A sword-and-sorcery novel as cerebral as it is pulpy.
In Edwards’ fantasy novel, the first in a series, two friends on a rescue mission find themselves in the midst of a magic war.
Ranvir, a dream magician–in-training–turned–itinerant rogue, and his friend Broga, an exile from a scattered nation, are searching for Broga’s half sister, Ovandu, whom they believe has been sold into slavery. With the help of a magical tracking beast, the travelers follow Ovandu’s trail to the remote desert city of Kanavar, perched on either side of a massive gorge: “The absurd size of it alone—up, down, across—dizzied me. It was like an upside-down mountain range, replete with vast fissures, unlikely outcroppings and strange, eroded rock forms. The bottom was lost in an all-consuming black.” They manage to bluff their way through the gates disguised as a famous wizard and his slave. There they find a city split between two rival factions; both employ powerful magicians to help them seize control of the whole. Ranvir and Broga want no part of a civil war. They want only to find Ovandu and escape before anyone realizes they aren’t who they say they are. They can’t avoid the messy conflict, however, especially when it becomes apparent that one side is attempting to bring to life and enslave the massive statue of the city’s legendary god. Even worse, when they finally find Broga’s half sister, they learn that the Ovandu before them is not the Ovandu they once knew. In addition to the novel, the book contains the short story “Helldriver Alley” by Edwards and James Palmer. The tale follows Ranvir and Broga on an earlier adventure in which they and their comrades investigate a mysterious plague and make a discovery that feels outside of time and space.
Both novel and short story are sword-and-sorcery tales turned up to 10 with a dash of verbose Lovecraft-ian weirdness to give the story some extra darkness. Edwards isn’t afraid of alienating the reader with his worldbuilding. In fact, it seems to be the greatest source of his authorial joy, like here where Ranvir contrasts the desert with the rainforests of his homeland: “To my ears, the desert stillness was a hollow and stultifying roar. Nature in its fullness meant the lively whistle and flutter of Ixzahl. The high tsee-tsee of yellow skógard in flight. Noisy woodcreep chatter. Monarch sharps. Insect hum. Pocket-sized skipti flitting from branch to branch.” The fast-talking Ranvir is a fun protagonist, and his complicated relationship with the brooding, vengeance-fueled Broga provides a necessary emotional heart to the novel. The well-crafted prose does make the reader work, and the plot moves slowly under the weight of its own backstory. The result is something like if J.R.R. Tolkien had written a Conan the Cimmerian novel. It likely won’t appeal to the average fantasy fan, but there is surely an audience for whom this is the perfect combination of serious and sensational. For those lucky fans, more volumes will follow.
A sword-and-sorcery novel as cerebral as it is pulpy.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-30463-2
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Imperiad Entertainment
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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