Reviews

The Shadow of What Was Lost: Book One of the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington

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yavannakementari's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful

Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

daredeviling's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Okay well, this book 100% just blew me out of the water. I don't quite know what I was expecting, since I haven't read The Wheel of Time or Mistborn (though the latter is on my to read list!), but what I got was an epic fantasy story that I was completely sucked into in a way that I have not been in years. There were so many different plotlines and mysteries going on at the same time, and while obviously not everything has been resolved since it's still just the first book, it at least feels like the author has things plotted out, and some things have been explained - but the explanations still lead to more questions!

There are still some confusing bits, which is understandable since this is a made up world, is over 600 pages, and is only the first book in a trilogy. While I was reading, I would often have to flip back to an earlier part in the book because I would remember that something or someone was reference, but couldn't remember any details or context. It certainly didn't help that half the names were spelled almost exactly the same, so sometimes I wasn't sure if a certain character was someone we'd seen before or someone new. Regardless, I could not put this book down, and I read almost 450 pages in one sitting because I had to find out what happened next. There is a sense of urgency in this book that drives the reader to keep at a relentless pace, much like the characters themselves.

In regards to the worldbuilding, it's not the most original plot I've ever seen (magic users being oppressed by the normals), but then again, everything is just a copy of everything else, and the magic system itself is interesting. I don't fully understand all of it, to be honest, but the nice thing with magic is that you can just handwave things away as ~magic. I kept having to refer to the map at the front of the book (which I wished had been way more detailed) so that I could get a sense of where everyone was, and like with the characters, place names would occasionally confuse me. But otherwise, I really liked the descriptions of the settings and the way that we learn about the setting by seeing how the characters interact with it. We as readers never feel like things are thrown at us without any context, which is appreciated because I don't necessarily want an info dump.

I also really enjoyed getting to know all the characters. None of them are particularly deep, but that's okay, they serve the purpose of the plot, and anyway, they do all develop and have their own things going on throughout the novel. The relationships between some of the characters is particularly fascinating and I really enjoyed seeing those change and grow over time. I want more scenes with all the main three friends together, but I don't think I will be getting those for a while, unfortunately, since Davian split off to go to another part of the world at the end of the first book.

I still have so many questions and I need to know what is happening and what so many characters' motivations are, so I'm definitely planning to continue on with the series!