Advent by Jeremiah Reinmiller on October 24th 2016
Pages: 406
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Out on the frontier, where the Directorate’s law fades, and invasions from beyond the Cinderveil are a constant threat, life is hard. Ryle knows this better than most. With a grifter for a mother, and a bandit for a father, he spent his childhood picking pockets and slitting throats to survive. And that was before Kilgren, Ryle’s unstable and vicious father, betrayed his family and the realm.
For five years, Ryle has run from that legacy. He’s earned a swordmark, fought to make a new life for himself, but never escaped. Until now.
Rumors are swirling that Lastrahn, lost Champion of the House of Reckoning, has returned to hunt down Kilgren and end his mad schemes. If Ryle can find the Champion, he might get the shot he desperately seeks to bring his father to justice and close the door on his bloody past.
Hanging in the balance? An impending war. A forsaken love. And the secret of a mysterious tower in the west that may hold the key to it all.
A place known as Gearspire.
Give me a broody, snippy character and I’m usually hooked! And Advent delivered.
This book basically follows a young man as he seeks vengeance against a father that left him for dead and did a bunch of other nasty deeds.
It’s set in one of those worlds that has a dystopian type feel of a future world where we’ve been thrown back in terms of technology … I guess. I honestly never felt very grounded in the world, but I think my lack of imagination plays a part in that. Though perhaps not accurate for all, the world reminded me a Mad Max world but without cars. For those who like world building and have a bit of imagination, you’ll probably really enjoy this. For the rest of us, luckily you can thoroughly enjoy this book without have a firm grasp on the world itself.
The book follows Ryle solely, which I loved. It gave us a chance to really get inside his head. He’s a good character, wants to do good, and does do good. He grows up in the book and evolves nicely. However, though this is in his PoV, Lastrahn stole the show. He’s a legend and an extreme badass that Ryle teams up with to hunt down his dad. While Ryle is talented himself, and he’s had to overcome some serious shit in his life, it’s Lastrahn’s mysterious dark nature that drew me into this book. We see it all from Ryle’s PoV, and it only made Lastrahn more enticing, to see these moments of badassness and charisma, of brooding and mystery, all through the eyes of another. It leaves us wondering why Lastrahn is like this. There’s hints of some major stuff that went down, and it’s slowly explored throughout the book. I loved how Reinmiller strung it all out.
Now, I love how we get to see Ryle’s pain, how we experience his fatigue and hunger, and how much Reinmiller puts us in Ryle’s head. I love that stuff. But sometimes it bogged down some action scenes, which for the most part were brilliant. Toward the end, there’s a longer fight scene that kinda dragged out for me, but other than those two minor negatives, I can’t fault the characters or pacing.
The writing was smooth with a few errors here and there, but nothing too distracting. As I said, the pacing of this book is great! Plenty of action, enough internal musings, good character building, and an interesting world, even if I didn’t fully get a feel for it.
So overall, I’d recommend this book. And if you love that broody mysterious character, there’s one in there for you.
About Jeremiah Reinmiller
Jeremiah Reinmiller is a lifelong computer geek, martial artist, and native of the pacific northwest. When he’s not building clouds (the computing kind, not the rainy ones) he’s probably hunched over a keyboard hammering out his next story. He resides in Vancouver (the one in Washington, not Canada) with his wife and their two cats. His stories have received the 2014 Sledgehammer Writing Award, and appeared in 2113, an anthology by Subtopian Press, and the July 2015 issue of Abyss & Apex Magazine.
