E-ARC, 469 Pages
YA/ Sci-Fi/ Progression Fantasy
By: Rob J. Hayes
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
“You can’t win every fight. You are going to lose some. What you can do is survive the losses. Learn from them. Get stronger and don’t lose again.”
I just noticed that this is my 8th ARC by Hayes which means I have been getting the privilege to read his works early on ever since Never Die and I think I may go back to his older books at one point in the future. When I saw the cover of this book (Which I like despite it not being the official cover and I am really curious what the real one will look like) on twitter along with the description and the progression fantasy genre I knew I had to read it and Hayes was nice enough to send me an E-ARC immediately which as usual does not alter my rating or review of the book.
This story is different to everything that I have read by Hayes before. First of all the genre is sci-fi mixed with progression fantasy and then it is kind of a YA story with the potential to progress (See what I did there) into an adult novel with the next entries. It kind of gave me Skyward -By Brandon Sanderson- vibes mixed with Cradle (Which is the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the word progression) but in Hayes own style.
As most of the sci-fi stories, the story starts with many things that may confuse the reader like what are titans and what is hopping and why are they living in ships and a lot of other questions that we start to get answer to and some of which we don’t currently know yet whether because the author decided to keep a level of suspension or because the characters are still trying to discover the whys.
At the center of the story is Iro who is born talentless (A Bit cliched for a progression fantasy) and then find himself manifesting a new talent which hasn’t happened in a long time which opens the gates of hopes accompanied with a ton of questions that everyone are seeking answers to. I also liked that we follow Iro’s rival story and we see him growing through the story too which I liked.
The story is fast paced but there is a part in the middle where it slows down a bit and I felt it could have been shorter and faster but was still enjoyable. The magic system is not really complicated but I love a simple and well thought of system and that’s exactly what Hayes came up with for this world. The story is predictable but I think it just sets stage for something more epic and I know it has potential that I trust Hayes to harness in the upcoming novels.
Summary: The first entry in a whole new world from Hayes that is unlike anything he has written before. I had a few reservations like the predictability, the tropes used and the pace that slows a bit in the middle. However, I immensely enjoyed the writing, the characters and the magic system and it certainly makes me want to read the next book.
The book prescription 