Your patience will be rewarded

This is the work of an author who has known pain and abuse and suffering that many - not as many as is fair, for life is not fair - will thankfully never know. The nuances to the darkness and the acts it envelopes are staggering, but staged in a manner that evokes intrigue and pulls you into the story. You can see the familiar signs of medieval war and ancient evil made famous by Tolkien, in a flavour that is occasionally bland, but one expected of the first novel in a saga which sets the stage.

In every way that the hobbits began as unwilling hero’s and became who they needed to be, this inversion sees the MC as exactly who he was supposed to be, suffering the reality of a world beyond his control, full of suffering unimaginable, becoming who he shouldn’t have needed to become, but who he needed to be none the less. One of the many paradoxes that mirrors our own world and in doing so makes the tale seem more possible. More ‘real’.

I don’t pretend it holds the grand magesty and myth of Tolkien’s great works, instead a million little fragments that make up the world, some enduring, some fleeting characters who appear and disappear forever within the same chapter, are what makes up this world, and gives it a unique depth. Like a mirror facing a mirror, reflecting off into infinity, the central characters are at once solid and mutable, origin stories to give them depth, but stripped of definition in a way that leaves room for endless possibility.

Fortunately the story is not as verbose or laden with hyperbole/simile etc as this review, but there is an inherent weakness of sorts in any series, being the opening title that sets the stage and lays the necessary foundations, stakes, and tension that lead to those fantastic moments of resolution in later instalments. If you are like me, in any series it’s best to look at the 2nd and 3rd books in the series to truly gauge the applicability of review scores. This is what makes a series a series - if you are looking for a bright, quick fix, look elsewhere. If you are looking for the foundations to a solid dark fantasy series with both enduring and fleeting characters that all come together to create a tale worth embarking on - look no further and invest your time, cause this is a worthy one.

What will ultimately decide if you enjoy this series is whether you enjoy fantasy that escapes reality completely - that being the injustice and meaninglessness of it all - or one which threads grounded elements of the world we know into a tale featuring chapters of myth and legend, and in doing so, draw you in completely. It’s a series that even in just finishing the first book you can tell requires patience, with moments of vengeance and resolution each birthing the seeds of more uncertainty. But one which rewards.

The author creates a brilliant metaphor for Christianity - both their holy wars and the wars of “others” and the perspective shifting from one to the other until the ambivalence of the universe becomes clear.

The inflected humour in Ray Porters voice that suits the Bobiverse to a tee (although I personally wasn’t a fan of it, and I know I’m prob the only one who thinks that) occasionally didn’t match the tone, but the breadth and depth of his accents in world with such myriad of cultures is nothing short of amazing.

The authors grasp and articulation of the very real, vicious and disgusting threats that women face in a patriarchy such as ours, is explored in more grim detail but with as much awareness as Tchaikovsky’s works like ‘Ogre’, and one certainly absent in many of the ‘classics’, being a product of their time such as they were. The strongest exploration of themes of feminism I’ve seen set against a medieval/fantasty background for sure. Confronting, educating, important. All men should read this for that reason alone. I’m v glad I did.

The dialogue is at times a bit jarring where colloquial swearing is at odds with the old timey language. Yet this doesn’t detract from the true wonder of this tale - the subtle yet profound changes that occur in people in reaction to the world changing around them. The scope is as broad as nations yet narrow as one person’s transient - or enduring - suffering.

Giving further depth is the unique epistemology depth to which magic might change not just the individual, but the very world - biology, physics et al. That level of consideration, delivered in such a measured way, makes the most ephemeral concept visceral/tangible in a way I’ve not encountered before. Whilst the phrases used to describe it may become repetitive, the depth of the authors imagination when considering the elements that make up a world transformed by the fantastical is astounding.

Perhaps not his “best” work (whatever that means), but absolutely an experience anyone who loves their dark fantasty and adventure should experience. I won’t lie and say I’ll read it again immediately, but having done so once and knowing what I do now about the tale, I find myself buying the next tale in the story despite it being 4am and well past my bedtime.

Great insight into the power of the phrase that “history is written by the winners”, but also how in their greatest efforts to overthrow the ideology that truly makes up a people, a nation, a world… that “history is doomed to repeat itself”. And that facts are as porous and mailable as chosen. With an almost ironic awareness by calling it what it is - propaganda.

I can see what one v negative review said about it seeming rushed, though I would correct that slightly and say lazy - there were a few key phrases “…and in all of them they failed” that show the author thought highly of that choice of words to the extent a drinking game around them in some chapters would kill a person lol. The dissonance of the modern colloquial profanity really is at odds with the rest of the language, and those were the few moments i felt jarred out of the story. When such care was taken to intertwine magic and science, this seed seems a lazy oversight.

Ultimately though he masters prose to explore the existential implications of what is in time terms the immensity of time, the very recent advent of humanity. teaching through science, humility. How it would be scary and yet beautiful. How religion has guided history and may compel our future. So clever.

The way truth exists outside of stories. Explores the paradox that actual truth holds aspects of both fable and reality. Truth does not require belief, for it is mutable.


It’s testament to HP Lovecraft that Cthulhu can be referred to as an entity that forms the fabric of reality rather than a literary concept to be coerced. The author can’t be accused of originality here, no doubt, but it adds to the plausibility in this particular tale of the patheon of gods that may indeed shape our world. Though never at the exclusivity of the sciences. The idea that the illusion to our world is not the magic, but that which hides it. “True power conceals itself” and all that.

If you have no patience - don’t bother. But if you do? You will gain a new understanding of the concept of tension and release within a narrative. Not the greatest eg, but a fine one indeed. Absolutely an adventure worth embarking on, and I cannot wait to see how the world, characters, seeds of ideas planted, unfurl and bloom in the next instalment. Which I’m off to listen to right now (sunrise be damned lol)

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Keep them coming

Enjoyed this book so much that I have just finished downloading part 2. Thanks for another great book!

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Bloody, Viscous, and Awesome

A great Grim Dark novel! Straight to the next one for me.
Love Kagen and many of the others. If you like gritty dark stuff with faulty heroes then give this a go.

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1 person found this helpful

Not worth a credit

I feel like this book had potential but was something pumped out on a whim.

Key links between story pieces missing, key pieces that would create the fantasy world missing, boring characters and over lack lustre.

I hope there is not second book…

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