I received a review copy of the book from the publishers as part of the tour in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinions.
Genre: Fantasy Age Range: Adult Star Rating: 4 stars Series: yes - first book
Synopsis:
Fight the Storm. Protect your people. The endless rotstorm rages over the ruins of the Ferron Empire. Floré would never let the slavers of the Empire rise again. As a warrior of the Stormguard Commandos, she wrought horrors in the rotstorm to protect her people. She did her duty and left the bloodshed behind.
Fight for your family. Floré’s peace is shattered when blazing orbs of light cut through the night sky and descend on her village. Her daughter is abducted and Floré is forced into a chase across a land of twisted monsters and ancient gods. She must pursue the mysterious orbs, whose presence could herald the return of the Empire she spent her entire life fighting.
Destroy your enemies. Now, Floré must take up the role she had sworn to put aside and become the weapon the Stormguard trained her to be, to save not only her daughter, but her people…
Synopsis taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
THE GAUNTLET AND THE FIST BENEATH comes up the epic fantasy in the vein of classic fantasy! This is the sort of stuff I grew up on and am always on the look out for modern versions that dispense with the misogyny and racism that’s “just a part of the world because of when it was written.” This book fits absolutely into the modern “classic” epic fantasy. It’s a joy to find books like this.
It has gods and monsters and a big bad to defeat. Magic and warriors and a quest-like central goal. The main character has a supporting cast drawn from various cultures and walks of life, drawn together by the shared goal of stopping the big bad.
The best description for the feel of THE GAUNTLET AND THE FIST BENEATH is chaos. Pure, unadulterated chaos – the sort you expect in D&D, where anything can and will happen. It’s done in such a way that the seeming lack of magic rules (find the pattern, and go) and the proliferation of monsters really works, giving the book a frenetic urgency. Because it leans into the chaos, it manages to ride it rather than fall into a confusing mess despite the interludes in the past and the jumping around between characters spread across the continent.
This “revelling in chaos” feel comes across in the imaginative world too. There are these massive purple storms (rotstorms) that “seed” goblins and other creatures in the ground where lightning strike. Once they’re formed in the “seed,” they break forth to eat and kill, and generally cause problems. It was such a fun idea.
You can tell that, though this is the author’s first novel, he’s worked on short fiction and works for radio before. The chapters are really long, and have quite an episodic feel – catching up with a variety of story lines and pushing forwards toward a small in-chapter goal.
It’s a really strong debut, and the start of a trilogy that I look forward to continuing.
Read my reviews of other books by Ian Green:
Rotstorm (this series):
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 