Author Michael Underwood was kind enough to get me an advance reader copy (ARC) of this upcoming book, and I'm most grateful I had the opportunity to take it in. I was quite impressed by what I found.
The setting of this story is the city of Audec-Hal, the home of several races of people. Each race has a unique "birthright", abilities granted by virtue of their heritage (e.g. telekinesis, seeing the emotional connections between people, extreme speed, etc.). For the last fifty years, Audec-Hal and its citizens have suffered under the oppression of five tyrants who have divided the city among themselves and share an uneasy peace. These oligarchs employ both magic and technology to maintain their power base, and the combinations of the two are quite interesting.
Hope is not lost however; it struggles on in the form of the Shields of Audec-Hal, a small band of insurgents who fight against the tyrants by means of what is essentially guerrilla warfare: mostly small strikes, but a few larger ones against the tyrants' strongholds as well. The Shields are a small but versatile group who use their birthrights effectively to gain advantages in combat. Their leader is the First Sentinel, an old alchemist who remembers the time before the rise of the tyrants, when Audec-Hal was ruled by a democratically-elected Senate. As the story opens, the tyrants have agreed to a summit to formally divide the city and consolidate their power, something the Shields have to do whatever it takes to stop.
I'll let you read the rest of the story yourself, but I hope I've piqued your curiosity. The story is told from the points of view of the various Shields, with interludes giving the perspective of some of the tyrants. The shifting viewpoint serves to give an impressively full picture of the world and the situation as it develops, yet it leaves enough mystery to keep the reader interested.
Magic and technology traditionally belong to separate genres, namely fantasy and science fiction, respectively. A lot of attempts to mix the two in literature have failed in various ways, though the steampunk genre and its popularity show there is an interest in continuing the effort. This book is definitely not steampunk; it's something all its own. Where else would you find an android working with a sorceror, battling an alchemist/artificer?
In summary, this book is a wonderful adventure, with a depth and development of characters that is tough to find in modern literature. I look forward to more in this series.
No comments:
Post a Comment