Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham

I would like to thank Nazia from Orbit for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Orbit

Published – Out Now

Price - £18.99 Hardback £9.99 Kindle eBook

Kithamar is a centre of trade and wealth, an ancient city with a long, bloody history where countless thousands live and their stories unfold. This is Alys's.

When her brother is murdered, a petty thief from the slums of Longhill sets out to discover who killed him and why. But the more she discovers about him, the more she learns about herself, and the truths she finds are more dangerous than knives.

Swept up in an intrigue as deep as the roots of Kithamar, where the secrets of the lowest born can sometimes topple thrones, the story Alys chooses will have the power to change everything.

Fantasy needs a good setting to come alive. Imagine the Discworld without Ankh-Morpork or Realm of the Elderlings without the life and culture of the Six Duchies. For great stories you need that sense you’re in an actual place where the geography, history, and culture of those living there impacts those who live in it in a multitude of ways. In Daniel Abraham’s ambitious and extremely interesting novel Age of Ash we get the first of a series that will explore one huge storyline but across three different stories with each volume interesting characters and their own plots in unusual ways. The first story in The Kithamar triloigy is a story of revenge, loss and intrigue that sets up the stories to come in a fascinating way.

KIthamar is one of the most powerful cities comprising so many quarters and levels of society from Auth Thorn’s crime dens, merchants buying the city urine for industry and a multitude of religions. Its previous ruler Ausai a Sal has fin ally died and a new Prince has taken control but underneath this normal change in society a wave of activity has been unleashed because everything that was supposed to have happened according to tradition did not. One of the most powerful nobles and members of a religious order the Lady Andomaka is seeking a powerful tool that has gone missing. In the depths of the notorious Longhill district the cunning thief Alys finds that her brother Darro (another ambitious thief) has died in mysterious circumstances and asks her best friend Sammish to help his killer. Elsewhere a mysterious woman from outside the city seeks her son. These quite unusual people are all about to be caught up in each other’s lives for magic, murder, and another chapter in a city’s bloodthirsty history.

What immediately jumps out in this story is Kithamar itself. Abraham works incredibly hard in this volume to give the reader a sense of place. This is not one big stage set. It has got its old and new quarters where houses are made of stone versus wood; it’s a melting pot of various communities from outside and in some gorgeously written flowing scenes we get to move around from place to place and in each scene soak up what this city is. For a brand-new fantasy setting by the end of the first volume you know it’s make-up, its culture and even its slang. It’s a city of various factions living around each other and occasionally crossing paths. The nobles are fascinated that so few of the working class know who the most powerful people in the city are while the poor know the faces change regularly but it will not impact their lives. Palace intrigues happen in one place while for other parts of the city the focus is on the caravans coming with fresh food and in others its various crim plots to make a quick killing in more ways than one. There is a glorious sense of depth and life to this place which really stands out and makes this alone well worth a read.

The storyline for this volume is very much focused on Alys and Sammish’s interactions and in particular with what is going on in the palace. Initially we think this will be more Alys’ tale of revenge and here we get a young girl startled to lose her brother unexpectedly and very quickly trying in his footsteps to find a killer…or perhaps in her case more accurately make him come alive by living his life. We get a young woman trying to escape Longhill dressing differently and stylishly, enjoying crime and violence a little too much and perhaps getting in a little too deep. We soon see Alys as less a main lead and more a very damaged young woman getting herself too deep in intrigues she would normally never even know about. Sammish who often gets labelled as a mouse that no one sees ends up the more interesting character initially acting out of unrequited love for Alys but in her investigating Darro’s murder she stumbles on a bigger story and has to decide what is right and wrong herself. Certainly, the most moral character we will meet in this amoral city she shows reserves that you would never expect upon first meeting her, and you soon end up really hoping she survives. Overall I really liked this arc of character development and their swinging fortunes and allegiances as they both grow up fast in a very unforgiving city

The royal intrigue I think sets up the other main stories to come. We soon notice that some characters with their own battles and secrets appear briefly and then seemingly vanish in this story. I suspect their tales are for the future volumes. The story of who Amdomaka works for and why she needs a powerful object opens up a tale of magic, gods and games within games being played that move what could have easily been labelled a grimdark tale into the realm of epic fantasy with big stakes. I got a huge sense of more stories and revelations to come that will explain what actually happened.

My one reservation is that there is an equally ambitious idea to tell the city’s story over one year; here I think perhaps due to this story performing a lot of the groundwork for the wider trilogy that there is a pacing issue. The turn of the seasons provides a effective stylistic change in theme and atmosphere to match changes in story and character’s development, but these plots don’t really have a good enough reason to take a year to evolve. There isn’t quite enough going on here to justify the long timeframe and they city doesn’t feel quite that big that by six months the characters still had not found out what was going on. This does mean there is often a lack of momentum being built but I read this very episodically and that made it a more manageable experience and in the last third this really picks up again. Hopefully the reasons for the gaps will become apparent in the next round of stories.

I completely applaud Age of Ash for ambition and not being afraid to do something different in fantasy. The sense of place also achieved here is also amazing and really makes you experience life in this city that until you open the book you’ll have never heard of. Epic fantasy fans who love worldbuilding and exploring a sense of place as well as those who love plots of intrigue should come running for this one. Highly recommended!