Crimson Empire worked because it was simple: one guardsman, one traitor, one duel, twelve pages of it. Council of Blood cannot repeat that, so it does something harder and mostly pulls it off.
A bodyguard with no client he respects
Kir Kanos spends this series protecting the Imperial Interim Council — six warlords carving up what is left of the Empire, none of whom would have been allowed in Palpatine's throne room. The tension is not "will he save them" but "why is he bothering", and Richardson and Stradley are disciplined about keeping that question open. Kanos is loyal to an idea that has no surviving institution, which makes him the most coherent character in a book full of people improvising.
Gulacy
Paul Gulacy's storytelling is the reason to buy it. He stages a room better than almost anyone who worked on the licence: characters are placed, sightlines matter, and a conversation between four schemers reads as a diagram of who is about to betray whom. Randy Emberlin's inks are heavier than P. Craig Russell's on the first series and the book is a little less luminous for it, but the pages are never confusing.
The catch
Six issues is not enough for the number of factions it introduces, and the middle third leans on people explaining plots to each other. The third series was announced for 2001 and did not arrive until Crimson Empire III — Empire Lost in 2011, which leaves this one hanging for a decade.
Verdict
Read the first series first. Then read this one, and treat the long wait for the third as part of the experience of following Dark Horse in the nineties.
