I was lucky enough to be offered a pre-release copy of this book. I get a lot of these offers, most of which I turn down (and many I take but never finish or review) since I read only for my own pleasure, but the premise of this one intrigued me. I am so glad I did take it because this is an excellent book, probably one of the top three I’ve read this year and I’m a voracious reader. This book took me longer to read than most, and although it is a big book, mostly that is because there is so much information being presented. There are things in most books that my mind subconsciously picks up as filler and I zip right through it. Nothing like that here; I read and enjoyed every single word.
First, the plot. It’s a fairly standard save the world premise. However, it is never staid, hackneyed or predictable because of a couple factors. First, the mandatory subplots. All the characters have their backstories, motivations and subplots. These aren’t just minor plots occupying the same time and space; saving the world means slightly different things to different characters, so that the protagonists might prevail in ways that represent a loss to some. Think Vietnam: the Americans want to stop the spread of Communism, the Vietnamese want to preserve their freedom (along with their power and their lives), the French want their colonial possessions and hegemony back. Not really the strange bedfellows vibe here because of the severity and immediacy of the threat, but the author makes these discongruent aims too clear to ignore.
The second issue keeping fresh the plot is that the author quickly and firmly establishes that this isn’t your child’s fairy tale. Neither is it yours, or even your parents’. This harkens back to a much earlier ethos where the good guys might not win at all, and certainly not with the stereotypical death or two. This is a true life and death struggle, a battle to the knife with quarter neither given nor expected. It’s a brutally violent book, although I never felt that the violence was gratuitous or war porn.
The setting is high though scarce magic modern dark fantasy, specifically England (for a very logical reason), and it’s well done. Elves are an intriguing mixture of traditional and modern, and other fairy races run from stereotypical minor to tongue in cheek to very interesting takes on ancient legends. There’s not room for more than cursory glimpses of most, leaving plenty of meat for later, less high stakes or alternate time/space work, but there’s always enough detail for them to play their part. Unlike a lot of modern urban fantasy, none of this juxtaposition seemed jarring or illogical to me. Especially in the last quarter of the book, the setting literally came alive for me, like watching a movie. Yet at the same time, the necessary description never caused the action to lag for me. Well done indeed.
There’s a reasonably large cast of characters spanning millennia, which usually leaves me struggling to keep up with who’s who. I did not have that issue here. The characters were vividly drawn and had clear, reasonable motivations, so I could place each in her proper place without any struggle. I thought each reacted totally appropriately for that character’s backstory, motivations, situation and, well, character. I also found all the characters to be quite interesting. None, including the main villain, seemed at all stereotyped or two dimensional.
Pacing is where many inexperienced authors have issues, but I found the pacing here to be very well done. There are slow times – there have to be slow times to keep an action-heavy book readable – but once the main plot begins to unfold its last act, both the reader and the characters are aware that the danger doesn’t stop increasing. Earlier sections, which serve mostly as the setup and expose, have their own action which also feeds into the characters’ or plot’s development, so nothing feels like filler or less than essential.
All in all, this is an excellent book and would make a hell of a movie. Highly recommended to any adults not hyper sensitive to violence.
