THE ARENA

Ellis offers a debut fantasy novel set in a violent city that’s secretly controlled by magical forces.

In the city of Yddinas, Cael Brenion is a longtime champion arena combatant. One night, the bloodthirsty audience demands that he not only kill his current opponent, but soak his hands in the man’s gore. In his last moment with the enemy, the honorable Cael promises to provide for his opponent’s son; he also dedicates the match to his own younger brother, 12-year-old Breilyn, who lives with a foster family. At the local temple, high priest Agenayus prepares Cael and the other arena victors to place their hands in a holy fire to absolve their sins. However, Chancellor Rovert Orik intercedes and promotes Cael to Champion, an exalted status that only two other men in Yddinas enjoy, including Cael’s mentor, Braddw. Rovert is an insecure ruler who’s obsessed with having an heir despite his own failures in the bedroom. He encourages chancelloress Valeina to bed the man of her choice in order to become pregnant. Valeina, however, loathes Rovert and is determined to solve the riddle of Yddinas’ isolation from the northern realms, in part due to a mysterious, mirrorlike barrier. Only Agenayus, a powerful mage of the Suuroc race, knows the truth about mystical beings who live separately from humanity. For this series opener, Ellis marries the characters’ personal dramas to the fate of the city that they inhabit while also developing a grandly magical plot, which simmers in the background. Game of Thrones fans will savor the tightly controlled cascade of deceptions among the cast. The prose effectively reflects the hardscrabble existences of most of the people in Yddinas, as in the line, “A glare lingered between Cael and Breilyn, like two angry dogs fighting for the same tree to piss on.” When characters aren’t actually dueling, they cut each other with words, as when Rovert tells his wife, “You were a peasant, doomed to marry off into a middle-class family...and become another useless, spoiled hag.” The players’ bighearted gestures and delicious acts of evil are consistently riveting, and an intriguing, world-expanding finale makes the sequel unmissable.

A layered and emotional epic fantasy opener.