Unsouled

Unsouled

by Will Wight

3 out of 5

Synopsis
Sacred artists follow a thousand Paths to power, using their souls to control the forces of the natural world.

Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan.

When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must defy his family's rules...and forge his own Path.



Review
Without any real magical skill, Lindon is an embarrassment to his clan. Soon, it won't matter, as he is about to set out on a new path that is beyond everyone's imagination.

Lindon is an Unsouled - one of the blips in genetics, when someone doesn't have enough magic in their soul to follow one of the traditional paths. Without this, he has no future, he will never be trained, and he will never be allowed a family. He will exist as a stain to his clan, subservient to everyone, even the weakest child.
All he wants is to prove himself to his clan, and to his family - highly skilled sacred artists that find him a disappointment.

A chance encounter with someone from outside the Valley suddenly shrinks Lindon's world into insignificance, and he is suddenly set on a new path.

I really liked the Asian-inspired setting, and the magical system that's been created.
Everyone has a wooden badge as a child, and they progress to copper when they start their training. These train tirelessly to progress to iron; and only the best get to jade.
You can understand Lindon's frustration, that he has to wear his wooden badge, a visible sign of his shame. That he has to rely on the (reluctant) kindness of others, and can never be independent.

The not-so-good:
I found this very slow and meandering. For a book with less than 300 pages, this story seemed to go on forever.
There were sections that got very heavy, lecturing on the sacred arts. Perhaps if I read the rest of the series, these will make sense and be more appealing, but as a newcomer, it felt more like unnecessary filler.
There were also sections involving the "higher being" where we are treated to excessive info-dumps to explain the Valley, the geography, history, politics, magic system etc. As these were all very well established in the main narrative, I found these unnecessary and skimmed over them.

I wasn't a massive fan of our main character, Lindon. I found him annoying, with all the emphasis on respect being valued above everything else, Lindon was a bit of a bitter hypocrit in his thoughts and actions.

I had been really looking forward to this series, and have the second book lined up. I will be continuing, but it's not top of my reading list at the moment.

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