Yzabel / July 8, 2014

Soulwoven by Jeff Seymour

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Litnig Jin has spent his life yearning for the power to weave the souls of the dead into magic. His brother Cole has spent his believing in nothing bigger than his own two hands.

When a dragon sinks its claws into their nightmares, their lives will change forever.

A dream of moving statues, shattered chains, and seething clouds of darkness sets the brothers on a journey into the unknown. A prince asks for their help. A necromancer hunts them. The bloom of first love gives Cole something to believe in.

As the brothers travel the world of Guedin seeking to prevent the hatred of a god from coming to life, Litnig discovers he has more power than he ever thought possible. But learning why may cost him his brother, his best friend, and everything he is.

Soulwoven was serialized on the story-sharing site Wattpad in 2012. It went on to garner half a million reads while being featured there for over a year. A 2013 Kickstarter funded additional editing, artwork, and polish for the book, which is now available commercially for the first time.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I’m adding this novel to my list of books I’m not exactly sure what to make of. I guess it might sit better with readers who really like fantasy stories with typical tropes, which I’m not at the moment, so take my review with a grain of salt.

I found Soulwoven to be full of interesting ideas, especially when it comes to the characters and their relationships. The plot itself is of the fairly straightforward, “typical fantasy” kind: an ancient (evil) god on the verge of waking up, with a group of characters traveling to prevent this from happening. However, this bunch of people gathered through circumstances must go through its own issues of trust, friendship and love, and a sense of duty isn’t always enough to keep things going smoothly—far from it. I really dug this aspect of the novel. Everyone in the group has at least one person of interest s/he wants to follow, for various reasons, and this creates a good dynamics.

However, at times, I found the narrative lacking in showing this very dynamics. Some events were shown from different points of view, but I’m not always sure the choice of scenes was the best (fight scenes, for instance). After a while, it felt as if part of the cast of characters was given more prominence over the others. While Dil’s and Litnig’s stories were pretty interesting to read (both had to deal with the secret behind their true natures, and face the prospect of being rejected by the ones they loved), other characters got the short end of the straw. Quay mostly became the leader and nothing more, and Ryse and Leramis didn’t get as much screen time as their past should’ve warranted them, in my opinion. Maybe their relationship will be developed in the next book, but I thought it would’ve been interesting to see more of it here, because of how Litnig saw it, and how it might have affected his own evolution. (I liked his progress, by the way. He wasn’t so much the oaf he seemed to be, and the story didn’t want for opportunities of making him turn towards the dark side, so to speak.)

Another issue for me was the pacing. Granted, I must admit I’m not always keen on the traveling parts in fantasy novels in general (yes, even in widely acclaimed novels), but I don’t know if this was what caused the problem in the first place. Sometimes I wanted to keep reading, and at other times, suddenly, I didn’t feel like picking up the book again. A few scenes were rather confusing, and I had to go back and read a second time to make sure I hadn’t missed something, and understand properly what was going on. I’m tempted to chalk this to a few strange reactions on the characters’ behalf. Among other things, I’m still not sure why the Sh’ma brought the group to his leader, knowing all too well how it may end. I’m also not convinced with the potential political intrigue back in Eldan City: this is the kind of thing that would deserve a plot in and of itself, so either there was too much or too little of it here. Although it provides an interesting backdrop for later novels, it still felt a little artificial (perhaps because the group had to hide because of it, which paved the way for the death of one specific character, which fell into the cliché category for me).

Good ideas, definitely (if on the typical fantasy tropes side), though not always executed in a way that would really emphasise their worth. Nevertheless, it’s good to see a novel whose characters all have their own, often touching background stories, and whose journeys to save the world are also addled with very human relationships.