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A review by esme_bonner
Gods of the Wyrdwood by RJ Barker
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Thank you to NetGalley Little, Brown Books Company UK for a galley of this in return for an honest review.
Gods of Wyrdwood is a wholly unique fantasy novel, with a magic system unlike anything I have read before. Barker crafts a novel that is at once fantastical, shot through with earthy folklore, and the optimism of a man finding a home, and conversely a bitter, hard, hate filled world of terrible power, in which the same man is stuck in a cycle of rejection and self-loathing.
Gods of Wyrdwood is as much a story about power, politics, and war, as it is a story about resilience, faith, and community. The village of Harn, and the world of Crua are fully fleshed, the politics considered, and each character realised. Barker has clearly spent a lot of time building this world, things slot together, the behaviour makes sense. By the end of the novel you have not just a sense of Crua at present, but an awareness of what it would have been in the past, and of how it may be in the future. The Gods, although many remain unknown to the reader, feel at once present, and fictitious: there one minute, and the next nothing more than a means of controlling the people. The Forester struggles to believe in any of them, and you struggle alongside him, but then they appear. A lot of this novel is concerned with the interconnectedness of people and nature, and I think that taps into an uncanniness that even we, in our own world, can experience.
Barker is an exceptional writer, and this is an exceptional book. It is almost impossible to compare it to anything else, I have never gone in for this kind of grown-up, male-authored high fantasy novel, but I was drawn in by the blurb on this one, and I am so pleased I gave it a shot! This is a deeply personal tale of epic proportions. I am excited to read the rest of this series.
Gods of Wyrdwood is a wholly unique fantasy novel, with a magic system unlike anything I have read before. Barker crafts a novel that is at once fantastical, shot through with earthy folklore, and the optimism of a man finding a home, and conversely a bitter, hard, hate filled world of terrible power, in which the same man is stuck in a cycle of rejection and self-loathing.
Gods of Wyrdwood is as much a story about power, politics, and war, as it is a story about resilience, faith, and community. The village of Harn, and the world of Crua are fully fleshed, the politics considered, and each character realised. Barker has clearly spent a lot of time building this world, things slot together, the behaviour makes sense. By the end of the novel you have not just a sense of Crua at present, but an awareness of what it would have been in the past, and of how it may be in the future. The Gods, although many remain unknown to the reader, feel at once present, and fictitious: there one minute, and the next nothing more than a means of controlling the people. The Forester struggles to believe in any of them, and you struggle alongside him, but then they appear. A lot of this novel is concerned with the interconnectedness of people and nature, and I think that taps into an uncanniness that even we, in our own world, can experience.
Barker is an exceptional writer, and this is an exceptional book. It is almost impossible to compare it to anything else, I have never gone in for this kind of grown-up, male-authored high fantasy novel, but I was drawn in by the blurb on this one, and I am so pleased I gave it a shot! This is a deeply personal tale of epic proportions. I am excited to read the rest of this series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Violence, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Death, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Abandonment
This is a fantasy novel concerning a hard world, in which magic must be fed by killing others. There are graphic depictions of violence, fire injury / burning, and war. Both the xenophobia and religious bigotry are related to fictitious races / clans / believers, but it is something to be aware of. Abandonment is only discussed in Kirven's POV.