Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • The Last Mortal Bond

  • Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, Book 3
  • By: Brian Staveley
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 29 hrs and 31 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,317 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Last Mortal Bond cover art

The Last Mortal Bond

By: Brian Staveley
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £25.00

Buy Now for £25.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Emperor's Blades cover art
The Empire's Ruin cover art
Kingfall cover art
A Perfect Shadow [Dramatized Adaptation] cover art
Traitor's Blade cover art
Nolyn cover art
Fatemarked cover art
At the Sign of the Crow and Moon cover art
Many Are the Dead cover art
Child of a Mad God cover art
The Silmarillion cover art
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes cover art
Son of the Black Sword cover art
Hyperion cover art
New Spring cover art
A Demon in Silver: Book One of War of the Archons cover art

Summary

The trilogy that began with The Emperor's Blades and continued in The Providence of Fire reaches its epic conclusion as war engulfs the Annurian Empire in Brian Staveley's The Last Mortal Bond

The ancient csestriim are back to finish their purge of humanity; armies march against the capital; leaches, solitary beings who draw power from the natural world to fuel their extraordinary abilities, maneuver on all sides to affect the outcome of the war; and capricious gods walk the earth in human guise with agendas of their own.

But the three imperial siblings at the heart of it all - Valyn, Adare, and Kaden - come to understand that even if they survive the holocaust unleashed on their world, there may be no reconciling their conflicting visions of the future.

©2016 Brian Staveley (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about The Last Mortal Bond

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    841
  • 4 Stars
    346
  • 3 Stars
    105
  • 2 Stars
    20
  • 1 Stars
    5
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    930
  • 4 Stars
    230
  • 3 Stars
    44
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    708
  • 4 Stars
    342
  • 3 Stars
    120
  • 2 Stars
    28
  • 1 Stars
    10

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Never reached the excitement of the first book

I thought, like many trilogies that the 2nd book would be the"filler", but the feeling I had about this was that it was mainly filler as well.

Although beautifully written at points with fantastic description of character and scenery, it lacked the snappy, pacey plot that made the first book so good

I love books involving magic. and I don't even mind some involvement of gods, but much like David Dalgleish's books about Ashur and Karak, it starts to lose something when gods become directly involved.

I re-listened to the first two books before listening to this one and what the second 2 lacked was the humour of the first one. There is a deliberate distinction in the 3 main protagonists in the writing style, language and pace of plot and it suits the first book. in the second, it loses this and by the third, the urgency of the first book is lost in a long, sprawling, convoluted plot

worth a credit but nothing like as good as the first of the trilogy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Dumb

Why is everyone so dumb in these books? I actually cannot believe some of the stuff that happens in this book. Even if it is a fantasy book.

This really was an exercise in writing a lot and going no where.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Decisions have Consequences

The climatic ending to an exhausting trilogy. War is raging across the kingdom. In this book, Gwenna comes into her own and is leading what is left of the wing. Adare, in my opinon, has totally lost the plot when she knifes her own brother in the back to protect her Csestriim lover il Tornja. Then we come to Kaden, who thinks putting together a council of thieves and murders to rule Annur, with himself as First Speaker to create a republic is a wonderful idea.

All of the siblings have made disastrous decisions in their journey to reach this point and the consequences will not be pleasant. As endings go, it was, perhaps, the best outcome there could be, bearing in mind the path each of the siblings chose.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good ending to a great but flawed trilogy

Truly one of the best and most original fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. However, someone should have slid a piece of steel into Adare a long time ago. Her stupid can kill at a mile distance, more accurately than any Ketral sniper can. The reason I’m not giving a five star review is because some of the more interesting ideas are realised much too fast while some of the boring parts spin out endlessly. There are also a lot of unbelievably illogical events. SPOILER ALERT!

In the first novel we learn that there has never been a female emperor. Yet when Adere usurps the throne, half the empire immediately stands behind her. Why? If it is because of her general and the way he can deal with the Urghul threat, why doesn’t he get the throne while she stays at his side? I get it that she’s the prophet as well but in a patriarchical, medieval/roman inspired society nobody would stand behind a female, especially one that has never been in line for the throne and who has killed the leader of the most powerful religious order in the empire. It would have been more believable if il Tornja had stepped up as protector of the empire with or without Adere at his side. That has happened in Roman society a few times.

What makes it even harder to believe is that the true heir (Kaden) reappears and suddenly starts making unprecedented political changes. Nobody informs him of the huge threat that the Urghul pose and that it may be better to wait a bit ? He might have held off declaring the revolution until he was securely on the throne and at least had a clue what was going on in his empire. Instead he makes enemies out of half of his own subjects while at the same time dealing with an apocalyptic invasion AND an even larger threat of half and full gods.

The core of all the problems seems to be with the fact that the royal family inspires no reverence whatsoever. Kaden, Valyn and Adere are not thought to be special in any way which makes me wonder how the imperial family held on the power in the first place. How does the emperor keep his most elite warriors in check if they have no respect whatsoever for him or his heir? What was keeping the Kestrel from simply flying down to the palace and taking the throne? It’s not their undying loyalty to the emperor as that went out the window the moment there were two contenders for the job.

The same goes for the religious orders. The largest one wants to turn the empire into a theocracy yet settles for a female emperor because she somehow turned divine even if she did murder their equivalent of the pope.

And then there’s Kaden. I understand that he needs to learn the Vaniate in order to use the Kentas. But does he really need to spend 10 years in the middle of nowhere, without learning anything about being emperor, in order to fast travel around his empire? Aren’t there more pressing matters like, say, governing millions? No wonder he wants to get rid of the job title and delegate the responsibility to other’s. I’m a big fan of modern democracy but it seems to me you can’t just plug that into a pre-medieval society. Somehow Kaden manages to hold on to at least half of the former empire even though officially he should have no idea what a republic is and how it is different from a autocratic empire.

That brings me to the most baffling plot hole. With the imperial armies off to do battle with the Urghul, how does the Republic even hold power? There’s no such thing as a republican army and even the Sons of Flame obey his sister, not him. A much more logical train of events, if you must hold on to the idea of a republic, would be that Kaden ascends the throne as emperor, thanking his sister for keeping his seat warm. He could have dealt with the reality that il Tornja may have murdered his father but is also indispensable as military leader. Only after the Urghul were destroyed he could have hailed il Tornja as military hero and then gotten rid of him at a later date. After peace returned he could have made gradual changes to give his subjects more power. Maybe Brian Staveley could have done a bit more research into how Alexander the Great, Kublai Khan and the Roman emperors dealt with threats and political opportunities. Anyway, despite these flaws, the world that the trilogy describes is compelling and I hope there will be many sequels to come.

By the way, am I the only one that gets the feeling that the whole Gwenna and her misfits story arch was supposed to be a separate book that has been mixed in because a deadline was looming?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A fitting end

Brilliant books. this 3rd one is a fitting ending to a utterly brilliant trilogy .
loved it .

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An amazing trilogy

Exactly what you expect from well written epic fantasies and so well read by Simon. Just a shame it had to come to and end! :(

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

enchanting

fabulously rich story, with an unconventional ending. Well worth a read/listen, and be prepared for some violence

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A new star ⭐️ in fantasy

One of the best fantasy story’s I have listened to for years Brian Staveley stands up there with the likes of Brandon Sanderson & George R R Martin, fans of their book will love this trilogy
This final instalment is non stop action from start to finish, the writer has true grit , not for the faint hearted this story is very bloody has fantastically diverse characters , unique factions & races not you typical fantasy-world I could go on forever, Simon Vance brings this world and its characters alive with a masterful performance, do not miss out on this series it is truly great, buy or download the Emperors Blades read or listen you won’t be disappointed
5 starts 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 indeed 👍

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Much less compelling than its predecessors

Unfortunately the conclusion to what could have been this decade's best epic fantasy trilogy disappoints in almost every regard. Overlong and hugely repetitive it lacks the urgency and suspense that made the first two books so great and meanders along in an almost shockingly uninspired fashion. Would have needed a much better editor than it had. One can only hope that Mr. Staveley will rebound with his next series.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding

This trilogy is fantastic, thought provoking and intriguing. Highly recommended. Looking forward to reading more from this author

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful