Brian McClellan is not that popular, although he pops up from time to time on this subreddit, but has usually very favorable reviews from those who read his books. His ascension to fantasy fame is barred only by his works being in a less popular setting of flintlock fantasy. Essentially it's Napoleonic times + some magic.
I recently dropped reading The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson for multiple reasons (I wrote a separate post on those) and having fond memories of reading the Powder Mage trilogy started on In the Shadow of Lightning. It has been very engaging so far and I wanted to share what I particularly like about his books:
Consistent engaging pace(!!)
This is the most important feature for me. I read when commuting on my phone and sometimes this means short sessions of 15-30 minutes of reading. I always feel like the story made some progress even in that small time frame and generally leaves me wanting to continue reading. I wouldn't say it is rare for a good book to be engaging but a lot of books in the fantasy genre specifically have slower parts with info dumps or descriptions that overstay their welcome and drag. I have never felt like these books were dragging. In fact so much happens in the first 2 chapters of the In the Shadow of Lightning that it could have easily been 10 chapters with other authors.
However, you will definitely predict a lot of elements in the plot. There are of course plot twists but I would compare these to Clive Cussler books, where the intent is more about taking you along for the ride than to surprise you with twists.
Familiar yet unique setting
The Napoleonic setting works really well in that the reader is mostly already familiar with the concepts of how this world works. Of course the magical elements and all the fake countries and people have to be introduced but overall it is very grounded and that allows to get the actual plot going much faster. And when I first read those books the overall flintlock fantasy feel was itself very interesting. So if you have never read one of the books in the genre, these are the definite place to start.
POV characters getting a good character arc in each book
This really should be a given but the character arcs have been very well executed, an especially so if you read the sequel trilogy that follows the main plot after a time skip. I would also say the POVs felt very likable and I really wanted them to succeed with their plans. It is hard to execute a good arc for the same character in subsequent books (looking at you, Lightbringer trilogy) but so far it has been going really well.
Magic is important but the plot doesn't overly rely on it
There are a lot of epic moments in these books, especially in fights and battles, but it always feels like a clever writer could have replaced magic with something else and the rest of the plot would still work. In fact this is more of a low fantasy setting, where usually a small number of people have any magical ability, there could be multiple chapters where nothing magical happens. What mean by this is that the plot itself and the non-magical mysteries involved are good enough to themselves make it a good book. But perhaps this more of my low fantasy preference showing.
Satisfying ending to both trilogies and each book
The endings work very well. You definitely don't feel like you *must* read the second trilogy after the first one or even that reading the first is necessary for second. Even though it's the same characters the time skip is well implemented and it does not cliff-hang you or try to setup more books. The first books of both trilogies work just fine stand-alone without reading any other books in the series.
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So yeah, overall would recommend you checking those out, especially the latest book.
