SPSFC4 Review: The Winds of Change by Sam Paisley
Blurb:
Destiny, personal responsibility, what the future holds – common concerns for anyone graduating high school. But usually not because of a cosmic war between timeless beings where you’re the central player.
As the end of school quickly approaches, and Cooper Bailey watches his perfect world slip away, his only concern is savouring every last minute of his high school career. For his best friend, Reid Patterson, graduation is a doorway to the future, where his discipline and focus will finally allow him to meet his true potential.
When a mysterious mirror-masked man begs for their help to stop a dangerous heretic, Cooper and Reid find themselves thrust into unknown worlds, wrestling with a destiny as old as time itself. As the truths about their roles in the universe unfold, and enemies disguise themselves as allies, their only hope is to trust each other - and learn fast!
Far from home and in mortal peril, Cooper and Reid attempt to hone their newfound abilities and come to grips with their purpose for being.
Inspired by classic and modern science fiction and fantasy, and drawing upon timeless themes of destiny and personal responsibility, The Elements of Time is a series written for anyone who loves an escape into a rich and deep world. With references to Star Wars (the Original Trilogy), Avatar: The Last Bender, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural, and much more, The Elements of Time: The Winds of Change is fun action-adventure, with it’s own unique magic system, and themes that touch what it means to grow up and take on the challenges of life.
Review:
High schoolers chosen by destiny who are gonna be trained in magic to potentially punch gods in the face? Hell yeah I’m on board for an anime-esque adventure! A solid foundation is built for this in Sam Paisley’s The Winds of Change, and it’s carried by a unique, expansive world and rich characters, even with some plot missteps along the way.
Cooper Bailey and Reid Patterson are getting ready to graduate high school when a celebration gone wrong costs Cooper his freedom and Reid his future. When their world seems at its bleakest, a mysterious mirror-masked man appears before them to enlist their help to stop a dangerous heretic. Thrust into a series of dangerous trials, Cooper and Reid awaken to newfound powers and discover secrets and wars as ancient as time itself—but even in these tales as old as time, nothing remains clear, and nothing is as it seems.
While The Winds of Change begins as a simple high school story, it evolves into something much more than that in the typical isekai vein. The world Sam Paisley has created is inventive and unique, with a rich tapestry of lore drawn from franchises like The Last Airbender and Stargate SG-1 that help it stand out amongst its peers. In depicting this world through the eyes of two regular teenagers from Earth, it really helps amplify the universe-wide scale of Paisley’s world, that the odds are stacked against them when they are mere humans to be challenging all-powerful entities.
This is all helped by a solid cast of characters from a wide array of universal backgrounds, all of which does a tremendous amount of legwork in establishing the worldbuilding of the series. As the world unfolds around the warrior order of Prolia, the mysterious and watchful Guise, and the immortal Keepers, Paisley slowly pulls back the curtain on a living, breathing universe that promises even more intrigue as the series progresses.
It works just as well due to the dynamics Cooper and Reid have both with each other and with the characters around them. The two are polar opposites of one another—Cooper being reckless and impulsive, and Reid being bookish and withdrawn—but they balance each other extremely well, and Paisley’s character work with them particularly shines when the two leads are thrust into the universe-wide conflict and forced to adapt to the biggest culture shock of their lives. Seeing their interactions with the powerful beings from beyond Earth—and having to be the smallest fish in the largest pond—was certainly a highlight of the book.
In terms of the overall plot, though, that’s where things get tricky with The Winds of Change. Paisley does a great job of planting seeds for later twists, and the subplots directly pertaining to the characters other than Cooper and Reid are done quite well. However, the pacing for the main plot of the book felt very off to me, in that the first 85% of the book or so is largely a training montage for Cooper and Reid. I don’t mind a slow burn plot—Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors, after all—and there is good payoff in the back end of the book. But while you know that there is an ever-looming threat, rarely does the first 85% of the book feel like there are high stakes because there are only a few moments along that way where Cooper and Reid actually feel like they’re in danger. It functions well as character building, but after a certain point in this 700-page book, it felt like too much, and I felt I was waiting too long for the payoff.
The beginning of the book—when Cooper and Reid are still living their high school lives—also feels a little like an afterthought. Once Cooper and Reid go into the Trials and are whisked away to other worlds, their previous lives are just forgotten for the most part, and any consequences of them suddenly disappearing are literally magicked away off-handedly. It’s safe to assume Earth will play a part in a future book, but it still felt like a plot convenience to just forget about it.
Overall, though, The Winds of Change is a solid first entry in a new series. There’s an inventive world and deep, well-developed characters that ultimately do help pick up the shaky plot. Paisley has laid a good foundation for this series, and I’m intrigued to see where it will end up.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go follow the nearest stranger into a cave because he threw a space rock at me. It worked for them, so why can’t it work for me?!
