A Song of Legends Lost by M H Ayinde
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 – £20 hardback £5.49 ebook
A SONG OF REBELLION. A SONG OF WAR. A SONG OF LEGENDS LOST.
In the Nine Lands, only those of noble blood can summon the spirits of their ancestors to fight in battle. But when Temi, a commoner from the slums, accidentally invokes a powerful spirit, she finds it could hold the key to ending a centuries-long war.
But not everything that can be invoked is an ancestor. And some of the spirits that can be drawn from the ancestral realm are more dangerous than anyone can imagine.
Epic fantasy is one of the subgenres I must be a bit careful with reading too much of. There is a slight tendency for stories to take a certain shape which can just mean it appears a little overly familiar. An interesting main character meets some other interesting characters, forms a group, goes on a long journey together and saves the world from a major threat. I have had a lot of fun with those type of stories but every now and then it is like recognising the beats just before they arrive in a story. I think I like it instead when I’m thrown a bit more into the deep end and I absolutely fell hard for M H Ayinde’s A Song of Legends Lost a complex and intelligent epic fantasy novel where the reader as much as the array of interesting characters we meet find the world is far more complex and more dangerous than any of us expected and it proved to be a hugely rewarding read in the process.
The kingdom of the Nine Lands under the overall rule of the Ahiki family which has been battling the mysterious, deadly and powerful demon-like forces named greybloods and have so for centuries. The noble families known as the highborn have for generations used the ancient Family power of being bonded to their ancestors to bring forth mighty spirits with amazing weapons and magic skills. But the battle grows ever harder. The young noble Jinao has been a major disappointment for never managing to bond unlike all his famous siblings but a battle with the major greyblood leader known as The Bairneater brings both family tragedy and finally a chance for Jinao to show he has power. Meanwhile sometime baker and sometime helping smugglers in her family is Temi at the lower end of the society spectrum. A horrific set of murders and a criminal family requiring payment mean Temi is forced to do the unthinkable and work for a scheming and dangerous member of the criminal underworld but she in doing so seems also to have unleashed a spirit herself which isn’t supposed to happen for the lowbloods such as she. Jinao and Temi are just a few of the people about to enter a much more dangerous period of the Nine Lands and find all they know is about to change forever.
We get so used to the standard fantasy journey structure that it can be disconcerting when an author takes some risks and shows there is more than one way of telling an interesting story. Ayinde isn’t at all afraid thought of doing things a little differently and while we may think Jinao and Temi may be our key characters what we actually have are five acts each of which focuses on several key characters with chapters focused on each other’s adventures. Some will cross paths and interact while others we find are being unknowingly influenced by the events that others cause. Putting all these pieces together for me was a real plus for the story and helps underline the ambition and scale of what is going on. Ayinde does help remind you what was happening when we last met a character but what this really helps is underline how big this story is about to get. We are so used to a few quick detours before the gang comes together but more interestingly this story is setting up characters across the wider world and each has a purpose for the wider story.
I was very impressed by how each character reflects different parts of the world and no character ever we meet fits any standard stereotype. Jinao is not some hero in waiting but quite frustrated at how his lack of magical skill has led him to becoming a bit of a joke being so regularly rejected by the ancestors. Rather than the hero who just needs calling he has a much more organic and staggered development and finds himself even as a noble quite ignorant of how the wider world of the Nine Land works. Temi too is not the standard working class urchin to become a hero either instead she is actually purely focused on preventing her family getting into more criminal strife and her links to magic are more as a last resort than the beginning of a standard magical quest. We meet a priest named Father Boleo whose devotion we find hides a different agenda and he’s not either the traditional advisor or villain figure either we tend to get too many of in fantasy. A few others to look out for are Elari the wife of a missing hero but is also a capable warrior in her own right and works as part of a quartet of warriors all sworn to live and love as one (this is a story where gender roles and sexuality feel refreshingly accepted by the wider society) and later on in the book we meet a street urchin named Runt who quickly became one of the most interesting characters in the whole story for all the hidden layers and development Runt undergoes that we find has huge consequences for the story. These are not simple characters they each have their own agendas, strengths and weaknesses and most importantly for this world none have all the facts as to what is going on.
What kept me glued to this story is the wider storylines these characters form part of. Initially it all seems fairly simple the strange greyblood demonic race are going to be the bad guys and the Nine Lands with their ancestral calling bond power the heroes. But Ayinde really starts shaking this up. There is a running theme of the new generation re-appraising their knowledge of the world as is that the past generation (regardless of past or status) has controlled or kept hidden which is really interesting. The history, religion and politics of the Nine Land sis a lot more complicated than they initially appeared and not many stories look at this so much in their structure. We find factions at all levels of society some in league or conflict with others there is aa sense of big intrigues finally starting to be out in the open but hiding their true agendas back. The appearance of something known as black glass soon also confirmed early on that the Nine Lands appears to be some sort of post high technology world and even the ancestral bonding powers are re-appraised. It is not unusual for someone in a fantasy novel to find great secrets but what I loved here is a story that has the audacity to make us realise our pretty much all our characters know very little about how their entire world works and that is actually deliberate on the part of the bigger powers we start to see operating around (or with) them. This feels a story worth of the term Epic in terms of the scale we get.
Ayinde mixes the narrative up very capably, so we get criminal gangs fighting their opposition, armies having huge battles, mysterious magical creatures causing havoc and the huge spectral ancestors being called upon the battlefield; Ayinde also adds a layer of metaphysics as we get sight of the hidden spirit dimension all these forces seem connected to. Nothing is getting easily explained and we may find our own perspective change as to who is the threat and by the end of this first volume, I’m still not entirely sure who or how many enemies we may be up against which has really invested me in the next instalment already as there feels a lot of interesting storylines to get stuck into. Ayinde has a fast-flowing style where each chapter has its own key beats and over the course of each act our understanding of the world and the characters shifts quite a bit. Having an African influenced world is fascinating and with its mix of traditions, weapons, fantasy plus this new future/ancient technology angle all coming together so that it really feels a place with lots more still to explore in the future volumes to come. Just by the end we think we have a handle on things the epilogue signals the next set of directions we may be heading in also have a few surprises in store.
A Song of Legends Lost for me really made a huge impression on me. It’s a fantasy novel which rewards the reader taking some time to get to read through and savour all these refreshing choices – this is a story prepared to not share all its secrets immediately nor even by the end of the first volume. It is very creative, has a fascinating large cast and offers a huge amount of story to get involved with. I’ve found myself taking my time with this story to let it breathe and admire the choices Ayinde has made. Very much a book I strongly recommend, and M H Ayinde is very much an author to watch out for!
