Hello and welcome to April’s Short and Sweet review roundup on Track of Words, where I’ve picked out a trio of my recent reads to talk about in relatively little detail. This time around I’ve gone for a modern fantasy novel that a lot of people have been talking about, a brand new Black Library novel (which is something of a novelty for me these days), and a reread of a classic epic fantasy book, that’s part of one of the biggest fantasy series of all time. As always, these are books that I’d like to talk about, but which for one reason or another I don’t have the time or headspace to cover in a full standalone review.
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
A secretive species of book-eating sort-of-vampires, who gain both sustenance and knowledge from the pages they devour, spread across Britain in a series of ‘Families’ bound together by complex ties. A woman on the run with her son, desperate to protect him and his curse from the vengeful attentions of the Families. Set largely in the north of England, this follows Devon Fairweather and her son Cai, who was born a mind eater – more like an actual vampire, requiring humans to feed on unless dosed with a particular drug. As they draw closer to the goal, finding a source of this hunger-quashing drug, the truth of their situation and Devon’s history is gradually unveiled and the reality of the book eaters revealed.
This sounded right up my street, and had so much praise – including from friends – that I went into it fully expecting to love it. For the first couple of chapters I really couldn’t put it down, and to be fair it remained very readable throughout…but over the course of the book I just felt my enthusiasm waning. It’s such a great concept, and I did like Devon as a central character, but it barely seemed to scratch the surface of the interesting ideas and themes on display. It spends a lot of time exploring the societal inequalities in book eater life but very little of what it’s actually like to live off books, and very little time developing Devon’s relationships with other characters who are clearly intended to be important, but who end up feeling pretty two-dimensional throughout. Add to that a plot with fairly standard, predictable beats and some queer rep which feels kinda crowbarred in, and it all feels okay…just a bit of a missed opportunity. Kinda disappointing, really.
The Lion: Son of the Forest by Mike Brooks
The long-awaited return of another loyal Primarch to 40k, as the Lion wakes up after…a long time…and finds himself in Imperium Nihilus, on the wrong side of the Great Rift. After encountering a hunted and troubled member of his original First Legion and learning more about this new world he’s found himself in, the Lion starts the long work of protecting the Imperium and hunting down the forces of Chaos. As he draws as many of the Fallen to himself as he can find, and faces off against traitorous sons and what they’ve become, he’s forced to reevaluate much about himself, his Legion, the decisions in his past and who he wants to be in the present.
Something this big brings with it a lot of expectations, and a lot of questions. What was the Lion up to for the last 10k years? What is he like now, and how does he react to the realities of life in the 41st millennium? How is he going to view what the Dark Angels are now, and the Fallen? This book answers some of those questions, and does so in a way that’s pretty effective given the constraints Brooks was clearly under. There’s a lot to unpack with the Lion, far more than a single book could possibly cover, and there’s no doubt that this would have been much better as a duology or trilogy, in order to really dig into its themes and ideas.
As it is, don’t expect to find out what the Lion was up to all that time – at this point, he doesn’t know himself – and don’t expect it to really explore his relationship with the 40k Dark Angels. This isn’t a Dark Angels book; it’s a book about the Lion and the Fallen. It has some really cool moments, and does a good job of introducing a new iteration of a familiar character and portraying his changed viewpoint. Given the nature of how Games Workshop have reintroduced this character though, it’s perhaps understandable that rather than a grand, epic story this is, in fact, relatively low-key. It’s a decent book…but it’s not a stunner, and it doesn’t have the sense of scale and excitement that you might expect from the return of a Primarch. But hey, at least BL did manage to produce a novel to capture the moment of this Primarch’s return, unlike last time!
The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
Book four of Robert Jordan’s epic (in every sense of the word) Wheel of Time series, and one of the longest of the lot (possibly the longest, in fact), this is a big old book with a lot of plot going on. It follows Rand al’Thor in the immediate wake of his declaration as the Dragon Reborn (now that he’s retrieved Callandor from the Stone of Tear) and his journey into the Wastes to bring the Aiel to his banner, but it also sees Perrin and Faile travel to the Two Rivers to face Whitecloaks and Trollocs, and Nynaeve and Elayne head to Tanchico in search of the Black Ajah. Oh yeah, and the Forsaken are really starting to make themselves known now, and it turns out there’s a lot more to the Aiel than had been shown before. And that’s only scratching the surface.
After re-reading (for the umpteenth time) the first three in the series back in 2021 it’s taken me a while to summon the courage to keep going, but I’ve finally jumped back in…and I must say I did enjoy this one, despite its length. It feels like the cast is really starting to spread out now, and I’m well aware that the pace is going to slow down accordingly, but while I do feel like this was quite a bit too long, it features some great moments, and arguably some of my favourite in the series. It also has some Faile and Perrin being really, really irritating, which is a shame, but I happily sped through those sections to get to the good bits – the benefit of re-reading something! All told I’d say it’s a bit of a slog, but worth pushing through if, like me, you just really like (most of) these characters. That being said, given how long this was and the aforementioned spreading out of the cast, I’m a bit worried about some of the following books, and the real slump in pace that I know is coming. Ah well. I’ve no need to rush through the series, so I’ll dip in and out when I can face it.
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That’s it for this instalment of Short and Sweet – I hope that was interesting, even if I was somewhat more critical than I often am here on Track of Words. I’ll be back soon with another review roundup and more books to talk about, but in the meantime if you have any comments about these roundups, or if there’s anything else you’d like to see me cover, do let me know. You can drop me a line in the comments below, or find me over on Twitter.
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