Book Review: Spellslinger by Sebastian de Castell
They say not to judge a book by its cover, and there is absolute truth to that statement. However, I often find myself attracted to books solely because of their covers, but I'm not sure that is what they mean. The marketing departments for Publishing companies put a lot of effort into crafting the perfect cover for a book just to get someone to select it. That is the whole purpose, I guess. Anyway, the entire goal of this rambling introduction is to say that such a book was chosen solely by me due to its cover was Spellslinger by Sebastian de Castell.
Actually, that is a slight mistruth, as it wasn't Spellslinger that first attracted my attention, but one of its follow-ups, though it was so long ago now I have forgotten which one. As it played out, I gradually bought the books in this series over time, presumably as they came on offer for kindle. Last week I lost patience waiting for the first book to become available at a lower price, and so thought, "Sod It!" and went ahead and purchased book No. 1.
There is something in De Castell's simplistic writing style that reminded me of reading Trudi Canavan's Kyralia Series. I would definitely recommend this book to fan's of her work; please don't think me saying they use simplistic language is casting shade on either of these authors; that is not my intention. While some authors write fantastic prose, some have their focus elsewhere. In de Castell's case, I would say he is far more interested in developing compelling and engaging characters and subverting expectations than how flowery his writing is, and that is right up my street.
The book starts by focusing on Kellen, Panahsi, Nephania and Tennat. Initially, I thought these characters fit the spaces taken up by Harry, Ron, Hermione and Malfoy in their respective series. While this is almost the case in the first chapter (Nephania is more implicitly the love interest than Hermione ever was.), things drastically change almost immediately. The change in the expected dynamic of these four is what threw me and left me guessing as to what would happen next, pretty much right until the end of the book. To be honest, even beyond, I am assuming at least one of those named characters return significantly to become a more prominent player in the later books. Still, at this stage, I cannot fathom how they will manage this.
As well as the terrific characterisation, the world-building is incredible in this book; de Castell explained enough for your imagination to fill in a lot of the blanks while building a complex social infrastructure that leaves you salivating for more exploration of the world and its various cultures. Of which, bar one specific character, perhaps two if you include animals as cultures, we have only met one of these cultures so far. So, I am looking forward to exploring the others we were tantalisingly given a glimpse of in this book; come future instalments.
Well worth escaping into this world.
