Review: Die Young by Morgan Shank
Blurb:
Magon Dross graduated his mage school, the Tower, with flying colors. Then his old schoolmaster burned his runebook and stole his magic. Now the Tower wants him dead.
To spare himself, his family, and his people from danger, Magon must find help and answers. His country is on the brink of war, and a school of rogue mages could topple everything.
Powerless and on the run, he'll find help through his childhood friend, his estranged sister, a tribal exile, a violent priest, and the daughter of King Terrus, Freytilia's most hated man. This makes for a precarious alliance, but it must hold.
The Tower's pursuit spreads collateral damage, and as war approaches, it grows apparent that if the Tower isn't stopped, every country will fall.
Review:
I love me a good ol’ epic fantasy with political scheming and epic battles, and Die Young has that in spades. Featuring memorable characters, inventive magic, and a wonderfully woven plot, Morgan Shank has set the stage for a grand trilogy that will grip you straight away and not let go until you’ve burned through every last rune in your book.
After Magon Dross graduates from the Tower, an academy for mages, his instructor steals his source of magic and leaves him for dead. The actions of a rogue faction of the Tower are leaving the country on the brink of war, and it is up to Magon to recruit a band of unlikely allies by any means necessary to stop the Tower’s machinations. Failure will mean certain doom for all nations.
Shank hits you with a lot at once in the early going that makes it a tad difficult to absorb right away, but once it takes time to simmer, it’s off to the races. Right from the beginning, Magon is at his magical peak…only to have it all stripped away when his former schoolmaster burns his runebook and cuts Magon off from all his power. This was such a great inverse of the typical hero’s arc of growing more powerful as the book goes on, where this time Magon starts at his most powerful only to be reduced to nothing—which is around where he stays for most of the book. It allows for Shank to develop a character that gets by not on his strength of arms, but of his mental fortitude and wit.
The character work is where Shank shines the most. He’s created a wide and diverse cast stemming from typical fantasy archetypes, but done in a way that feels refreshing. It’s to the strength not only of the quality with which he has developed these characters, but also to the scope of the world. The scale of this series promises to be much larger than Shank’s previous Low Country trilogy, and he has more than shown himself to be up to the task. Political threads are woven masterfully, punches are not pulled, and everything builds to an explosive finale that left me eager for the next entry in the series.
The world is supplemented well by its unique rune-based magic system, where mages will expend their own blood to write runes to fill a book—but once those runes are gone, that’s it. Using their runes will drain a mage physically, so they must ensure they use their runes sparingly so they will last for as long as they need them to, preferably for the rest of their lives. It’s an excellent twist on a risk-reward system, where while mages are incredibly powerful beings, that power is far from limitless. Great stuff.
Die Young kicks off the Runeborn trilogy masterfully, and I’d consider this a perfect entry point to Morgan Shank’s works. If you’re looking for a new epic political fantasy to sink your teeth into, then look no further than here. You’re gonna want to stick around for this one.
