But, like obsidian, I’m sure I’ll be stronger for it, having absorbed the powerful messages and basking in the beauty of the storytelling and prose.

I’d seen rave reviews of it from esteemed reviewers such as Esmay Rosalyne and Craig Bookwyrm so knew I was in for a treat but wow, I wasn’t expecting the impact it would have on me. It's a grimdark novel with a taste of humour, all balanced out, which is where the most appeal lay for me. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

It’s very character-driven, by an author who refuses to tone anything down or to follow any patterns or plot devices or advice that does not fit her story (after all, life does not fit into a preconceived format like some novels are written to). However, she has a lot of universes and while not all of them have giant balls floating in space, most of them have dragons of one sort or another!

Would you rather be safe behind walls and part of the machine or be free and vulnerable to the many dangers in the world? I don’t give a fuck if your father wants to kill mine ,’ he’d said the first time Nazir found him in his tent one night. The points of view shift around, following a plotline rather than being driven by the characters, with the focus increasingly switching from Salasar to the White Desert. Given the difficulty of providing information in fiction, this is a true testament to Sienna’s talent as an author.

The equally sharp characterisation is superb, from all the mannerisms to their distinctive patterns of speech. I had this slated for the month of August as it became a buddy read with Dom's Book Club discord server. That’s because everything about this magnificent book makes it a fertile oasis for waxing lyrical about it. At first I was worried that following such a large cast of characters would prevent me from getting emotionally invested, but the opposite couldn’t be more true.

I wanted more culture, more religion, more philosophy… more of an existential, ideological clash between the warring sides, not just a conflict driven by the personal desires of Salar Muradi (and, I assume, his dad). Another thing that I really enjoyed about Obsidian: Awakening was how complex and real – and even heroic – the characters are. Sometimes, Muradi seems to love him, but both his parents alienate him from themselves but trying to force him onto their side of the war of which one battleground is their ‘marriage’. Raised from birth as the chosen one to end the conflict, Djari drags him screaming into the blood sport of war and politics, guided by the schemes of her oracle brother who continues to withhold the most important part of his vision.

He mutually fell in love with their mother, a Bharavi, and killed so he could be with her and be the kha’a instead of the then-current kha’a to whom she was pledged. On June 8th, I began a project to read the first chapters of all 300 entries to the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO), a competition run since 2015 to raise awareness of high-quality self-published fantasy books. I almost always choose the books I read very carefully because time is precious and I want to be assured I’m well rewarded for my investment. Somehow, the arrows in Muradi are unpoisoned, but Zahara fully intends to see her vow through to the end and watch him die. This wasn’t a problem, in practice, due to the skill of the narration, but you do need to be totally up for immersing yourselves in Sienna’s epic storytelling - where most of the characters are, in fact, well-written variations on Proud Warrior Race Guy/Gal.

The prince demands the woman, named Zahara, a proud tribal member of the fierce and nomadic Kha’gans, reveal the well-guarded secret location of Citara, a coveted stronghold, and threatens that he will give her over to all of his soldiers to be brutally raped and killed if she does not comply. Obsidian: Awakening is a story filled with politics, with each character trying to outplay the others in some way. While there is not much magic in this world aside from an oracle character sharing prophecies, this story somehow still felt utterly magical and entrancing because of how beautifully the world is brought to life through the evocative and vivid descriptions. For Hasheem, life has been a serious of circumstances that force him into situations where he is offered the choice to die or give up more of his freedom, and he keeps on giving up more of his freedom, not because he is a coward, and he always wonders how he will regret his decision.From these 300 first chapters, I selected about 30 books (10%) where I wanted to read on, with the intention of only reviewing the books I finished and enjoyed. Their love/hate relationship with each other gave me LIFE, and I am pretty sure I ended up picking the most evil character in the bunch as my favorite because he was so charming. Obsidian Awakening is one of those books that feel easy to read, but when you look back you realize how much depth it had.