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mithilareads's review
adventurous
funny
mysterious
relaxing
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Thank you Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this enjoyable fantasy book!
Before heading into Ink & Sigil, I wasn't aware about the Iron Druid Chronicles series by Kevin Hearne. I can state with authority that reading this series is not a prerequisite for reading Ink & Sigil, as the world-building in this new series is as good as baking bread from scratch, starter and all.
The beginning of this book has a small introduction to Scottish accents, which was very intriguing to me, considering that I haven't really paid much attention to accents in dialogues before. The introduction is necessary for the dialogues mentioned in the book. The narration by the main character Aloysius (Al) MacBharrais is in unaccented English. Another workaround that the author has found to avoid filling up the book with Scottish accents is introducing the fact that the Al has a curse which makes anyone who hears Al's voice begin to feel an inexplicable hatred for him. Hence, Al ends up using the text-to-speech functionality on his phone to communicate with the outside world. While this curse is one of the major plot points of the book, I couldn't help but think that my logic about the curse is true, because the text-to-speech functionality delivers dialogues in crisp English.
Getting to the story. Al MacBharrais is a sigil agent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae, which is filled with gods and goddesses and other mystical creatures from Irish Mythology. However, when one of Al's apprentices, Gordie, dies after choking on a raisin scone, Al is pulled into a situation he never in his wildest dreams imagined could be possible. Along with him in this journey is his badass finance manager, Nadia and a hobgoblin, Buck Foi (no prizes for guessing this spoonerism), and a super-hacker Saxon Codpiece. On this journey, Al unravels a bit of the past about his curse, encounters various magical creatures and the sadly-natural police in Scotland and a link to a country overseas that potentially changes the scope of the entire mystery.
I found the story to be really intriguing throughout the book, and I felt inclined towards knowing what would happen to Al MacBharrais and his curse and how it would play out in the grander scheme of things. The magic in this book stems from the art of creating ink from various ingredients, drawing the design of the sigil out and storing it for later use. The intensity of the craft and its intricate nature appealed to me: there is no mindless blurting out of spells and looking at the consequences of it 20 years later (ahem). Further, this book also contains a lot of references to other mythologies, like Greek mythology, Norse mythology and Hindu mythology. There are also various fleeting references to the possible role of Russia in the US Elections, the speculation surrounding Area 51, and a healthy dose of Shakespeare involved in it. This may seem like a hodge-podge of content with no streamlining, but it does lend a little bit of frivolity to the fantasy aspect of the story. This book also has a little bit of lesbian representation which was much appreciated.
The reason why I dropped one star from the rating is that this book has suggestive innuendos in it which seemed a little bit crass to me (the name of the hobgoblin, for instance), but that's just my opinion as one individual reader.
Looking forward to the next in this series and to read more about Irish Mythology!
Before heading into Ink & Sigil, I wasn't aware about the Iron Druid Chronicles series by Kevin Hearne. I can state with authority that reading this series is not a prerequisite for reading Ink & Sigil, as the world-building in this new series is as good as baking bread from scratch, starter and all.
The beginning of this book has a small introduction to Scottish accents, which was very intriguing to me, considering that I haven't really paid much attention to accents in dialogues before. The introduction is necessary for the dialogues mentioned in the book. The narration by the main character Aloysius (Al) MacBharrais is in unaccented English. Another workaround that the author has found to avoid filling up the book with Scottish accents is introducing the fact that the Al has a curse which makes anyone who hears Al's voice begin to feel an inexplicable hatred for him. Hence, Al ends up using the text-to-speech functionality on his phone to communicate with the outside world. While this curse is one of the major plot points of the book, I couldn't help but think that my logic about the curse is true, because the text-to-speech functionality delivers dialogues in crisp English.
Getting to the story. Al MacBharrais is a sigil agent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae, which is filled with gods and goddesses and other mystical creatures from Irish Mythology. However, when one of Al's apprentices, Gordie, dies after choking on a raisin scone, Al is pulled into a situation he never in his wildest dreams imagined could be possible. Along with him in this journey is his badass finance manager, Nadia and a hobgoblin, Buck Foi (no prizes for guessing this spoonerism), and a super-hacker Saxon Codpiece. On this journey, Al unravels a bit of the past about his curse, encounters various magical creatures and the sadly-natural police in Scotland and a link to a country overseas that potentially changes the scope of the entire mystery.
I found the story to be really intriguing throughout the book, and I felt inclined towards knowing what would happen to Al MacBharrais and his curse and how it would play out in the grander scheme of things. The magic in this book stems from the art of creating ink from various ingredients, drawing the design of the sigil out and storing it for later use. The intensity of the craft and its intricate nature appealed to me: there is no mindless blurting out of spells and looking at the consequences of it 20 years later (ahem). Further, this book also contains a lot of references to other mythologies, like Greek mythology, Norse mythology and Hindu mythology. There are also various fleeting references to the possible role of Russia in the US Elections, the speculation surrounding Area 51, and a healthy dose of Shakespeare involved in it. This may seem like a hodge-podge of content with no streamlining, but it does lend a little bit of frivolity to the fantasy aspect of the story. This book also has a little bit of lesbian representation which was much appreciated.
The reason why I dropped one star from the rating is that this book has suggestive innuendos in it which seemed a little bit crass to me (the name of the hobgoblin, for instance), but that's just my opinion as one individual reader.
Looking forward to the next in this series and to read more about Irish Mythology!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore and Violence
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