Becoming The Muse

Warbound The Grimnoir Chronicles Book 3

Warbound is the third and final book of The Grimnoir Chronicles, an urban fantasy trilogy by Larry Correia. It was published by Baen Books on 27 May 2014.

Following the events of Book 2 Spellbound…Jake Sullivan and his ragtag crew of airship pirates and Grimnoir knights setout to save the world from a threat no on has taken seriously except for them …

The Good

If Hard Magic introduced us to the Grimnoir Universe and its alternative history, and Spellbound expanded the world-building while raising the stakes, Warbound takes the entire contraption, turns every dial to maximum and asks us to hold on for dear life as we head for the thrilling conclusion of this trilogy.

The series has always borrowed from pulp adventure, noir, superhero fiction and military action, and here those ingredients come together for the grand finale on a scale that is larger than the previous two books.

Having read all three books in a space of 2 weeks, I was able to fully appreciate the groundwork laid in the earlier books and where the story would ultimately lead. Warbound successfully concludes The Grimnoir Chronicles, wrapping up all the threads while also elaborating on the mythology of how the magic works and paving the way for more books set in the Grimnoir Universe.

Jake Sullivan remains an intriguing protagonist, with the brain of a scholar in the body of a thug it weighs on him that in an idea world he could have accomplished great things but instead all he is really good at I killing people, a hard man willing to make the hard decsions….

Jake Sullivan may have been on the side of the angels, but they were some damned bloody angels

Faye, meanwhile, has grown into a much more consequential character. Her abilities and her place in the wider mythology make her central to the struggle, rather than simply another person learning about magic and the world.

The Bad

The final book is juggling a lot of storylines which could have been better developed across separate books… The Imperium and their torture schools, the Roosevelt administration and its approach to dealing with people with magical abilities, Faye’s journey of self-discovery, and then there is the Power and the Enemy that has been looming since the first book, with everything else rushing to get everyone and everything into position for the final act.

Amidst all that, some secondary characters who have been around from the previous books don’t get as much attention as one would have wished, for instance, Pamberly Hammer who in Spellbound seemed like would grow into a central character, is barely present in Warbound.

The Ugly

The book is heavy on its underlying themes on distrust of unaccountable government power and its scepticism toward bureaucracies but because the author prefers his work to be pulp entertainment rather than dense, morally gray, literary allegory packed with deep socio-political teardowns, it thus limits the depth of the political arguments it raises…

leaving the book a limbo state where it’s too thematically loaded to simply be entertainment yet dismissed as too popcorn fiction for serious recognition by gatekeeping critics.

Final Thoughts

Warbound is a satisfying conclusion to a wildly entertaining trilogy with a creative alternate-history setting, that answers enough of the questions raised in the first two books to make the journey worthwhile. Getting to the end is like saying goodbye to an old friend and I will be on the lookout for books set in the Grimnoir Universe. Introduced to this book series via a review by Bookstooge.