The Autumn Republic concludes the Powder Mage trilogy with, if you’ll pardon what in this case is a fairly terrible pun, a bang. This trilogy is the first finished major series* in the new flintlock fantasy genre. If you just want a quick verdict on the trilogy- it’s pretty good. Not perfect, but definitely good, and shows definite signs that Brian McClellan is going to have a very interesting writing career ahead of him. The Autumn Republic has clear prose, fast paced and well constructed action scenes, sympathetic characters, and interesting worldbuilding.

Really quick, let’s get the complaints out of the way, of which I only really have a couple. Some of the foreshadowing in the books could have been handled better. There were several instances of it in the previous books that led me to believe certain subplots would materialize here in the finale that simply never occurred. While there was resolution to them, it did not take the path the books seemed to indicate they would. That can partially be chalked up to the author deciding to take a different path with the book- which he did a fine job of. There aren’t any internal inconsistencies presented by the change of course, just a little minor cognitive dissonance- really cognitive indigestion- it caused me. A lot of it was likely caused by some of the theories about what was going to happen that I built up in my own head. Overall, not a big deal.

Minor spoilers ahead:

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