My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Come on down to the Red Cities this summer! Calushain is beautiful this time of year, as long as you don’t mind the explosions, sky terrors, thieves, and street battles. Okay, so maybe it’s not the most relaxing vacation destination, but Calushain is filled with excitement and adventure and you’re about to get a face-full of it.
Orison is Daniel Swensen’s debut novel and he doesn’t disappoint. Mr. Swensen deftly builds a complex fantasy world with a interesting magic system based on Draconic gods. Even dragons get bored eventually, and apparently Calushain has gotten a little too predictable for Penumbra and the Lotus Empire. Our protagonist Story is an orphan bought by a thieves guild and raised for a life of crime. She befriends down-on-his-luck, ex-mage Wrynn who winds up in a jail cell across from the wandering warrior, Dunnac. Story, Wrynn, and Dunnac are caught up in the dragon’s intrigue and used as pawns in a dangerous game. Each of the unique and fascinating characters seems to go from bad to worse as the Lotus Empire’s scheme unfolds and they’re sent scrambling after an object of power that will just as likely kill them as save their hides.
Beautifully written and superbly polished, Orison is a great fantasy novel. I enjoyed the plot, pacing, rich detail, and characters immensely and look forward to the inevitably follow-up novel as these three adventurers face their next challenge. Keep an eye out for Mr. Swensen, he’s got lots more story to tell.
The Good:
Mr. Swensen is a talented writer and it shows. If there was a formula for a great fantasy novel, he seems to have mastered it on his first outing. The setting, Calushain, is fantastically described and I can easily imagine thousands of unique and exciting adventures unfolding in its streets, temples, palaces, and sewers. I particularly like the innovative magic system and fresh (to me) take on the use of a layered reality where dragons and their influence hold ultimate sway. The characters are really what make Orison a stand-out in the fantasy genre, as each has a unique and colorful back story and there are no illusions about the fact that each has flaws and moral gray areas. There are certainly no paladins or goody-two-shoes along to ruin the adventure.
The Bad:
To be clear, any defects I outline here are mere nit-picking. There were two things that nagged at the back of my mind as I read. One, the motivation for several characters gets very muddy in the middle of the book, but I can’t go into details without spoilers. This is corrected later on, but there was a lull in the middle where it’s clear that any sane person probably should have and would have walked away from the disaster unfolding ahead of them. Two, that highly polished prose I mentioned earlier may have gone a little overboard in sections, particularly in dialog. Perfect English grammar and diction isn’t something you’d normally expect from characters with such diverse backgrounds/ethnicities/species. There’s nothing wrong with it, I just think there were some missed opportunities to inject some flavor into the interactions.
Recommendations:
I highly recommend Orison to any and all fans of the fantasy genre. It is perfect for both the YA crowd and mainstream audiences and there’s nothing in here that would be a concern for young teens. It’s a fairly short novel as fantasy novels go and very reasonably priced at Amazon Kindle, so there’s no excuse not to pick it up and enjoy the hell out of it this summer. See you at The Crux!
