In a land where everybody has a magic talent, fifteen-year-old Tavi is very much the odd one out.
But one evening while looking for some lost sheep he and his uncle discover something very frightening
indeed—the Marat are back in the valley. This savage race had been defeated and sent packing
several years earlier, but now they are back with a vengeance. Meanwhile spy-in-training Amara is
about to make an equally worrying discovery concerning her much-admired mentor...
Jim Butcher is famous for his popular Dresden Files series, but now he has taken a break
from urban fantasy and here is his take on traditional fantasy. I was impressed with his handling
of the classic idea of the unfortunate young man from the country being dropped in at the deep end
and making good. He doesn’t do anything new with it but what he does do is give this stock situation
his full attention and bring it to vibrant life with some considerable world-building skills.
We find out about the Alerans and their way of life bit by bit as events unfold in what gamers
would term "real time" and things rattle along at a good pace with the action on several fronts.
The vast majority of books this long have a tendency to sag in the middle, but just as I was getting
tired of yet another scene where somebody female had been captured and was about to undergo some
ordeal, the Tolkeinesque emphasis shifted and the Marat came in. They might have sprung from the
pages of Jules Verne or Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the scenes in their camp and in the valley had me
reading avidly.
Back once again at the fort a handful of brave Alerans make their stand against the might of the
Marat horde... I guess it is rather like an assorted bag of sweets. There are several fantasy styles
in here, and put together they make a colorful and very readable story which keeps changing like a
kaleidoscope. I’m certainly keen to read the rest of the series, and can only say that this author
knows how to keep his tale lively.