Once upon a time–August 20, 2022–Troy Calkins published a short novel called The Bound Soul, about an elven woman named Lura Syllana who tries to free her family from slavery in the mythical world of Aratheon. Sometime later–August 21–Calkins released The Damaged Soul, which introduces the Viking Bothvar Beorcolsson, who is on a quest for honor. Now comes BROKEN SOULS, which reprints the earlier books and adds to them. It is the first book (but not really, since parts have been published before) in a planned series called Seasons of the Cycles.
BROKEN SOULS (Book 1 of the Cycle Series) is high fantasy all the way. Inspired by Viking lore and epic fantasies, the book is a fascinating amalgam of action, adventure, and ideology. Calkins says his epic is “inspired by Viking culture, but it is in no way an accurate portrayal.” He should be glad that culture is in the public domain. Otherwise, characters like Teowulf, Thora, and the Jotnar Giants, and objects like the Sacred Hammer, could keep copyright lawyers busy until Ragnarok. And let’s hope the Tolkien estate doesn’t notice Arantheon’s orcs. Once readers get past these nitpicks, however, it’s smooth sailing. Calkins has clearly put a lot of time into world-building, which is the hardest step to writing fantasy, and the most crucial one. There are dozens of characters, all of whom feel like they belong, as well as vivid set pieces, gods and goddesses, economic practices, customs and rituals, and differing worldviews, such as when Bothvar meets a woman from another village who teaches him her people’s five core beliefs: kathikon (duty), honoris (honor), delictum (guilt), apolutrosis (redemption), and officium (service). The twin narrators, Lura and Bothvar, make for an interesting structure, and each is a study in contrasts: she is gorgeous but tough; he is warlike but introspective. There is also plenty of sex and violence, and while on the whole it doesn’t feel gratuitous, some scenes are troublesome, such as when Bothvar fails to stop a rape because “Thorkel is my brother, and [the victim] is not my slave.”
Troy Calkins’ BROKEN SOULS is a masterpiece of swords-and-sorcery that also has the complicated depth of modern literary fiction.
~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader