{"id":1063,"date":"2009-03-29T08:47:40","date_gmt":"2009-03-29T13:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=1063"},"modified":"2025-05-05T21:30:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T01:30:25","slug":"dead-reign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1063","title":{"rendered":"Dead Reign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dead Reign<\/a><\/em> (2008) T.A. Pratt<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When Marla stops the (not very sane) necromancer Ayers from animating a corpse, she sets into action a chain of events that will have her once again defending Felport from an invader, and learning more about the underworld than she ever wants to know.<\/p>\n

Hmm… Hard to come up with a good synopsis of this book without giving away some of the fun twists and turns of the story, so we leave the brief and vague synopsis as is.<\/p>\n

Marla has softened a bit over the series so far. Not in a bad way that makes her incapable of doing her job, but in a way that makes it clear she’s doing things because she believes strongly in and cares strongly for something–the city of Felport, where she is Chief Sorcerer. We can also see that beneath her (very) rough exterior, she does care for her friends, and does everything she can to keep them safe.<\/p>\n

Once again, Rondeau was my favorite character in the story. Marla is strong and bitchy and self-sufficient to a great degree, but Rondeau is more than her sidekick. He’s complex and very interesting–especially as he’s a demonic parasite. Not that Marla isn’t complex, she’s just not as likable–although this is changing over the course of the series.<\/p>\n

And that does change to a great degree over the course of this story. We learn a bit about Marla’s past–and what she went through to get where she is now. To me, this makes her far more sympathetic–and interesting–than she was in the previous two books. <\/p>\n

You should easily be able to read Dead Reign<\/em> without having read the previous two books in the series. In fact, given the fact I didn’t much care for Blood Engines<\/em>, I might even recommend starting here, just because I find Marla far more likable in the following books.
\nRating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dead Reign (2008) T.A. Pratt When Marla stops the (not very sane) necromancer Ayers from animating a corpse, she sets into action a chain of events that will have her once again defending Felport from an invader, and learning more about the underworld than she ever wants to know. Hmm… Hard to come up with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,291,16],"tags":[867,150,866],"class_list":["post-1063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-paper","category-supernatural","tag-marla-mason","tag-necromancer","tag-t-a-pratt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-h9","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":590,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/590","url_meta":{"origin":1063,"position":0},"title":"Blood Engines","author":"Michelle","date":"June 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Blood Engines (2007) T.A. Pratt Nathan raved about Blood Engines a couple months ago, so I decided to move it higher in the list, based on his recommendation. Marla Mason is guardian of Felport, but is off the ranch in San Francisco, searching for a Cornerstone--a magical artifact that will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/Blood-Engines.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2664,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2664","url_meta":{"origin":1063,"position":1},"title":"Bone Shop","author":"Michelle","date":"November 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Bone Shop (2010) T.A. Pratt Bone Shop is Marla Mason's back story--from how she first discovered magic to how she ended up chief sorcerer of Freeport. This was originally published as a serial novel on Tim Pratt's website after a financial crisis, but is now available as an eBook or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Bone-Shop.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":701,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/701","url_meta":{"origin":1063,"position":2},"title":"Poison Sleep","author":"Michelle","date":"October 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Poison Sleep (2008) T.A. Pratt Nathan raved about the first Marla Mason book, Blood Engines. I thought the book was good, but nothing really drew me into the story. But Michael liked Blood Engines so I bought the second book, and decided to read it while I was on vacation.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/Poison-Sleep.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1121","url_meta":{"origin":1063,"position":3},"title":"Spell Games","author":"Michelle","date":"May 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Spell Games (2009) T.A. Pratt I am annoyed. One of my least favorite things in the world is when a book ends with a major story arc unresolved, where you are left hanging to wait for the next book in the series. Guess what Tim Pratt did? Did I mention\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/Spell-Games.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4193,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4193","url_meta":{"origin":1063,"position":4},"title":"Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives","author":"Michelle","date":"November 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives (2011) edited by Justin Gustainis As the title says, this is a collection of supernatural mysteries. \"Little Better than a Beast: A Marla Mason Story\" by T. A. Pratt \"Dusted: A Cosa Nostradamus Story\" by Laura Anne Gilman \"The Demon You Know\u2026\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthology"","block_context":{"text":"Anthology","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/anthology"},"img":{"alt_text":"those-who-hunt-monsters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/those-who-hunt-monsters-194x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3622,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3622","url_meta":{"origin":1063,"position":5},"title":"The Way of the Wizard","author":"Michelle","date":"March 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Way of the Wizard (2010) John Joseph Adams I love anthologies. They give me an escape in bite size pieces that won't keep me up past my bed time on a work night, and they also often a wonderful introduction to authors I have not read previously. This anthology\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthology"","block_context":{"text":"Anthology","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/anthology"},"img":{"alt_text":"way_of_the_wizard","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/way_of_the_wizard.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}