I'll admit, I've always been a sucker for old school 'farmboy to hero' style fantasy tales. And this one really hits all the buttons. Right from the early set up scenes where Aranthur (the protagonist in this yarn) is traveling home to his village from the city where he is a scholar stops off at an inn and, due to events, meets up with characters you guess will become part of his story, it already feels like you are with old friends. From this point he, kinda 'levels up' and starts on the path to 'Hero-dom' The world feels more 'Dickensian' era than medieval which I enjoyed a lot, there is plenty of plotting and 'scheming' and a good cast of interesting characters (and it's not all about the men being heroic while the ladies fill the minor roles - all feels fairly equal here. All good points.
What threw me was that, again early on, it became obvious that guns/firearms are starting to make an impact into this world. As a general rule I'm not a fan of guns in FF, give me swords and axes any day of the week. But it soon became clear that Cameron knows what he's talking about and I really bought into it.
And, obviously there is magic (there HAS to be magic!) and this system works well.
Following Aranthur from student to whatever he will become is a journey I'm looking forward to continuing so this, as book 1 (of 3, I believe) is a cracking read and sets the story up well.
4/5*
Thanks to Stevie Finegan at Gollancz for inviting me onto this blog tour and for providing me with a copy. Please try and take a moment to look at the other posts on this tour
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