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Ashes of the Sun
- Burningblade and Silvereye, Book 1
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 21 hrs and 22 mins
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Publisher's summary
The first book in a new epic fantasy series from the author of the Infernal Battalion series.
Long ago, a magical war destroyed an empire and a new one was built in its ashes. But still the old grudges simmer and two siblings will fight on opposite sides to save their world in the start of Django Wexler's new epic fantasy trilogy. Gyre hasn't seen his beloved sister since their parents sold her to the mysterious Twilight Order.
Now, 12 years after her disappearance, Gyre's sole focus is revenge and he's willing to risk anything and anyone to claim enough power to destroy the Order. Chasing rumours of a fabled city protecting a powerful artifact, Gyre comes face to face with his lost sister. But she isn't who she once was. Trained to be a warrior, Maya wields magic for the Twilight Order's cause. Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, the two siblings will learn that not even the ties of blood will keep them from splitting the world in two.
Critic reviews
"Ashes of the Sun shows that Wexler is a master of high fantasy. His plotting and this post-apocalyptic setting will warp your mind!" (S. M. Stirling)
"Ashes of the Sun is the best sort of fantasy. With fascinating characters, a richly realised world and romances both steamy and adorable, Gyre and Maya are epic heroes you'll want to know." (Robyn Bennis)
"Gorgeous writing, powerfully-drawn characters and an exciting storyline!" (K.D. Edwards)
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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Stefan Zaric
- 05-15-22
A story that was never allowed to be itself.
Ashes of the sun has a tantalising concept, a pair of siblings split at a young age and molded by vastly different sides of their world.
It's mostly downhill from there, but let me preface this review with some positives. The action is well paced and the work is in general very digestible, rarely did i feel the need to jump back to catch some detail. There is a single strong supporting character (for most of the book anyhow). I personally find the magic system neat, though it's probably not as hard as modern readers prefer and if magic solving a story issue by doing something it's never done before the book is probably not for you.
Now to more negative matters. This book has a lot of fighting, technically well executed fighting to be honest, but with one exception the fights never have any stakes. Who survives and who wins every fight can be discerned easily from the political orientation of the author, and it's not possible to enjoy the book without getting quite familiar with what that orientation is, mostly because it's vapidly scattered across the world and story without much thought. As an example the book always makes sure to slide in some mention of side and background characters sexuality, but because it's done non-organically
It inadvertently paints the entire setting as being mostly populated with homosexual people.
Both protagonists are not immensely compellingly but for different reasons at the very least. The brothers has something he wants done, something he wants to fix, but the story never thinks to show us that it's broken in first place.
The sister feels more rounded and grounded in the actual world building, but because we experience her thought's over the later half of the book because very unlikeable, mostly because she is far from self aware and intensely arrogant, this is compounded by the fact that the book does not really realise how unselfaware she is, nor does she ever really face any consequences for her arrogance.
The books antagonists are mostly dimensional throw aways introduced moments before they are slain, but the that is still a step up from the countless fights against the (admittedly well described and creep) monsters that serve as most of the characters obstacles. The villains who have time to breathe fare better, but are without exception left with disappointing conclusions.
The most painful thing about this book is that i can see a good story in there somewhere, strangled by author's real life worldview and left flat by not allowing actions to have severe consequences in alot of cases.
I'll end this review on a high note, there is a single hard choice made by a character in this book that results in an surprising amount engaging conflict, so i have faith that the author could craft a better story given another chance.
I'll keep an eye out for for that, in the meantime there a much better book to read than this.
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3 people found this helpful
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- WAYNE JONES
- 01-17-21
Not too shabby.
Whilst not deeply thought provoking this is a enjoyable book. The characters are likeable the world is well constructed and the dialogue flows.
I enjoyed the narration
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- Kendo Hannen
- 06-28-22
Epic start to a series!
Captivating heroes and villains with proper grab you by the genitals combat. the plague spawn are bloody terrifying. like a zombie version of The Thing. Cant wait to sink my teeth into the next one.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-16-22
Couldn't finish - narration was not great
I liked the idea of this book but couldn't get through it because I couldn't get on with the narration. The narrator makes all the characters seem slapstick and they all had weird comedy voices.
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- OratorSF
- 05-03-21
Good First Entry into the Series
Ashes of the Sun is a really solid first entry into the series.
Some things I liked:
The one thing I enjoyed most about this book was that it was greatly paced with a compelling story making it a page turner.
The 2 main characters are on opposing sides and show a good juxtaposition with different mentalities yet similar in some respects.
The story was written very well and I found it interesting, it's nothing revolutionary but brother and sister on opposing sides is a trope I don't normally see. The fights were gripping to listen to with dialogue being well constructed and entertaining with certain characters.
Some things I didn't like:
As a first point. The story lacked worldbuilding, that definitely needs to be added. Also some parts of the story were a bit predictable.
While I do like both main characters I found I wasn't really interested in the romance for either of them. The romance for Maya kind of felt a bit forced and honestly I never really liked Kit.
The tone the characters take are at many times completely shifted and it felt weird. Sometimes the tone goes from light-hearted to dark in an instant, this may also be because almost all the characters with the possible exception of Tanax and Gyre can come off as juvenile (especially Kit). This seems weird with some of the heavier things they talk about.
I definitely felt Gyre could use more character development, almost all the chapters for Maya were much longer than Gyre's which makes me think the author really wants her to be 'the one who resolves the big conflict' with Gyre doing the background work and giving her support at the end of the story.
Lastly the description of the book made it sound like the conflict between brother and sister would be the main focus or at least a core part of it. However the conflict between the two is more of a 3rd consideration (not even second), this was disappointing to see as I got the impression the conflict would take more of the centre stage.
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