Eleventh Cycle

I like my grimdark as black as night and this is wonderfully treacly dark in its grimdarkness. Eleventh Cycle has certainly been generating quite a lot of buzz for an indie, and I can say it is 100% warranted. This is a doorstopper of a book running around 800 pages, but there is no filler here. The world building is truly epic, the world of Minethrea given a depth that is up there with the very best in the genre. Murkiness is the buzz word here, everything is presented in a wonderful greyness. The land is literally wreathed in mists. The Elder Beings are some poorly defined and unknowably alien thing. The lives of the commoners are definitely falling into that ‘nasty, brutish and short' category. There is an obvious depth of mythos here that is just brilliant.

What cuts through this is the excellent characterizations of the 4 main POV characters. Each of them is given heart, motive and agency. From Dalilla the farm girl turned witch, Chroma the Akar trying to find his place in society coming from an oppressed race, Nora the warrior taking on the patriarchy and Erefiel the half human half zerub caught between worlds all the characters here have compelling stories, with them all intersecting in the most satisfying of ways.

Married to everything here is an excellent prose. Very readable, yet with a nice poetry to it places. It all lends itself to the epic nature of the scope of the story.

The themes are all also well done. These range from abusive families, disability, alienation and the duality of human emotions. That these dark themes do not drag the whole story down in to the murk is a testament to Ardalan's storytelling nous. Injecting the correct amount of pathos that these things all become relatable.

This is grimdark, morally grey, violent and graphic. But it is also full of heart and pathos. I am extremely excited to see where this story goes!