Blood of the Old Kings: Too flat, too thin

Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il Kim

Blood of the Old Kings (2024), by Sung-il Kim and translated by Anton Hur, is the first in a Korean fantasy trilogy well known in South Korea. While it has its strong points, I have to confess to being overall disappointed with Blood of the Old Kings, though I’ll probably give book two a shot when it comes out in English in hopes that the series improves (the last book won an award so there’s a fair chance that’s the case).

The story is set in a world dominated by The Empire (modeled pretty clearly on the Roman Empire with its “legions” and provincial governors), an oppressive rule and one that is seemingly invincible with its jealously guarded monopoly on sorcery combined with its powered equipment, particularly its military gear, which ranges from powered armor and swords to multi-story fighting machines. In fact, the two are literally combined, since in one of the more original aspects of the story, the power supply for all this equipment are dead sorcerers, which are basically used as batteries. Another reason nobody wants to challenge the Empire is that one formerly independent land (Mersia) that took them on decades ago was “reduced … into a wasteland overnight” using a powerful weapon known now as the Star of Mersia.

In this setting come three protagonists (each with their own POV chapters) who in their own way will be set up in individual opposition to the Empire. Loran is a widow in the province of Arland whose family was killed by the Empire. We meet her in a fantastic opening where she bargains with her country’s guardian dragon to avenge their deaths. The dragon, though, was defeated years ago by the Empire and is chained inside a volcanic cave, unable to help. It does, however, make a pact with her. She sacrifices an eye and promised to come back to break its chains and in return it gives her a magic sword (and some other yet-to-be-revealed powers). Her storyline follows her over opposition to the Empire via a series of ever larger battles.

Meanwhile, the other two characters are both in the Empire’s capital city. Arienne is a student of sorcery who is looking for a way out of lifelong and the death-long service to the Empire. This leads her to a problematic bargain of her own and eventually to being on the run from the organization that oversees sorcerers. Finally, Cain is another native Arlander who came to the city as a child and has since embedded himself in its day-to-day life. When his best friend is murdered, he takes it upon himself to solve the crime, which gets him entangled with the secret police and a possible plot to overthrow the Empire. While all three never really meet in person (pairings do occur), their actions do ripple outward from their own storyline to affect what is happening with the others.

As noted above, the foundation of the Empire’s power/energy structure is one of the more original elements, with those who show a sorcerous talent early on taken by the Empire and placed into the academy, where they learn relatively minor magic (if any) unless they become sorcerer-engineers (tasked with running the machinery), as their value to the Empire is greater after death as batteries. Unfortunately, the potential here doesn’t feel fully met, and the whole magic system overall is more than a little fuzzy, particularly when we learn of the far greater power magic users once wielded. In fact, the Empire as a whole is too misty a presence throughout. The concept of it being so strong and so pervasive that it’s nigh on impossible to imagine it not existing (and what the ramifications of it not existing would be) is a good idea, but there’s never a “lived-in” sense to it all. The Empire feels like a stage set or even just a scrim, a bit of bare background to justify the plot. We see a few members of the intelligence, but we don’t feel that they’re everywhere. We see some soldiers, then a few more, but we don’t really feel the overwhelming miliary presence of the Empire. And one could work one’s way through the rest of the world: the markets, the towns, etc. Even on a basic level, though I’m given travel times, I don’t really have a sense of the logistics of place: of distances between them, of terrain. We get snippets, but that’s it. I don’t need pages of geology, but I did need more.

The desire for more detail, more body held true in the plot as well. Loran moves too easily through her arc, with a magic sword that defeats any obstacle at first, and then when it doesn’t, she turns up with other magical powers. When she’s faced with a different sort of attempt on her life, there’s no sense of drama because the attempt is almost immediately taken care of by magic. And passive magic at that; she doesn’t actually do anything— it’s just there inside her. There’s both a repetitive nature to her arc (fight, pause, bigger fight, pause, bigger fight . . .) and a thinness to it. When she needs some allies, they show up out of the blue, are immediately incorporated into battle plans, and mostly become cannon fodder which doesn’t seem to be a problem.

Cain, we’re told, “solves” problems for people, which is how he ends up entangled with some official or semi-official people in trying to track down the murderer of his friend. But we never really see him do anything clever or “detective-like”. He’s given a tip of where to go, he follows somebody who is supposed to be a major bad guy though he never picks up he’s being tailed, and that leads to another discovery and so on until he ends up uncovering what has to be one of the worst kept “secret” plots around. As a character he is likable and his obsession with finding his friends killer is moving at times, but his plotting is never compelling or particularly surprising.

Arienne has the most interesting storyline. Her reluctance in terms of who she is forced to ally with adds some strong, constant tension. As does the fact she being hunted. But again, the way she is able to use magic to get herself out of jams, magic that just seems “inborn” versus magic she has to work for, robs her narrative of drama and agency. We also don’t get enough emotional richness, as when she’s forced to kill for the first time, something we would expect to reverberate but it’s given relatively short shrift and thus feels like another missed opportunity amongst many.

I felt the same, though perhaps to a lesser degree, about the themes. Regarding imperialism and colonialism, the destruction and flattening of cultures, the vagueness of the Empire and its subject provinces made those themes seem more academic than real, outside of Loran’s personal grief over her murdered family. And even that felt flat. That was true to some extent for the idea of freedom as well, since we don’t see the Empire in real action and don’t have a strong enough sense of what Arland was like pre-Empire and what it sacrificed, it’s hard to know what its people are fighting for beyond the word “freedom.” We know of course the Empire is brutal in putting down rebellions, and we see that in action more than once, but those feel like set pieces to make the point and not like the experiences of people for decades. We just don’t see their daily lives in disturbed enough. More effective is Arienne’s fight for freedom: her freedom from her life being fully controlled by the Empire due to her magical talent, her freedom from serving the Empire even in death, her fight for freedom to control her own actions (literally at times). All of these feel much more real, much more visceral, and much more compelling.

Overall, Blood of the Old Kings moved along well enough, the prose was clear if not particularly stylish, the characters easy enough to root for given their plot situations, but
it all just felt both too flat and too thin, with some good ideas in terms of the world or character set-ups that were never exploited enough for a rich, substantive reading experience. At this point, I’d say hold off until one has a sense if there is improvement in the sequel.