This was supposed to be a land of promise, a land of freedom and purpose – a new World. watching the nobles eating, laughing and playing at their games when half the city couldn’t be certain where they’d find tomorrow’s meals. I’m very glad that I persevered though, because at some point those threads coalesced into an organic whole, the story literally taking flight and never slowing down again.Īs for the characters, Sarine looked from the start the most interesting one, and the one who was easier to grow attached to: she is both a protagonist and our eye into New Sarresant’s society, so that through her we learn the hows and whys of this world and about the huge chasm between the nobility and the commoners, one that parallels the situation that gave rise to the French Revolution in our real world. This choice of alternating chapters between these three points of view keeps the story flowing at a good pace, despite what looked to me like a slow beginning: I understand now how the author was building the background and the events at the core of the story with a leisurely pace, giving readers the time to acclimate themselves with a world that’s very complex and multi-layered, but still I admit that at first I asked myself several times where all those scattered breadcrumbs were going to lead. And lastly Arak’Jur, Guardian of the Sinari: a man gifted with deep understanding of his world who finds himself faced with challenges that seem too big, yet never shies away from doing his duty to the people he’s committed to.
Erris D’Arrent is a career military trained in the use of leyline magic and driven by the need to excel in spite of her lowly origins: she will find herself in the position of doing much more than that as the situation escalates and dangers besiege New Sarresant from many sides. The story unfolds from the perspective of three points of view (again the number three coming to the fore…): young Sarine is an orphan surviving in the poverty-stricken Maw district by selling the sketches of the nobility she draws by observing their fetes unseen Sarine however hides a secret, that of her invisible companion (or should I say ‘familiar’?) Zi, a creature that seems to enhance her ability to tap the leylines, so that her powers will soon become pivotal in the growing unrest that’s bound to end into all-out war.
Yes, the magic: there are many forms of magic in this world, and although at times they can seem overwhelmingly convoluted, they remain downright fascinating: from the animistic kind of the tribes, whose shamans and Guardians can take the powers from slain beasts and employ them at need, to the elemental magic of the colonists, tied to the leylines and manifesting in paranormal-like powers that can go from the ability to hide oneself from sight to the gift of taking over another’s consciousness over vast distances.
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In the northern reaches of the continent dwell primitive tribes not unlike Native Americans, in a land where dangerous predators roam free and are kept away from the colonized lands through a sort of magical barrier that keeps them confined. The world described here feels almost like an alternate timeline: the colony of New Sarresant has an inescapable New World flavor, although the dominant culture from the continent of origin is French rather than British, and what seems like a mirror of the French Revolution era is also mixed with the seeds of civil war against the Gand southern invaders. What little synopsis was there was also quite intriguing, promising a world on the brink of both war and change, while unrest and social troubles are running rampant. I received this novel from Orbit Books, in exchange for an honest review.īooks have a mysterious way of catching my attention, and Soul of the World was no exception: something in the cover kept drawing my eye, and the catchphrase on it – Three Must Fight, Three Must Die, Three Must Rise – added to my curiosity.
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