Along the Razor's Edge

A fantasy prison escape novel with Grimdark tendencies. Our protagonist is Sourcerer, a clever play on the idea of sorcery - here you consume a source to gains its power. It is a well thought through and reasonably hard magic system with all sourcerers being able to consume and use all sources, but some will kill you quicker than others. Most will kill in seconds, but each sorcerer will have some certain affinities where they can ingest the source for longer.

We are in the aftermath of a war where our sourcerer was on the losing side and has been sent to an underground prison camp (the Pit). This is a gulag style environment designed to break people. The setting provides a high base level of brutality, which is only added to as the story goes on. There is a small element of found family as our escapee puts together a team to help them escape but the brutality and feralness of everyone in this environment is always quite close to the surface.

This was grimdark how I like it. Nasty, brutish and fast-paced. An excellent start to a series and one of the better self-published works I have read. I look forward to reading more of this world!

This was an enjoyable book but the switch from the current time narrative to the past narrative was a bit jarring at times. Eska is a very good character. I plan to follow her story into the next book but I wouldn’t say she is a character I love. Frankly, I don’t think Eska would be surprised by that either :)

I listened to this on audiobook as it was included with my audible membership. The description interested me and I went into it not knowing what to expect, other than the blurb.

The story is very enjoyable. Extremely gritty and raw. This is a great escape story, with friendship being a main point and what people would do in a chance of escape.

The narrator was brilliant, really enjoyed listening to her read the story. 3.5 stars.

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Meh. This book was meh all throughout

I enjoyed it but I kept waiting for them to escape sooner rather than have the whole Book be them escaping the Pit.
Main character is interesting enough but there's something lacking there that makes me want to love her.
And the twist at the end was so obvious the author told you in the first chapter. I'm furious that the MC didn't see it coming.
However, I like the magic system.
The author threaded some hooks throughout the story that makes me want to read book 2 but not enough as is usual for ending of book 1s.

I always vote up on goodreads but it's really a 2.5 ⭐️

This is the first of Hayes' books I've read, which I decided I really should get around to considering how many of them I own based on reputation alone. I did find myself wondering, around the 20% mark, just how much of the book was going to be set in The Pit and when "the real story" was going to start. I'd gotten the wrong impression from the blurb it seems as the whole book is in The Pit and that is the real story.

As the first in The War Eternal series and Eska is our narrator and speaks as though recounting her memories from a distant future, dropping little teasers about her life after The Pit, and this is her telling the story of her time in The Pit and her escape. Interspersed between the dank environs of The Pit - a never-ending mind where prisoners are sent to simply dig their lives away in the dark - are snapshots of Eska's childhood, growing up within the Orran Academy of Magic.

Given she's only just reached 16 years old by the end of the book, it is fair to say the entirety of Eska's childhood has been filled with pain and torture; save for the brief 6 years she spent in her quaint home village climbing trees. Tortured by those training her to be a magical weapon at the academy, only to be captured and thrown into The Pit for even more torture.

A stubborn character, self-describing as a 'bitch', Eska is not a loveable protagonist. She's angry and determined. She wants her revenge and will stop at nothing to achieve it.

At times brutal and bloody, Along the Razor's Edge feels like an origin story. Whether it is for a hero or a villain, only time will tell.

One of my favorite books of the year and a downright crazy ride. My first foray into Rob J. Hayes' work couldn't have been better.

Hayes made this epistolary-like narrative a propulsive read, with a morally-gray-arguably-just-morally-wrong character driving the story, and a unique and curious narrative voice.

Everyone in the Pit is a downright fucker (well, our supportive cast not as much) but Eska is a sort-of light at the end of this dark tunnel (pun intended. If you know, you know).

She makes terrible decisions, is hotheaded and reckless, and prioritizes her stubbornness and survival above all. She strays from the typical heroic female character and I loved her for it.

Once in a while it's nice to be challenged by character or story expectations and this book does it.

The harduous, pain-inducing, slowly-killing magic system was a breath of fresh air and it was fun to enjoy a story where darkness is so prevalent yet it drives you to search for something around it.

Really looking forward to reading the rest of this series.