The most striking element of this book at the start is, unsurprisingly, the art work. It seems almost a disservice to put words to Sejic's imagery as they eloquently tell the story all on their own, but of course, more detail is required than that. This is a creator-owned story about a fantasy world where the lands are divided by a great rift - a ravine - from which dragons and magic spewed forth long ago.
The story begins in epic proportions with a prologue about a battle between a corrupted king, and the general and daughter who now fight against him. Tragedy and darkness begets more tragedy and darkness in melodramatic proportion that felt a bit too over the top - but this was only the prologue and things settled into a more appropriate pace when the timeline switched to the present.
There are a lot of characters involved and a lot of lore and politics to follow, which can be daunting both to write and read. It's difficult to find the balance between telling too much and not showing enough, but as the story progressed, the pieces came together well enough for the situation to become clear and, more importantly, volume one ended with enough intrigue to make me want to read on. I particularly enjoyed the histories presented at the end of the book which helped fill in a few more details, while strengthening the lore.
Final verdict:
3 of 5 stars
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