Esrahaddon by Michael J. Sullivan – Review

Published: August 15, 2023

Publisher: Riyria Enterprises, LLC

Series: The Rise and Fall #3

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 936 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4 Stars

Synopsis:
A hero to some. A villain to many. The truth forever buried. The man who became known as Esrahaddon is reported to have destroyed the world’s greatest empire—but there are those who believe he saved it. Few individuals are as divisive, but all agree on three He was exiled to the wilderness, hunted by a goblin priestess, and sentenced to death by a god—all before the age of eight. How he managed to survive and why people continued to fear his name a thousand years later has always been a mystery…until now.

From the three-time New York Times best-selling author Michael J. Sullivan, Esrahaddon is the final novel in the Rise and Fall trilogy. This latest set of stories sits snugly between the Legends of the First Empire series and the Riyria books (Revelations and Chronicles). With this tale, Michael continues his tradition of unlikely heroes who must rise to the call when history knocks, demanding to be let in. This is the 19th full-length novel in a body of work that started in 2008 and spans four series.

---

Esrahaddon was an absolute TOME of a book, coming in at over 900 pages and earning the last minute title of “Longest Read of 2023”. And boy, did it take me forever to finish this – I actually started it midway through November and finished right at the end of December. Admittedly, I did take a break to binge House of Earth and Blood right in the middle of it. Esrahaddon is the story of our titular character and how he came to be hailed as the villain he is in The Riyria Revelations.

Esrahaddon was exiled from his backwater village at the tender young age of seven, because they thought he was a demon. Nevermind that his abilities saved them from being eaten by tigerwolves. He was then adopted and raised by goblins (or Ba ran Ghazel as is polite) until his adoptive mother was killed and he received the gift she had kept for him for so many years. A robe, rumored to have belonged to Uberlin himself. When Esra goes to exact revenge on the people responsible for killing Hekkabah his flamboyant battle is seen by a Cenzar and a Teshlor who invite him to go with them back to Percepliquis to join the Cenzarium. 

Honestly, this book was incredibly long and for a good chunk of the beginning, I was only moderately invested in the story. I mean, it was kind of sad that kid Esra was exiled from his village and I actually loved that he cared so much for his found family. But MAN, the beginning felt like it was so slow. Fortunately, about the time he had the revenge showdown things really began to pick up and I became much more interested in seeing how Esra’s story played out because I know what was said about him in the later Riyria books.

On the flip side, our good friend Mawyndulȅ is still around causing trouble and trying to get to the Horn of Gylindora so he might try to become Fane again. He’s gotten much more devious in his old age and I loathe him still. He’s such a hate-able antagonist and he’s plagued generations because he’s a damn Fhrey! Unsurprisingly, he’s taken up the role of Bishop of the Church of Novron and is playing a deft game of political puppetry to bring down the Empire from the inside. He’s really one of the best villains in any series because while he is powerful, he’s actually just a terrible, narcissistic, power hungry person much like villains in real life. 

This book did a fantastic job humanizing and giving a proper backstory to Esrahaddon, a character that is portrayed as a monster in the later Riyria books for destroying Percepliquis. He’s a little arrogant, and definitely an ass to Jerish Grelad, his Teshlor counterpart, but when you actually look beyond that shallow exterior, he’s a good person. This is shown to the reader countless times, particularly when it comes to Alinia and Nevrick. While it remains a mystery as to how Esrahaddon ended up in Gutaria prison, this does a fine job telling the story of his life up until the tragic final moments of Percepliquis. 

Overall, this was another fantastic installment into the world of Elan and it made me want to jump right on a re-read of the Riyria Chronicles and Riyria Revelations. As if I don’t have enough series I want to re-read! It’s full of exciting events, but in some places the pacing did suffer a bit and I wanted things to move along, but for a 900+ page book that’s honestly not too bad. You can’t have entirely action and the slower moments help us readers to digest events. On a final note, please forgive me for any name or location spelling errors – I listened to the audiobook and haven’t received my print copy yet! The wiki doesn’t have literally every single character on it, but this would have been a hot mess without it.