Book Review: One Tin Soldier

Final Book in “The Murder of Crows” Trilogy by Chris Tullbane

What is “The Murder of Crows”?

The books follow the path of Damian Banach a necromancer, aka “Crow”. This is a dystopian superhero world and Damian’s abilities are something he’s born with, not something he went looking for. This is the universe that Mr. Tullbane refers to as “the post-break world”. Dr. Nowhere is responsible for the state of the world as it exists now. The United States is broken up into fiefdoms controlled by warlords with superpowers. The west coast is a safe haven that has some semblance of normalcy due to the actions of a single super named Dominion that helped forge an alliance of supers allowing a sliver of humanity to hold onto some form of freedom. Central America meanwhile is controlled by an enigma of a super that zombifies any thinking being that happens into his area of influence.

Dystopian? I don’t read that (but thankfully this time I did)

I typically do not read dystopian futures or books about necromancers. So how did this fall into my lap and why is that I liked it enough to put up a post?

I’ve developed an appetite for the superhero genre. Simple as that. If you dig through the Kindle store, there are a handful of good, make that great, authors writing superhero fiction. Drew Hayes, Darius Brasher and even Brandon Sanderson, all have entries in the genre. Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough to keep an avid reader occupied for a very long time.

If you are a heavy reader like me, you probably get to that point where you are what I refer to as “out of book”. I hate being out of book. Once you get into that place, you start recycling stuff you’ve read before and combing through everyone else’s lists to see what you might have missed. Once, maybe twice a year, you stumble across something truly magnificent. Chris Tullbane’s works fit that description.

What does One Tin Soldier do well?

The story takes our hero in a new direction. Damian leaves the school where he’s been ensconced for the past two books and goes on a journey into the badlands. Chris has been telling us about the badlands for the previous two book and we got glimpses of the world in his novellas, but now it’s time for him to show us the bigger world.

One Tin Soldier does a great job of realizing this world and introducing us to new characters, new areas and new abilities. We get to meet some of the characters that we’ve been told about and those moments are truly fantastic. The interactions Damian has and the big reveals live up to expectations. The conclusion of the story is satisfying.

Did you say conclusion? WTF is that?

Yep, this is a series with an actual ending. If you’re a heavy Kindle reader, heck if you just read about anyone in general, you know how rare it is to find an actual ending to a story. Amazon is littered with cliffhangers, incomplete works and stories that amble on for…. well…. decades quite literally.

Chris brings this story to the end that he promised. Just as importantly, he did it WHEN HE SAID HE WOULD.

That’s right. This author actually gave a time frame on his website and managed to nail it. Will he manage that in the future? Should we have some expectation of him to do it? No of course not. But we can now see that he is capable of doing this.

A bit about @Ctullbane

No, I’m not going to talk about his life or where he lives or what he does (he seems to like high-end scotch-whiskey). I’m going to give you my impressions of him as a reader.

First, the guy is active. Over the past year, he’s put out The Murder of Crows and a few books in his Many Travails of John Smith series (that’s a post for another day).

Second, he’s active online. This may seem trivial, and to many, it probably is. I mention it because he gives updates. You hear about what he’s working on and he even gives a bit of insight on when to expect it.

Third, he does seem to read his Amazon reviews. I don’t know that I’d recommend this to any author, but he does it.

These are all things that are very difficult for many authors. That doesn’t make them bad people or bad authors. The online presence isn’t even something I think I could manage. Chris seems to do it rather gracefully and seems to take any negative feedback he gets and laugh a bit. I hope he does and that his presence continues in the future. Of course, I hope not at the expense of churning out word count.

Want More Info?

You can find Chris’s author page on Amazon here — Amazon
Or his website here — Chris Tullbane