Review of We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies

[Darrell G King]

[Following is a volunteer review of "We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies" by Matthew Tysz.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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The first in a series, this book gets a 4 out of 5 stars for its effort to create a foundation supporting the future development of the broader story. The positives included the artful weaving of multiple character perspectives into a cohesive depiction of the world, and the suspenseful plot. The missing star was partially due to a couple of minor missed edits, but primarily because the climax felt rather hurried to me.

Voulhire's story begins in a fictional kingdom experiencing a golden age of peace and plenty. Behind the scenes, however, various political and personal forces are combining to test the kingdom's stability. In this fantasy tale, there are also two separate worlds, physical and magical, that influence the various political and social stressors. As events unfold, we gradually learn how these many factors are coming to threaten the kingdom's safety as well as altering the lives of several major players.

Galen is a young man from an oppressed and socially chaotic nation who is invited to Voulhire as the beneficiary of an inheritance from a little-known relative. He jumps at the chance (literally, barely making his ship and escaping pursuit) and is soon exploring the prosperous peace of his new home with wide eyes. Acting as the protagonist's guide is the executor of the deceased's estate, Rowan, a colorful youth with questionable morals and a swashbuckling personality.

Interspersed with Galen's adventure, we meet others. King Wilhelm works to keep Voulhire healthy, the often frivolous Chancellor Midius Maido leads a venerable company of knights, the Mianoran order, in pursuit of covertly-operating, age-old villains known as Riva Rohavi, and Lord Eldus and his family attempt to settle in at the lord's new assignment in Hillport. The infamous, powerful magician Medorath, removed from Hillport's governance in response to political intrigue, is imprisoned on an island estate nearby by a small fleet of warships and many live in fear of any mention of the mage's name. A woman, Beth, arrives late in the story from another world, plummeting through dimensions to plop smack-dab in the middle of Medorath's prison manor. There are others was well, some contributing their own chapters and others simply adding support with their presence.

Far from focusing only on a single protagonist, Voulhire's unfolding story is one of many major players. If all that seems intriguing and a bit confusing at the same time, welcome to my experience. It is the goal of this chronicle to bring the many locations and characters into cohesive alignment and the author does a credible job with that in the end.

A frequent shifting of narrators and viewpoints was used to gradually flesh out the hidden juggernaut of merging pressures that will eventually surface like an apocalyptic leviathan. This was a mixed blessing, as juggling the cast so rapidly also meant shifting my own empathetic view way too often: I was sometimes just entering one life before being summarily booted to the next. On the other hand, included in the rotating viewpoints were some ultimately expendable supporting people I bonded with only to become surprised by their fates. In one instance, I might even say I was stunned! I consider it good story-telling to successfully paint bit players as vibrantly in their moment as the protagonists are!

Then came the climax of this book, almost unexpectedly for me, with plenty of shock and surprise value. This raised my enjoyment of the opening story but I thought at least two important events were too hastily disposed of during these final scenes. That resulted in a vague sense that the treatment of something important had been trivialized. I am viewing this as a consequence of an intentional move by the author to convey the sudden horrifying nature of the events involved. That certainly was accomplished, but there was something persistently unsatisfying there as well. It felt as though overwhelming disaster struck well-prepared victims and got only a minor back page mention in the news. I was left with a disoriented, "Wait, what...?"

From the technical end, the book has subdued references to sex and profanity, but no blatant efforts to carry the story with shock value, as with page 222: "I am getting the hell out of Caromentis", or a discussion on page 157 about Rowan's affair with the mayor's daughter. More notably, part of the plot does require several references to a recently deceased child abusing noble, although this is done non-graphically with allusions. Some may find that part difficult, but I felt it was handled more tastefully than many real-life news articles have done.

Depictions of violence are a bit more prevalent and graphical, but the book is definitely not a nonstop action adventure. I am deliberately not including specific details to avoid spoilers, but there is a graphical culminating combat and brief brushes with medieval-style justice. Until that climax, at least, it is more a tale of plotting and human relationships with incidental violence being part of the culture. I felt all these elements fit validly into the plot without undue focus, and that the writing flowed smoothly.

Despite the few small bumps, I have already downloaded the next book in this series to see where the unexpected climax leads those people who are left alive. There was a lot of character development and background buildup throughout, which I appreciate when beginning a new series. I know it will pay off further along, even if it is a little slow now, so I need to see if these people solidify and how the kingdom fares. It is a measure of the foundation novel's success that I am so curious about the storyline to be built atop it.

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We are Voulhire: A New Arrival under Great Skies
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[Alice Heritage]

Of the many reviews I've seen of this book, it's good to see one that reflects its complexity and makes sense of it, so thank you for that! I read it once but found it confusing and as you hint here, the pacing was somehow off.