What a pleasant surprise! I watch a few booktube channels, Philip Chases’ among them. Chase is an English professor, and reading this you can see his talent on the page. This book carries it’s lineage back to Tolkien; it is traditional fantasy of the ‘Orphan Farmboy on a quest to defeat the Dark Lord’ variety. What makes this book special in this crowded genre is the quality and thoughtfulness of the prose, as well as the songs and poems. I think this might be my favorite Tolkien-esque novel (barring those written by Tolkien himself).
Spoilers Below. I’m writing this review in good faith, as one author reviewing another’s book, trying to balance positives with negatives.
WHAT IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE? WHAT GENRES? WHAT MAJOR TROPES?
- Traditional Quest Fantasy
- Songs and poems
- Orphan Farmboy with a Grandmotherly Gandalf
- I think this is targetted for adults, but anyone 14+ years old can read it.
- A strong religious theme, with a Celtic-ish old religion fighting against an imperialistic Christian-inspired religion. There are good people on both sides.
- Empathy based magic.
MY EMOTIONAL RESPONSE/ FUN FACTOR
I give this a solid 5 stars, which marks it as being in the top 15% of books I read. This book was a solid Traditional Fantasy, did not invert any tropes; instead it stayed in it’s lane. This book knew what genre it wanted to be, and it EXCELLED at the genre. My complements to the author, this was fantastic.
WARNING! QUIT READING NOW UNTIL YOU FINISH READING THE BOOK!
SIMILAR BOOKS/OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES
- I’d compare this to the luminary Tolkien
- And to a lesser extent The ‘Memory, Sorrow, Thorn’ series
- I’d compare the religious dynamic in this to ‘Mists of Avalon.’
CONCEPT AND EXECUTION
This book’s concept is ‘Dayraven is lured into the woods by an Unseelie Faerie, to be killed by being Rip-Van-Winkled to death. Instead of dying, he reawakens with Chosen One protagonist magic. Upon returning to society, the local Fantasy-Christian priest hates Dayraven because the sect of pseudo-Christians hate the pagan magic. Dayraven barely escapes his home alive. He must now go on an adventure of a life time to tame his Faerie magic and defeat the oncoming army of Crusaders intent on abolishing the last embers of pagan life.”
I think this book was well executed, and was almost perfectly executed. If I were to quibble, I think this book could have been a good 20 to 30 pages shorter. More on this later.
CHARACTERS, CHARACTERIZATION AND DIALOG
Now THIS is how you write a good Chosen One story. Dayraven in this is just a normal teenager. He doesn’t instantly gain mastery over the sword, or magic, or anything. Most of the time his new Chosen One magic proves to be more of a hinderance than a help, causing him to frequently lose control of himself in stressful moments and allowing enemy priests to find him.
What I liked most of all about Dayraven was his empathy. When he gained protagonist magic, he also gained supernatural empathy. Magic in this setting seems to be psychic in some way. One person is able to dominate the mind of others, even kill them, but it comes at a cost. To influence their mind, you must link your mind with them and know them completely. You can’t help but read their thoughts even as you kill them, as an example.
At one point in this story Dayraven is attacked by a bog monster. The monster kills a few of Dayraven’s friends, but when Dayraven takes control of the monster we learn that the bog monster was just defending it’s territory and trying to feed his wife and children. The bog monster was utterly terrified during the fight. This was GREAT characterization, and a great way to implement a cool magic system.
I think most, if not all of the side characters had unique personalities, goals, drives. A few of them even had unique speech patterns. While none of them were super-memorable, I don’t think they needed to be. They served the story well.
PACING AND STRUCTURE
I thought the book was well paced. It had a mildly slow start, but it wasn’t as bad as some other books I’ve read in this sub-genre. Overall, I’d say this book was deliberatly pace. Someone else might say there were slow patches in the middle, but I think that a slower middle was the effect the author was going for. Above I said this book could have been 20 pages shorter; that’s due to the slightly slow middle.
I think Dayraven’s arc was structured according to the 5 act format. In the 5 act format, the most important moment in the story is the middle act, when the protagonist must make an irrevocable choice which determines the fate of the rest of the book. In this book, that choice was during the ambush by bandits. Dayraven is recruited by mercenaries and forced to completely abandon his previous mission.
Here are the acts:
- Before the elf
- Trial, exile, and fleeing the two priests
- Meeting the kind priest, and ambush by the bandits
- Shanghaied into joining the mercenary company, and meeting the dweorgs.
- Fighting the good fight and switching sides at the very end.
PLOT, STAKES AND TENSION
I thought the plot was good, though this book was VERY MUCH SO book 1 in a series. By this I mean that this book ended without much of a resolution at all, not even a cliffhanger. This book existed to set up a series, without having a complete arc in-and-of itself. Thank goodness the next book is already out, and book 3 is coming soon. This does not stand on it’s own.
I gave this book 5 stars for pure enjoyment, in part because I thought that the stakes and tension were well done. Early on in the book, it’s clear Bledla is bad news after that scene in the dungeon, when he feeds prisoners to that monster. By killing them here, it’s clear that the bad guys are BAD NEWS. This sets the stakes: you know that if Bledla takes over, nothing good is going to happen.
AUTHORIAL VOICE (TONE, PROSE AND THEME) & SETTING, WORLDBUILDING AND ORIGINALITY
The author clearly researched a medieval setting well, using time-appropriate words where appropriate. In particular, the author used the word ‘kirtle’ regularly to replace the word for shirt. I really liked this, because by hammering home such an exotic word, it really brought home how old time-y the setting was. Too often when I read Medieval Fantasy, it doesn’t feel medieval. This gave texture and feeling to the setting, as did lesser known monsters like pucca.
I liked the author’s use of poetry and song. It stands out of the crowd of books, not least because it was well written. This book felt like a passion project by someone with an affection for fantasy and a fundamental understanding of genre storytelling.
I have a love-hate relationship with the story’s religious underpinning. This is a secondary world fantasy, meaning it takes place on another planet. However this book is ultimately about the Christianization of pagan Europe, especially pagan England. This book more or less takes the side of ‘paganism is cool and it is bad that it was stamped out.’ I think that is a good sentiment, but I have a problem here.
I already read ‘The Mists of Avalon.’ Setting aside the fact that that ‘Mists’ has become a problematic text, I feel as though ‘Edan’ treads the same ground. ‘Mists’ made the Christians seem stupid and evil, similar to how this book didn’t do enough to make the Edan-faithful seem like the heroes of their own story. It’s been forty years since ‘Mist’s’ publication so it’s okay to tread the same ground, but I think my complaint stands.
If you check out my blog, you’d know I am fascinated with human religion as a topic of study. I want a fantasy author to actually LOOK at paganism/Christian split in a more honest way. No one is perfect, no one is evil. Get down into the nitty-gritty details of both religions. Pagans weren’t enlightened, Christians weren’t evil despots; they were both human.
LESSONS LEARNED
As an author, I want to improve my own writing/editing skills. To that end, I like to learn lessons from every story I read. Here’s what I learned from this story:
- Be consistent about using period and setting appropriate language. This book consistently used the word ‘kirtle’ to describe people’s clothing. This worked very well to consistently remind me that we were in a medieval setting, and gave the book a good texture.
- Have a strong climax and a full arc for book 1 in your series. I gave this book 5 stars, but I fell this book didn’t have a full arc, and it might have been a bit better if it did.
- Find clever ways to integrate magic with different aspects of your storytelling. In this case, this book has empathy magic. Due to how this magic interacts with a character’s psyche, using magic directly aids in characterization. This was very clever by the author.
Here’s a link to all the lessons I’ve previously learned.
SUMMARY
Good book is good. Go read it.
Did you like this critique/review? Here are some more: The Rest of My In Depth Reviews
On a personal note, I’m open to editing books. I don’t like putting myself out here like this, but I’ve been told I should. Check my blog for details if interested.
John Mendez- Book Reviews and More 