I was given a lovely gift by one of my critique group friends at the start of the month and since it was a trilogy by an Aussie spec-fic author I decided it was fated to be my February read. So I read the first book of Sam Bowring’s Broken Well trilogy, Prophecy’s Ruin.
Light and Dark have been forcibly separated and the two forces pursue an endless war for dominance. A prophecy announces that a boy with blue hair will end the bloodshed. When this child is finally born both the light and dark are looking for him. Two warring mages discover him and in the massive battle that follows they tear the child’s soul in half, creating two blue haired boys – but which is the prophecised hero?
I loved this concept. Blue-hair touches on my anime/manga affections, twins is just a weird obsession I have, and I love stories which look deeper into prophecies. I know some people whinge about being over prophecies in fantasy, but as long as it’s a fresh take like this I love it.
This book was the sort of book I would have powered through in a matter of days. Unfortunately my still undiagnosed vertigo disorder means that sometimes looking at text makes me feel like my eyes are bleeding. I thought when I started the book on one of my good days that I’d slam through the whole series this month (I have waaaaay too many series I’ve started but haven’t finished with this challenge (Death Works, Black Magician, Obernewtyn Chronicles, Stormdancer series)). No such luck.
The world is rich and full. There are so many places and species of both the light and dark wonderfully imagined and fleshed out. I really love the border between the two, and the gods themselves are pretty cool. Fans of world building should love this.
The characters of the saviour’s soul split in two, Losara and Bel, are delightfully opposite sides of the same coin, though I think most people will probably like Losara more than Bel.
The only thing that bugged me was a bit at the end. Not the ending itself, but something that happened near the end. SPOILER ALERT. Near the end Losara dreams of a possible future and we the reader get to wade through the dream for about 30 pages. Not kidding. It written like it’s happening and there are many scene changes where you wonder, are we in reality yet? While what was happening was interesting, it irked me because I wasn’t sure what was dream. Considering the fact it was a ‘it was all just a dream’ moment I felt 30+ pages was overkill. END SPOILER
I’m looking forward to finding the time to finish this series when my head is a little clearer.
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Today’s post is a call to action. There’s a great magazine that promotes diversity in speculative fiction. That magazine is Crossed Genres.
