Review: Lightfall by Ed Crocker
Blurb:
A novel of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers, Lightfall is the stunning debut epic fantasy by Ed Crocker, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings
For centuries, vampires freely roamed the land until the Grays came out of nowhere, wiping out half the population in a night. The survivors fled to the last vampire city of First Light, where the rules are simple. If you’re poor, you drink weak blood. If you’re nobility, you get the good stuff. And you can never, ever leave.
Palace maid Sam has had enough of these rules, and she’s definitely had enough of cleaning the bedpans of the lords who enforce them. When the son of the city’s ruler is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she seizes the chance to blackmail her way into a better class and better blood. She falls in with the Leeches, a group of rebel maids who rein in the worst of the Lords. Soon she’s in league with a sorcerer whose deductive skills make up for his lack of magic, a deadly werewolf assassin and a countess who knows a city’s worth of secrets.
There’s just one problem. What began as a murder investigation has uncovered a vast conspiracy by the ruling elite, and now Sam must find the truth before she becomes another victim. If she can avoid getting murdered, she might just live forever.
Review:
It takes a lot for me to fall in love with a book involving vampires, especially since I read Empire of the Vampire a few years ago; one of my personal favorites ever. So, it gives me great pleasure to say confidently; Lightfall is an incredible book.
Unlike Empire of the Vampire, this book takes the spin on making vampires as the main race, throws in some werewolves, and sorcerers and the *slight* hints that humans may be around somewhere and throws you right into the middle of a multi-century power feud, one full of political intrigue between races and with mysteries around every corner.
The story picks up with Sam, a palace maid, who’s very low on the totem pole of vampires. But things change for her when she finds a piece of paper that leads to a clue about the death of one of the First Lords sons, and from that moment on the story takes of running (or flying?) Other main POVs that we get to experience are just as well thought out and written as Sam; Sage, a cult leader and Sorcerer, and Raven, a werewolf who is much more than meets the eye. I only listed out those three, but there were a few more but for spoiler’s sake, I don’t want to reveal too much. Trust me when I say though, even though there are about 4-5 POVs we read, every single one of them is a joy to follow. Not once did I turn the page and see a name and go “ah shit” like I do in some other books (sorry Bran/Nynaeve, but good lord).
As the book progresses, we go deeper and deeper in the conspiracies, betrayals and even heists, it grabbed me by the throat (thankfully sparing me from any bloodsucking) and never let go. The second half of the book especially was an absolute roller coaster of events, all of them serving a purpose and never feeling like they were there just…. because. The ending left a perfect lead in to book 2, while also closing the story of book 1 without anything feeling left out or neglected. It was a flawless conclusion to a mystery story, really great stuff.
Overall, like I said already I loved this book. The strongest part of it for me was the characters. To start, all of the female characters were the highlights; each one of them (Sam, Raven, ???) brought different things to the novel that worked together in a great way, and coupled with the other characters including my personal favorite, Jacob, it made the book an absolute breeze and joy to read. And the villains of the story were also very well fleshed out, it was a far cry from the stereotypical “I’m immortal and ALL POWERFUL!” vampires that so often pop up in the world today, and it helped to build the tension throughout the story.
One of the cooler aspects that was a nice touch was the way the 3 different types of blood were able to be consumed. The more powerful vampires had access to stronger strains like wolf and bear, Midways (administrators/etc) got animals like fox, boar and crow, and the lowly maids and servants had such animals like cows. Each grouping has its own qualities; cow only helps the drinker live a few centuries, fox/etc help slow aging, make you stronger, and the strongest blood like whale/bear can help the drinker do things like punch through walls. The rarest, wolf, is the only type to give a vampire wings though. The whole thought behind that structure, coupled with the hierarchy of the vampiric society was very well thought out and did a great job showing the gap between classes, even though they’re borderline-immortal.
The themes of the story were also incredibly well done, and subtle enough to get the points Ed was trying to convey without bashing you over the head with it, which is always appreciated. Topics like morality, classism, the ruling powers; everything is upped a notch when the races can live for hundreds and hundreds of years, while the world never changes once the status quo is set. Crocker did a fantastic job of getting all of those issues across, while putting a story into place to help break those ideas without it being too on the nose.
In the end, I wish I had book 2 in my hands this second. Lightfall wasn’t just one of the best debuts of a series, but one of the best debuts in general for me. I can’t say enough about how much fun the story was to follow, which is the most important thing in my opinion. I’m glad to have found this book right at the start of what I’m sure will end up being an incredible series.
