July 13, 2015
Aryan’s epic fantasy debut provides bloody battles and large-scale political intrigue in a land of ancient magic, along with bucket loads of purple prose and a story that asks far more questions than it answers. War is coming to Seveldrom, stirred up by mad King Taikon, a rogue Battlemage called the Warlock, and the Warlock’s apprentices. Fortunately King Matthias can count on his own host of eight loyal Battlemages, led by trusted mage Balfruss and crack military leader Vannok, and ably assisted by Matthias’s daughter, Princess Talandra, and her widespread spy network. There are hints of larger, ancient forces at work, but little is resolved or clarified in this series opener. With over-the-top psychopathic villainy and graphic battle scenes where “gouts of blood and chunks of flesh rained down... as limbs and pieces of men were sliced away,” this is epic fantasy for readers who appreciate extra helpings of carnage with their backstabbing.
August 1, 2015
Armies, wizards, and gods clash and fray in the first installment of a series. Many secrets of magic have been lost over the centuries, and the Grey Council, responsible for training those with power, disappeared years ago in search of a prophesied magical savior. That means there are very few qualified Battlemages remaining to combat Emperor Taikon, a seemingly invulnerable madman who's embarked on a holy war of conquest supported by a multination military alliance as well as the most powerful Battlemage in living memory, the Warlock. As Taikon prepares to invade Seveldrom, the remaining Battlemages gather at King Matthias' behest; the king's daughter, Princess Talandra, guides her spy network to undermine the enemy from within; and the common soldiers are encouraged by the guidance of Vargus, who appears to be one of them but is clearly something more than human. The plot's not intricate enough to be political fantasy (the armies and the Battlemages fight one another until one side-guess which?-wins), not cynical enough to be truly grimdark (despite the body count), and just doesn't have the profound epic sweep that marks the best high fantasy. The idea that the gods' existence and power level are dependent on how many human worshippers they have is developed well here, but it's hardly new. Perhaps later volumes in the series will display more plotting and conceptual complexity. Reasonably engaging and acceptably written but with little to distinguish it from the read-alikes already cluttering the market.
COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.