A review by wolvenbolt
Underlord by Will Wight

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

FINALLY!
FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!
YERIN GOT SOME LOVE FROM WIGHT AND SOME AWESOME CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! 🥳🥳🥳
HUZZAAAH!!!
And boy did he deliver...oh boy did he!
This is so far the best book in the series, hands down, for me this is peak Cradle.
This was like a roller-coaster of action, world building, politics, friendships, magic, lore, character dynamics and suspense.

I do watch non-spoiler reviews and series recommendations, I've seen videos from The Book Guy, Petrik Leo and Chris Reed Reads all reccomending Cradle, and I'd heard that once Cradle reaches the halfway point...as in this book...the series reaches its best self and shoots to the end like a rocket 🚀
From this book alone, I believe them completely.

Okay so where to start, character development all around was brilliant, Wight gave the three main characters the same quality of attention to character development and their magic progression. Eithen didn't exact get much attention, but that's okay because I don't think it was necessary for the plot of this book.

Wight used the three main character's journey to Underlord as a way to flesh out the character's. To begin the process, you must first understand the true reason you wanted to practise the Sacred Arts. This allowed us to get deep into their heads and understand who they are fundamentally as a person, and I think it was a very clever method of doing so.

Yerin got great character development and Wight killed two birds with one stone by using her Blood Shadow and their interactions to help flesh out the depth of both characters and her magic.

Mercy's backstory was super interesting and somewhat still mysterious and I suspect full discovery of her family's magic will change how we think the magic of the world works 🤔

As for Lindon, he's 18 now, and his journey to Underlord had a lot of layers, such as it being his journey from a boy to a man.
This really felt like the first time Lindon had a fully fledged fight and took a life.
His relationship with Dross is really fun and brings a lot of lightness to the story, and he's also used as another plot device to better understand the mind of Lindon.
Now this business with upgrading Dross which in turn upgrades Lindon mind, it's fun, I like it, but it also felt like cheating for a while, then I realised the point of this world is to survive and everyone else won't hold back and so why should he? Fuck em, Lindon you go cheat and get every advantage you can and show em how to win with a combo of hard work, hoarding, luck, friends and cheating 😂


My review would be massive if I fully went into how awesome the world building was, which it was, and now I can't bloody wait to see what happens!

All the twists at the end, goddammit Will Wight 🤣

A theory of mine btw:
I think Lindon and all of Sacred Valley are direct descendants of the Blackflame Sacred Arts users, and the reason why they aren't allowed leave Sacred Valley and think Gold is the highest you can possibly achieve, is because the leaders of Sacred Valley have done this deliberately to prevent any Blackflame users from rising up, as they're so dangerous and feared by the Empire. This is why Lindon is able to use Blackflame so well, and why Orthos has arrived at Sacred Valley looking for his sister, I think he thinks this too and wants to see for himself ðŸ§