This is my first of Django Wexler’s books, though I’ve been aware of him for years. It’s not going to be the last, and not just because this is first in a trilogy. This book was a great way to end my 2020 year in reading.
This book is set in a world a few hundred years after the end of a war between elder races, who wiped each other out. Human society was built by the Chosen, who arranged things so civilization would continue after they were gone (albeit with a lower standard of living). But the world is still infested with plaguespawn, an ever present danger left over from the plague the ghouls unleashed to kill the Chosen at the end of the war.
The two protagonists are a pair of siblings, Gyre and Maya, who haven’t seen each other since Gyre was 8 and Maya 5. Maya was taken away from her home by the Twilight Order, which was set up by the Chosen to protect civilization. The Order maintains the magic that humans can still use, hunts down the dangerous ghoul artifacts that remain, and protects humanity from the plaguespawn. Maya was born with the ability to use Chosen magic, and so she was taken to be trained as Centarch of the Order. This was against her wishes (though, as she points out herself, she was 5; her wishes should only count for so much). Gyre, the big brother protector, was desperate to keep her from being taken.
In the twelve years since, Maya has nearly reached the end of her training. Though she knows the Order isn’t perfect - it’s divided among rival factions, and has its share of corruption and zealotry - she also knows that they do a great deal of good in the world. The protection they provide is absolutely needed, and it’s thanks to the Order that humanity has flourished as well as it has since the end of the war.
Gyre sees things differently. As far as he’s concerned, the Twilight Order is a bunch of hypocrites and tyrants. The only power they approve of is that which they control. Any powers that originated with the ghouls (even something as innocuous as the pesticides Gyre and Maya’s father kept carefully hidden in a shed back home) is anathema and punishable by death. Except of course for the ghoul magic that’s simply too useful to ignore; that’s ok, but only when Order-approved. The Order holds humanity back, keeping them shackled to the desires of a race long dead and gone and answerable to none.
I happen to think they’re both right.
And that is a recipe for a hell of a good story.
It’s not a spoiler (because it’s freaking obvious, and actually says so right out in the blurb) that Maya and Gyre cross paths over the course of this book. They disagree on pretty much everything, but they still love each other and neither wants to hurt the other. I’m extraordinarily interested in seeing where this goes in the rest of the trilogy. The book itself reads like a mix of many of /r/Fantasy’s favorites. Fans of Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, and Scott Lynch will all find things in this that appeal.
Thanks to Orbit for the ARC, even if I’m only now getting to it and it came out back in like September. Also, the cover rocks.