A Brief History of Modern Erilea

Thanks to Wallpaper Safari

Title: A Brief History of Modern Erilea

Author: Not known 

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

I only recently got drawn into Sarah Mass’s tales of Erilea. I read somewhere that it’s not the usual mediaeval style of fantasy but has a sort of Georgian setting (as in the Georgian kings of England rather than the Eastern European country I think), but that’s a rather simplistic reduction of an interesting world full of swordplay, conquest, forbidden magic, very fancy clothes and libraries. And blood. Lots and lots of blood. 

Much is made of the King of Adarlan’s policy of burning libraries. Wherever he conquers, the King makes certain to destroy the libraries whether they contain books about magic or not. He seems to be determined to eradicate magic at all costs.

The heroine of this series of books, who may or may not be called Celaena Sardothien, loves reading and when she is rescued from a labour camp to become Crown Prince Dorian’s Champion, she asks his permission to use the palace library. Dorian replies by sending her a pile of his favourite books.

We learn that Celaena reads The Wind and the Rain, The Crown of a Hero, The Walking Dead* and Sunset’s Passions but we don’t learn anything about the books themselves. She then moves on to Eyllwe Culture and Customs and Symbols and Power. This last may be full of information about Wyrdmarks, which can be used for power or to prevent harm.

She also reads A Brief History of Modern Erilea. It would be interesting to know more about Erilea but perhaps this information has been saved for a later book in the series. And it isn’t clear whether Erilea is the whole world, or just a continent. There’s an arrow on the map showing the way to Wendlyn, which isn’t shown, but again it’s not clear whether Wendlyn is a country or another continent.

* In the next book in the Erilea series: Crown of Midnight, we discover that The Walking Dead was a book about magic.

There’s a lot of fan art out there for the Throne of Glass universe.

Thanks to Thehonestbookclub.blogger.com