The mortal Dragonlands are still feeling the ripple effects of a war that ended years ago. Agni Kazirian rose to glory and prominence as the empire’s greatest warrior, but now during peacetime he finds himself trapped in a loveless arranged marriage and duty-bound to the spirit of his ancient ancestor. When warring ambitions reveal an assassinated plot targeted at Agni himself, he’s suddenly an outlaw poised between the will of his ancestor and the future of his homeland.
SON OF THE BORDERLANDS is Joseph Sterk’s first-in-a-series epic fantasy debut, where the evocative prose compliments its sweeping mythos. Told from varying perspectives, Sterk’s atmospheric, emotional writing often packs a punch: “The cross-guard, shaped like a dragon’s mouth, seemed to exhale the blade like lightning” describes the enchanted blade Agni’s ancestor bequeaths him. There is also Sara’s perspective of the haunted ruins of a lost city: “Her gaze snapped back to the Ancient City. She had looked upon it many times, but this time it looked back.” From the ruins of a ghostly ancient city to the imposing Spires that divide the borderlands, this captivating mystique carries over into the world building. In a land that has been transformed by gods, men, and dragons that stalk their prey from the skies above, the narrative is rife with layered political intrigue and conflicting ideologies.
There’s no doubt that Agni is a formidable protagonist and warrior. As the tide of his story changes, his internal struggles humanize his larger-than-life reputation. He, like a few other characters in the novel (e.g., his betrothed, who is chained to a marriage she doesn’t want), is sometimes difficult to like. There’s a bit of a disconnect between characters like Agni or Sara and their relatability, which makes it difficult to care about their plights. This improves as their plot arcs humanize them, but it still makes getting invested somewhat challenging at the beginning. Also, a handful of powerful characters moving and counter-moving in the background are, at times, hard to distinguish from each other. Several of the background characters share similar sounding names and interchangeable characteristics and personalities, so it’s often hard to keep track of who’s who in the chessboard of politics playing out around Agni. Interesting glimpses of notable side characters like Agni’s mistress Kali are given little page time, but the book promises more in future installments. The overall pacing becomes a bit laggy and tedious in the middle, though the character development and a surprising twist of fate in the third act leave the book with plenty of interesting places to go in its sequels.
Evocative prose, deeply layered world-building, and surprising plot twists overshadow the sometimes-tedious pace and hard-to-like characters in Joseph Sterk’s SON OF THE BORDERLANDS.
~ Jessica Thomas for IndieReader