Review: The Fall of Selvandrea by T.J. McKay

Blurb:

Villains rise where nations fall.
And the Fall is coming.

Valdaris was a middling artillery captain before his people fell to a conquering rival.

Then he fell further still, snatched from the battlefield by a ruthless cult and cast into the depths of ultimate evil.

Transformed by powers he can’t begin to understand, Valdaris seeks revenge on those who tried to destroy him. Instead, he’ll face monsters beyond his most terrifying nightmares. He joins with allies caught in the chaos of his war with evil, oblivious to his true nature and the darkness closing in on their world.

Full of dragons, monsters, found family, magical weapons, intense duels, and epic battles, The Fall of Selvandrea follows a vigilante’s quest against malice, greed, and the shadow within. Heroes and villains join against the rising dark, and against a tyrant whose schemes may destroy them all.

And from calamity’s ashes, a new power shall rise.

Review:

T.J. McKay has been floating around my Twitter feed for a while, and so, when I saw that he was looking for ARC readers, and had a google form for them to fill out (post here), I zipped over, submitted everything, and got into an email discussion with him. Fast forward about a month and a half, and I’m sitting in my chair, calmly reading through “The Fall of Selvandrea" and sprouting “I have a theory” every so often. And these theories went out there a few times. By the end of the final chapter, I was satisfied and knew that, with the knowledge of the next one coming out sooner or later, I wouldn’t have to wait too long for some answers.

This is one of those novels where I am not sure how to begin the review, since it took my expectations, ran with it, and disappeared into a portal. If I had to sell this to friends in family in under a minute, I’d give them these sentences:

“Valdaris Dracar thinks himself as a simple captain for the Ceremai army. Until he gets unwillingly thrown into a pit for the darkness to consume.”,

alongside my usual question if they’d like to know more, which, if they did, would lead to what will follow in just a minute, since, like usual, those quick blurbs don’t give you the full story, they just dip you into the shallow end of the pool, taunting you with what is to come.

To start this off properly, I think it is reasonable enough to not just immediately go into characters and their flaws, and then the plot and everything else. “The Fall of Selvandrea” is not the first novel to have references to its inspiration(s), however, it is one that has sent me down memory lane and brought old knowledge back to the forefront. You see, T.J. McKays work is not just those references, and instead incorporates aspects of each reference into the souls of the characters, the magic, and the world itself. 

Everyone knows Star Wars, but do they know the various blade forms of the Jedi and the amount? There’s apparently seven and all of them are somewhat overpowered in their own right. Shi-Choo, the first form, is the oldest known of the sword techniques. Great against multiple enemies, as shown by Kit Fisto in the clone wars, yet, it doesn’t utilise everything a sword of plasma has to offer. Makashi, the second form, is fencing. Just fencing, and horribly difficult to use against ranged attacks or multiple enemies. Form Three, Soresu, is basically an almost unbreakable shield using one’s enemies own strengths against them. Demonstrated wonderfully by Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was a master at that form. Ataru, the fourth form is ballet mixed with aggressive barbarism (Anakin Skywalkers preferred form), and the fifth form, Shien or Djem So, was the jack of all trades, master of none, with the sixth form, Nieman, copying Shien/Djem So, but also incorporating the rest of the class and failing to be anything but mediocre, however useful it actually was. This brings us to the seventh, the final and last form (besides the forbidden forms of the ancient Sith and Jar’Kai, the dual wielding form that General Grievous used)... Juyo and Vapaad. Juyo drew on negativity and hate to make the user more capable of devastating attacks with a lightsaber. Understandably the jedi council only let certain people mess with it, and deemed it too dangerous for just any old jedi. This brings us to Vaapad, the most important one of this group in the case of “The Fall of Selvandrea”. Vaapad was created by Mace Windu and it drew upon the dark side of the opponent, rather than the wielder's own hate and negativity, almost negating any of the drawbacks of Juyo. This isn’t the end of the whole inspirations for this novel thing, I will swing back around to this once I start digging into the characters. 

Then, to somewhat finish the explanation part (the spores will be dissected later), let's take a look at the world building and the lack of a map. I’d like a map, but a map is not necessary. To make up for it though, there’s a character guide and places guide. Skipping over the characters guide, we have the places. Ceremai, a bombed out husk by the time this novel gets going. Naemredd, the aggressors in this story, are doing something with sacrifices. Siivala is magic wielder's haven, Daemori is somewhere on the nonexistent map, Varessi, Pallados, Gammeda and Selvandrea are all cities that play a part in what will unfold in this tome that T.J. McKay has written. Then, we have portal magic, time travel, tech and an ever growing, everenticing strain of something ancient, possibly human made. 

Since that’s been laid out already, let me introduce you to Valdaris Dracar, artillery captain extraordinaire, captive and then free prisoner of the enemy that ran his home country into the ground with their mages. He goes from a somewhat sorry character, a coward who ran when his position was being overrun, a liar when asked about his past, and a human's fear of death to a person creating and running multiple planned stages, most of them ending in the almost annihilation of himself in order to save humanity. He still lies though. Just more deviously and more sinisterly to achieve his aforementioned goal to save humanity. Shenanigans ensue, and the novel ends with him being a small step closer to his end goal,

After that, the plot must be discussed. A novel is nothing without a plot. At first, it’s as straightforward as it would seem, at least with three characters involved. However, that spirals out of control rather quickly and more and more vectors get thrown in to stir the pot. Passes diverge, cross and diverge again.  It’s been a few days since I’ve held this book in my hands, yet the shenanigans caused by new magical discoveries, science, and other things are still up there in some way. By the end of it, only a bit has been done to weather the storm, and there’s a promise of what's to come. And from what I can gather through all the various information and context clues, the next one in the Draemir chronicles will be just as elaborate and interesting to read as this one. 

Finally, there are the spores that I said I’d dissect later. Interconnecting, intertwining, ever present spores. What McKay has done here is craft a world where the spores are not so much visible as they are ever present, ever spreading. And the beauty of that lies with how it interacts with various hosts. To squid-like creatures, and to those covered in their ink, they are kept alive without ageing a bit. With humans it varies, but one thing it has in common is that one with enough will can control others like puppet masters. To those who feed on the power of the spores, they become abominations and join their brethren in the woods. And to a nation hiding in forests made of blackwood, nothing, nada, not a scent of it exists, yet their blades are enhanced by the presence of the spores in the wielder. 

Now, to go back to the various lightsaber forms. There is one that immediately flared into my mind when Valdaris started using the spores inside him to manipulate the existing strain - Vapaad. The way that Valdaris goes about using the Draemir against itself is truly - the nod to Star Wars notwithstanding, is no less amazing as it is, because, even while it’s using another franchise as an inspiration, it doesn’t show unless someone knows way too much on that subject(thank you 13 year old me).  Oh, there’s also floating spheres that can create weapons, weapons shifting into small and unassuming objects, and various other knick knacks that can only be discovered whilst reading “The Fall of Selvandrea”.

On a complete side note to the magic, let's talk about the fight scenes in this novel. Some of them are grand. Some of them are just small scale skirmishes. But they all have one thing in common, they feel alive. The detail in the fight scenes fits the scenes, not too much, not too little. And it keeps up the action and doesn’t feel stale, even in later scenes

Now, had I to critique something about “The Fall of Selvandrea:, it would be the addition of more and more things to keep track of without a notepad. At some point, it took me far far too long to figure out something that should’ve been obvious from the beginning of a sentence. Instead of a grand storyline becoming less but coming out no worse for wear and going for flair, it added more and more to the story that made some parts just lose the impact they meant to have. It sure added impact in some regards, but in others, it was just another “huh so that needs to be kept track of and of course X is Y’s child, why wouldn’t it be?” But that’s just my personal gripe about “The Fall of Selvandrea”.

If you like time travel, spore magic, and sword fights of epic proportions, T.J. McKays newest novel is for you. 

As always, thank you for reading this review, and I hope I’ve helped nudge you towards your next read. If not, don’t fret, we have plenty of reviews here for a variety of different novels in a variety of different genres. Now, if you’d like to go to a random page on the SFF Insiders site, click here to explore the 20 reviews, author interviews and cover reveals. Who knows, your next favourite novel could be just around the corner.

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