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MY ⭐️ RATING: 5/5
Format: Kindle ebook
BOOK DESCRIPTION
This is the end
The Warlocks of Yehven have ruled over the Remembered Lands with their songs of dark sorcery since the skies were new.
But now, beneath the shadow of an approaching comet, a mysterious death cult from the wild lands have arrived in the name of Nature to exterminate the Warlocks and their sorcerous Words with them.
As the death cult breaches the walls of the Golden City and Ailar crumbles into anarchy, a Warlock, an enslaved man, and a guard are forced to make decisions that will shape the world for thousands of years to come.
The sky is falling
Nightmares are waking
The sound of starfall eats all else
MY REVIEW
I’ve had this series on my TBR for a bit now, but after P.L. Stuart’s author interview with him, I moved this up in my timeline because of how he explained it in such eloquent reverence. Comparing music to history in how like history repeats itself, so does the chorus of a song, and verses, like life, moves us forward followed by the chorus/history repeating again, which is what he used as the foundation of his writing. So I signed up for his newsletter and downloaded this free novella.
For a novella of this size, Palmer does a fantastic job of setting up an unrelenting, fast paced story with a grimdark tone in The Sound of Starfall. The hour by hour countdown structure he adds to the chapters puts the story in a pressure cooker you can’t look away from. I would honestly put this up there with The Fall by Ryan Cahill in terms of perfectly setting up a book 1 novel, and just like Cahill, which inspired him to do this, The Sound of Starfall can be read before or after book 1.
I like the way Palmer introduces each main character of Adeqor, Mose and Marton, in the story and gives them their own chapter to be fleshed out, how they deal with their impending doom, and just how far things have gotten out of hand within the world. Being able to see each point of view and their converging paths, to eventual betrayals makes it all feel more personal.
“We are not gods. We are birds that have flown too high, and now we must watch as the sky burns us up and sends us falling back down to where we came from, a husk of burning feathers.”
The Magic system is pretty awesome and can be absolutely brutal. Like in Children of the Gods by S.A. Klopfenstein, it reminds me of Elder Scrolls: Skyrim’s words of power, but Palmer takes it to another level, and it felt like he asked himself, “if someone truly had these powers, how powerful and brutal could it actually be?” And then he answered it. Very brutal, so brutal that the only way to defend it is even more brutal. There’s also dark magic use in the creation of a new species, where men try to play gods, which is part of the cause of the conflict. I assume this species will get an intro in book one, A Memory of Song.
If the impending doom of the comet wasn’t enough, they also had to face an army of Abori dream eaters in the process, all while trying to get to the tunnels underground for safety. Palmer’s prose is clean and vivid with every sentence driving the intensity and emotion of each scene forward as the city falls into chaos.
If you are a fan of Ryan Cahill or Philip Quaintrell, I’d highly recommend giving this novella a go as well as the series, because I am for sure jumping into A Memory of Song in the very near future.
Wolfmantula.com 