[Book Review] The Blackfire Blade (The Last Legacy 2) — James Logan

The journey of vengeance continues in the second offering of The Last Legacy series by James Logan. A tale of atoning for past mistakes, and trying to do right by yourself and the people you care about, The Blackfire Blade continues to push the limits of what we will do to achieve our destiny!

Picking up The Silverblood Promise purely on the aesthetic of the gorgeous cover art proved to be a stroke of luck. A promising debut with hints of The Lies of Locke Lamora along with bits of a D&D campaign with a plucky crew, with plenty of twists and turns, the first entry of The Last Legacy series proved to be one of my surprise likes of the year. A tale that felt familiar enough to dive in without much trouble, the descriptive worldbuilding and characters full of potential development, The Silverblood Promise sufficiently kept my attention to keep an eye on this series.

This second entry, The Blackfire Blade continues the tale of our rag-tag trio of protagonists as they pursue their own goals of atonement and revenge. Central to the plot is our “hero” Lukan Gordova (Lord Gordova when it suits him, and the story), the disgraced noble searching for his father’s assassins. His plucky child sidekick Flea, who proved indispensible during the climactic events of the first book, continues to tag along with Lukan. Rounding out the group is Ashra, the Lady Midnight, the skilled thief escaping her own past, tying her fate to Lukan and Flea. Together, they sail away from Saphrona after causing a ruckus, following the trail of breadcrumbs towards the Blackfire Bank, in the snowy lands of Korslakov. In their pursuit of Lukan’s goals, their journey takes them on a roundabout journey of ambition and betrayal, pushing our protagonists to the limits of their abilities, and luck!

In contrast to rich, sunny, and vibrant Saphrona, Korslakov is a cold and grim place, in more ways than one. With darkness lurking behind every corner, the crew is forced into unfamiliar territory, where nobody can be trusted, as they bumble forward with little to go on, besides Lukan’s trusted vault key.

In classic fashion, the arrogant-with-lacking-substance Lukan stumbles at every turn, throwing the crew further off-course in their plot journey, but providing plenty of friction (and character development) between him, Ashra, and Flea. In their journey, they meet General Rizin, returning from the first book, as well as a colorful cast of new side-characters, each with their own agendas, yanking our crew in a multitude of competing directions, in a very RPG structure of storytelling. And so we are thrust forward into more heist sequences, secret societies, noble intrigue, otherworldly magic, along with good amounts of creature horror, and steampunk monsters thrown in for good measure.

While I enjoyed the dark fantasy-adjacent aesthetic of The Silverblood Promise, few aspects and structural choices made by Logan rubbed me the wrong way. Unfortunately, these choices, allowed to expand in the sequel, grated more this time around. Logan’s narrative choice of pushing the crew on intertwining side-quests with only passing connections to Lukan’s main plotline, felt fresh enough in the first entry as a means to flesh out the world and characters, but this structure only broadened in The Blackfire Blade. The side-quests occupied the majority of this book, with the narrative only tying into the main plot in the closing dozen pages, making this book feel like a “sidequel” or an episodic format, more acceptable in the progression-fantasy space, than the epic dark fantasy space.

My major complaint with The Silverblood Promise, severely exacerbated in The Blackfire Blade, is the complete lack of agency that Logan allows his protagonists to display through his books. Lukan in particular feels like an alcoholic dried leaf, blown this way and that, carried through the events of the book with such little personal intervention, that the reader loses faith in his role as a leading man. As a device of character growth, the trope of the character coming into his own is extremely slow to take effect, with our characters getting shunted from one location to another, one predicament to another, with side characters jumping in and out, merely as checkpoints to artificially complicate the plot. This coupled with the fact, that the reader is always aware that the events in the novel have a distinct “optional sidequest” feel to it, lead us to care very little about the setpieces and the consequences they carry, since we know, ultimately, the mainline plot has to push forward, and the characters must make their way through it.

The dynamic between our trio was tenuous at best in the first offering, and The Blackfire Blade evolves their relationship in small increments. Lukan continues to be as inept as he is full of bluster (not in a lovable Orso/Jezal way), and comes off as an incompetent Locke (but locked-in with Lamora’s sardonic quips). In contrast, Ashra shows some modicum of agency and skill, and her POV chapters, though few and far between, anchored the story. While I found Flea’s persona, her grudging relationship with Lukan and her admiration of Ashra endearing in the first book, she is more annoying in The Blackfire Blade, additionally showing competence and deux-ex-machina levels of usefulness that belie her childish nature. Her constant barbs, quips, and general uppityness were neither believable nor likeable, so far into the series. While I appreciate Logan’s decision to not shoehorn an obvious romantic subplot between Lukan and Ashra, their antagonistic relationship shows graceful evolution through the book.

The Last Legacy toes the line between low-magic dark fantasy in its gritty alleyway aesthetic, yet will often expand to show more grandiose elements of dimensional magic, artifacts, secretive sorcerers, magical creatures, etc. in a reasonably fresh yet sometimes confusing way.

The Blackfire Blade succeeds in expanding the world of The Last Legacy by taking us to new locations, introducing new characters, and pushing our protagonists ever-so-slightly forward through the main plot. However, the excessive diversions in the story cause the main thread to feel disconnected at best, leading many to doubt whether the next book will be able to successfully create a coherent and focused narrative which feels rewarding. We move forward with cautious optimism.