"The Master of Sorrows" by Justin T. Call

As a debut novel, this is fairly impressive. Not great, but certainly shows a ton of potential.

The premise really caught me. The elevator pitch for this book would basically be a protagonist destined to become a major force of destruction, struggling against that destiny. This isn't like the Dragon Reborn from Wheel of Time, where the prophesied salvation brings a lot of death and destruction along with it. We're talking full out vessel-for-reborn-dark-god. The idea of protagonist-as-prophesied-destroyer is one I find super intriguing. It's more of a background thing in this first-in-the-series book, but it's got a lot of potential to be very interesting.

That being said, this was a comfort read to a surprising degree. The protagonist is attending a magical anti-magical academy, where he and his classmates are trained to go out and retrieve dangerous magical objects for safe storage in the Academy's massive underground vault. He's an orphan, with dangerous secrets, a mysterious mentor who is More Than He Seems, upperclassmen who bully him, a love interest in the person of the headmaster's daughter, etc. He's determined to Prove Himself on His Own Terms and all that.

Despite being familiar, it's good and well written. The action carries along nicely, and I get invested in Annev and his mentor and friends pretty quickly. The mythic backstory that Call adds here in there is a very nice touch - it's a very believable mythology (in the sense that "I can see this being an actual mythology" kind of believable), and he does a good job of spinning it out.

It is borderline-litRPG at places. In and of itself that's neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just a thing, but I wasn't really expecting it. One of the tests that Annev goes through might as well be a dungeon from a Zelda game, and you better believe that vault full of magical artifacts comes up. There's even a bag of holding. There is, sadly, no portable hole. Justin T. Call, if you're reading this, that is a hint.

There is one big ding I'll give this book, though, and the clearest sign of Call being a rookie at this: there's basically no women. I mentioned the headmaster's daughter, but she's not a character so much as she is a motivation for the main character. I get that there's a gender-segregation thing going on with the academy, but it could have been done much better.

Overall, I'm giving this four stars. I think that's a little high for this book on its own merits, but there's enough potential that it feels appropriate.

Bingo squares: character with a disability (hard mode), published in 2019 (hard mode).