There's some sort of weird metaphor about 'cold' and 'hot' iron, but I have to say, I didn't get it.

It's strange. I enjoyed this book a lot while I was reading it, but the more I think about it, the more I'm finding fault with it. The world-building is not as clever or as tight as I would have liked; the big bad is very vague; the politics are confusing; the main character is really kind of an asshole. The language is lovely, and easy to read, but I don't really feel like anything happened other than Aranthur learning what was going on. It would it perfectly into the canon of fantasy from 30 and 40 years ago - it really feels like a David Eddings - which has its place, but as a modern female reader who has experience of way more interesting world-building, it disappointed me.

Three out of five stars, I think. If you like your fantasy traditional, this is an exciting and classic read. If you're hoping for something innovative or feminist, may I recommend The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso?

It's really hard to review this book as I cannot find the word to express how much I liked.
Everything is perfect: the style of writing, the characters, the world building.
It's enthralling and you cannot put it down because you want to go on reading. Even if it's 3 am.
It's one of those books that make you feel sad when they're over and wish that a new instalment will be out soon.
I love fantasy and this book reminded of those of the master of fantasy.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to Gollancz and Netgalley for this ARC

Cold Iron is the first book in the new “Masters and Mages” series from Miles Cameron, author of the Traitor Son Cycle.

Coming into this book, I was mostly familiar with Cameron through reputation only. I’d heard that the Traitor Son Cycle was a great fantasy series, but I’d never experienced his books for myself. You guys know how those TBRs can be.

But after reading Cold Iron, I wish I’d made time to read some of Miles Cameron’s books much earlier.

Cold Iron is a bit of a throwback to classical farmboy fantasy. Our main character is Aranthur, who leaves his simple, rural life behind to study languages, philosophy, and even a little magik at the academy in his local city. We first meet Aranthur as he prepares to travel home to spend a holiday with his family. On the way, he stumbles into some trouble which introduces him to a circle of people whom he was previously unfamiliar with.

What’s interesting about this book is that it feels like a classical fantasy story, but with modern tastes and sensibilities in mind. It’s aware of the criticisms that were (and still are) thrown at the farmboy books of yesteryear, and takes steps to address them. Even just considering the way in which Aranthur gets tied up in the plot of this novel: he isn’t a chosen one, and he’s not even the smartest or most talented in his academy. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time.

Aranthur is a likeable and relatable character, but not without his flaws. His relatability is a little reminiscent of Kvothe from Pat Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles—in that amongst all the epic and fantastical happenings (and coping with antagonistic and casual racism), Aranthur still has to work a part-time job in order pay rent. Between coursework, work-work, and the trials and tribulations of being a fantasy protagonist… Aranthur just doesn’t have much time to think about anyone but himself. By necessity (or so he thinks), he’s more than a little selfish.

Plot-wise, Aranthur gets dragged into a world which he knows very little about. He meets people from every echelon of society—from drug-addicts to nobility to emperors—and forms unique and engaging relationships. Unfortunately for him, he also becomes involved in the politics that some of these relationships bring with them. He is made aware of a mysterious and powerful “Master” who is said to be at the head of a political conspiracy that threatens war and magical terrorism.

The world of Cold Iron struck me as late-medieval, early-renaissance. Guns are starting to appear, but the main weapons used in combat are still swords, spears, crossbows, and the like. Aranthur is learning to use the sword, and so there is a good number of action-heavy swordfights and duels for those who like that kind of thing.

Something which really stuck out about Cold Iron was the variety of roles which women played. It is a very common and very valid criticism of older farmboy fantasy novels that women characters are often relegated to love interests, courtesans, or the local innkeeper’s wife. Actually, there are characters who fit those descriptions in this book, but the point is that they aren’t confined to them. Women can just as easily be badass swordswomen, super-powerful mages, or intelligent generals and academics.

As a whole, Cold Iron is a very enjoyable book which manages to feel both familiar and fresh. I was intrigued by the world and the characters, and I’m invested in the plot to the extent that I’ll be picking up the sequel as soon as I can get my grubby paws on it.

If you like books with rich worlds, engaging action scenes, and relatable but flawed protagonists, I’d suggest that you pick this one up.

God i loved this book. I love everything Miles/Christian Cameron writes. Hes far and away the best historical fiction writer out there, and i'm beginning to think hes becoming one of the best voices in fantasy now as well.

This new series has many of the traits that makes Cameron stand head and shoulders above his peers: his knowledge of the subject matter, down to the finest details, is immaculate. Be it clothes, weapons, food or furniture. He writes with such ease; his prose flows in such a way that he draws you in as a storyteller would around the open fire in an old inn. His characters are real; they are flawed and brilliant and arrogant and so beautifully human.

I loved every page of this, so grateful to get a chance to read it a month before the rest of the world gets to enjoy it. I really cannot wait for book 2 in this series. And every other book he brings out at wonderfully frequent intervals.