Gloomwalker

Saga of the Severed, Book 1

By: Alex Lang

Narrated by: Guy Williams

As a boy of 11, Kyris made a vow to kill a man. A holy man with the blessing of a sun god.

Kyris swore that he would let nothing and no one stand in his way. For eight years he trained and strove, until he was ready to seek out his quarry.

Now, his hunt leads him to the great city of Vigil, seat of the Tesrin Imperium, center of the civilized world, and stronghold of his enemy. The one he seeks is powerful, able to call and command hallowed flames at will. But Kyris isn’t without a talent of his own, a dark, sinister ability that makes him the perfect assassin.

In the capital, games of intrigue are played among the merchant houses, slaves struggle against their masters, and the faithful preserve the light to keep the darkness at bay. Kyris, however, cares not for any of it. He steals from the city’s highborn to further his cause, but when a simple job goes wrong, when a single knife thrown without thinking embroils him in the schemes of the powerful, his convictions are put to the test.

Vengeance at any cost, or so he’s always told himself. Will it be harder to fulfill that promise or walk away from it?

©2019 Alex Lang (P)2019 Alex Lang

Good premise bad characters writing

This book has a lot going for it, with good world building and good character motivations in the beginning, but makes the mistake of introducing villain characters that deeply wrong the main character, but because we get to see the story from their perspective, we as readers can understand their motivations and understand that they are simply misunderstood heroes. The reconciliation scenario with the misunderstood heroes is written with this in mind, forgetting that from the main character’s perspective they have deeply wronged the main character and have yet to pay for it, which ends up with characters that the main character views as villains having interactions and banter with the main character that are on friendly terms, which ultimately is quite jarring and horribly inconclusive for the reader, never mind being (in my opinion) rude to the main character’s character.