Review of We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies
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- Latest Review: We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies by Matthew Tysz
Review of We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies
[Following is a volunteer review of "We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies" by Matthew Tysz.]
We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies by Mathew Tysz is a novel set in a world where some people possess magical abilities and some do not. The book is mainly focused on the progress of one character, Galen Bray, but it contains multiple viewpoints of various characters. The story starts with Galen fleeing from his homeland and boarding a ship to make port in Voulhire. He was able to make this escape because his uncle in Magnum Caelum, Voulhire paid a hefty amount to get him out of the war-ridden and violent Land of the Princes. Voulhire is the perfect and prestigious land of prosperity in its golden age at the moment. Arriving on this land, he starts a new life as a blacksmith after he finds out that his uncle who paid so much for his freedom, is now dead. The story continues as Galen meets a variety of different people and starts to discover that not all is good in the magical land of Voulhire, that there seems to be extreme political tension and conflict caused by corruption at the hands of the elite ruling class of this place. Now Galen is embarked on a quest type of adventure, gradually unraveling the secrets of this land and its people. The book has several characters of different positions that later come together to solve their land’s problems. There is a King, a Lord, and a rebel group involved with an extremely powerful wizard that is supposedly evil and needs to be stopped. Each chapter ends with what seem to be cliffhangers that succeed in keeping the readers actively engaged in the plot and on the edge of their seats to find out more.
This book is so well written and well edited that I did not see any grammar mistakes whatsoever. It made reading the book so much more fun because I could get lost in the flow of the book rather than focus on or get disrupted by spelling or grammar mistakes, it has always been a pet peeve of mine to catch such mistakes in a properly published book. Along with being well-edited, this book contained amazing content itself. The story was so interesting and engaging, mainly like every other fantasy book there was the setting of a chosen one who had to work with other people to stop the destruction of their world at all costs and this could have been written in a commonly generic way, but the author, Mathew did an amazing job of introducing the world building and how the story unraveled. It was unusual, with all the different point views going on but it was done well. Each character had many layers to their personalities, other than Galen being the one relatable character who had a gradual character development, the rest of the characters were enigmas. They defined the word nuance with the range of feelings, motives, and morals that they possessed. When I started reading this book, I expected the setting to be in the medieval era, but as I proceeded to read, the language and slang used felt much more modern, and the technology is also not that old. This also meant that the comedic scenes of the book were more enjoyable for me.
On the flip side, although the multiple points of view did add a sense of suspense and curiosity to know more about them, it also caused a lot of confusion because lots of characters just came out of the blue and if there was no mention of whose POV it was, it would take at least a paragraph or two to understand what was going on and with whom. That caused me to read the whole chapter again so that I could fully grasp the events of the book. I am an avid high fantasy reader so it took me relatively less time to understand the plot, despite that there was a lot of information dumping that had me reeling. I am sure if I was not used to such plots, it would have been hard for me as a reader to grapple with the events taking place. At times it felt like a jumble when, after finishing a chapter of one character, I had to jump to another one’s POV with completely irrelevant information to the last chapter. This bit bothered me a lot, especially at the beginning of the book.
I would recommend this book to those who are already familiar with the fantasy genre. Anyone reading said genre for the first time would have a bit of a difficult time catching up to the book. Mostly, readers of all ages could enjoy this book, starting from 13/14 though because some jokes would be too inappropriate for an audience younger than that.
I give this book a 4 star out of 5 stars because this book is written brilliantly, yes it was a little too complex at times, but brilliant and amazing nonetheless.
******
We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies by Mathew Tysz is a novel set in a world where some people possess magical abilities and some do not. The book is mainly focused on the progress of one character, Galen Bray, but it contains multiple viewpoints of various characters. The story starts with Galen fleeing from his homeland and boarding a ship to make port in Voulhire. He was able to make this escape because his uncle in Magnum Caelum, Voulhire paid a hefty amount to get him out of the war-ridden and violent Land of the Princes. Voulhire is the perfect and prestigious land of prosperity in its golden age at the moment. Arriving on this land, he starts a new life as a blacksmith after he finds out that his uncle who paid so much for his freedom, is now dead. The story continues as Galen meets a variety of different people and starts to discover that not all is good in the magical land of Voulhire, that there seems to be extreme political tension and conflict caused by corruption at the hands of the elite ruling class of this place. Now Galen is embarked on a quest type of adventure, gradually unraveling the secrets of this land and its people. The book has several characters of different positions that later come together to solve their land’s problems. There is a King, a Lord, and a rebel group involved with an extremely powerful wizard that is supposedly evil and needs to be stopped. Each chapter ends with what seem to be cliffhangers that succeed in keeping the readers actively engaged in the plot and on the edge of their seats to find out more.
This book is so well written and well edited that I did not see any grammar mistakes whatsoever. It made reading the book so much more fun because I could get lost in the flow of the book rather than focus on or get disrupted by spelling or grammar mistakes, it has always been a pet peeve of mine to catch such mistakes in a properly published book. Along with being well-edited, this book contained amazing content itself. The story was so interesting and engaging, mainly like every other fantasy book there was the setting of a chosen one who had to work with other people to stop the destruction of their world at all costs and this could have been written in a commonly generic way, but the author, Mathew did an amazing job of introducing the world building and how the story unraveled. It was unusual, with all the different point views going on but it was done well. Each character had many layers to their personalities, other than Galen being the one relatable character who had a gradual character development, the rest of the characters were enigmas. They defined the word nuance with the range of feelings, motives, and morals that they possessed. When I started reading this book, I expected the setting to be in the medieval era, but as I proceeded to read, the language and slang used felt much more modern, and the technology is also not that old. This also meant that the comedic scenes of the book were more enjoyable for me.
On the flip side, although the multiple points of view did add a sense of suspense and curiosity to know more about them, it also caused a lot of confusion because lots of characters just came out of the blue and if there was no mention of whose POV it was, it would take at least a paragraph or two to understand what was going on and with whom. That caused me to read the whole chapter again so that I could fully grasp the events of the book. I am an avid high fantasy reader so it took me relatively less time to understand the plot, despite that there was a lot of information dumping that had me reeling. I am sure if I was not used to such plots, it would have been hard for me as a reader to grapple with the events taking place. At times it felt like a jumble when, after finishing a chapter of one character, I had to jump to another one’s POV with completely irrelevant information to the last chapter. This bit bothered me a lot, especially at the beginning of the book.
I would recommend this book to those who are already familiar with the fantasy genre. Anyone reading said genre for the first time would have a bit of a difficult time catching up to the book. Mostly, readers of all ages could enjoy this book, starting from 13/14 though because some jokes would be too inappropriate for an audience younger than that.
I give this book a 4 star out of 5 stars because this book is written brilliantly, yes it was a little too complex at times, but brilliant and amazing nonetheless.
******
We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
