Review: Soul Cage by L.R. Schulz

Blurb:

Murder Breeds Magic

All power comes with a price. In a world where magic is transferred by the act of killing another, Myddrin stands above the rest. Having accidentally killed the most powerful mage in all of existence, Myddrin now lives a peaceful life in isolation. But there is no such thing as peace in the land of Otor. War calls. The voices of the dead haunt him, and there is nowhere to hide.

Cursed with the deathly taint of magic, young Will must seek acceptance among the Knights of Aen. There, he must learn to touch the otherside, control his abilities, and decide for himself what is right, and what is wrong.

Tvora’s soul is broken. The price of vengeance was her sanity. Her companions help her keep a tenuous grasp on herself, but with the urgent need to absorb enough magic to sustain them, she is pushed to choose a side in the upcoming war. The question remains, will she choose the right one?

Review:

“Soul Cage'' is the third book from  L.R. Schulz that I’ve read. The first two? Really entertaining reads set in a high fantasy world with a magic system that genuinely felt new and refreshing (click here for my review of “A Kings Radiance”'). This one. This one is a whole new world with yet another fantastic, in a morbid sense, magic system. During the last week of April I got this book as a digital ARC, and I set this book down a bit later wanting to know where Schulz will take the land of Otor in the next one.

If I wanted to quickly get someone to read this book, I’d use this snippet: 

“An educator who has absorbed much sorrow. A broken soul. An odd teen. All three are connected. Want to see their threads of fate?”

But like all snippets, this is but a glimpse into the true organized chaos that is a novel, and fails to grasp all that it is. So, hopefully, with this review, I can help shed some more light onto what L.R Schulz has crafted and why it felt fun to read.

First of all, there’s the three main characters. Myddrin, Will and Tvora. And in regards to these three people, I think that all of them should never have to worry about anything after what the world put them through before the first chapter of this book. Schulz had other ideas however. Completely other ideas.

Myddrin used to be an educator, before he accidently killed the most powerful mage in Otor. He was in the right place and right time. So by the time the book starts he’s trying to numb the draw of the souls by doing drugs in the middle of absolutely nowhere with a servant helping him out. Tvora is a soul hunter who got her vengeance for the price of sanity. By the time she gets introduced, she’s picking off others in her profession in order to keep her friends in the physical realm as animals. Will’s an odd kid. He witnessed the invasion of his home city as a child under the care of an educator while his parents fought against the invaders. When we first get to see him, with his own chapter, he’s nearing adulthood with almost no social life and a hobby for drawing things. 

And all three of these people get repeatedly suckerpunched, figuratively, throughout this book. All three of them get more trauma dumped on them, with each of them also having their own small existential crises throughout the book. 

That’s just the main characters though. Each of the side characters feel lively, with their own inner demons to bear.

This brings me to the next part, the way the story was told. The way it brought the plots of “Soul Cage” created an overall plot that was understandable once viewed in its entirety. This was done extremely well within “A Kings Radiance” and “The Sun Prince”. But here? This was something else altogether. Sure, Schulz has played around with PoV’s from opposing factions before, but here, in “Soul Cage”, it’s on a different level. We get the tale from both sides, and in such detail that a comprehensive picture can be painted of each side's motivations and goals. But there’s still enough left unsaid of the world and ideas that additions can be made to that artwork. The overarching plot is, in plain terms, a coalition of kingdoms under an emperor fighting against a lone kingdom to gain access to a source of power unfathomably vast. That’s the overarching plot.

Myddrins goal of removing the souls, Tvora’s goal of gaining more power to sustain her friends, and Will’s need to tame his power before it consumes him are all subplots that paint the big picture, the overarching plot, with what they witness. And it works.

I’ve mentioned souls a lot in previous segments, so I think it’s time I jump headfirst into explaining the magic system that “Soul Cage” has in it. The first line of the blurb is “Murder breeds magic”. And that is the book's magic system in a nutshell. But it doesn’t explain what the magic system is. Or what nations have done to make sure that the magic is used properly. Or the lawless lands where practically anything goes if you have enough strength to pull it off and don’t anger someone more powerful than you. 

The magic within murder is the soul, or souls if the slain person has a collection of them. The souls are then stored within the soul cage, and are used to create whatever the heart desires in an ethereal, yet present  form, as long as it isn’t a human. Risks exist though, for the souls are not dormant within the cage. They whisper to the wielder, tempting them to let them free. If that happens, the cage shatters and the human is lost, leaving behind a husk with almost limitless power controlled by a host of souls.

The Knights of Aen are the most ethical solution to the whole murder part, with them culling the elders before they break. Another solution seen in this book is an arena where combatants fight to the death. All cultures within Otor have some way to justify the murders, and scarily enough, it works in terms of separating the good from the bad.

Finally, the way Schulz has built in various evil figures within this book while also having the main villain. I know it sounds weird to say it that way, but it's not just good vs. bad. There’s a set up there for later stories and despite not knowing which direction those stories will take, I want to see where those stories go. 

If I had to gripe about anything in this book, I’d have to say that it lacked a true glimpse into the thoughts of the emperor of the wildlands and that a bit more could’ve gone into Tvora having that run in with him that set her course through the rest of the book. At least to me, I feel like more could’ve been put into that. But it doesn’t truly affect the rest of the book that much and it still works without, so it’s only a minor issue.

Overall, if you want to spend some time in a fantasy world where ethical murderers exist, and want action scenes limited only by the imagination of the caster, I’d hand you this novel and wish you happy reading. 

As always, thank you for reading this review, and I hope I’ve helped nudge you towards your next read or TBR entry. If not, don’t fret, we here at SFF Insiders have lots of reviews for books with other themes and within other genres, ranging all the way from cozy romance novels set in fantasy to epic space battles within a science fiction space opera.

Wherever you are reading this, have a good morning, good evening, good afternoon and good night!