The Shadow of What Was Lost
Ratings222
Average rating4
4.5 stars! This was so good. The blurb telling Sanderson fans will like this was not wrong.
I liked sooo many of the characters! There was a lot of development. This is mostly plot driven but all the characters are so compelling.
Let my boy Caeden have some peace
Part of me wanted to devour this book because it was so good I didn't want to stop reading. But I wanted to savor the experience and just get into the world, and it was totally worth it! I love this book, it's one of my favorites of this year. I have high hopes for the second!
If you're a fan of Brandon Sanderson, you'll probably like this book. It has foreshadowing, a large cast of beloved characters, tons of plot twists and a great plot.
People are comparing this to Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time) and Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn) and this might as well be the case. I didn't like those books, and this one follows the very same format.
For me this style of writing is a thorn in the side of fantasy. It starts with an exciting prologue completely unrelated to the plot, some obscure dialogue and a lithany of weird sounding names. Then it dials down from 100 to 0 and the real book begins, and the plot is very slowly presented, because the author is busy explaining the many characters, places, magic system, etc.
These aspects are even that strong in this book, but the book itself isn't that good to begin with. The story really starts, ignoring that useless prologue, depicting the very boring life of the protagonist, who is of course a student in a school of magic, and hist best friend Sam Wyr, and they journey to Mount Doom a rebel camp for special wizards.
In the way they are hunted by the Black Riders cleverly named Hunters because magic is forbidden and being a magic user is punishable by death in some places of the kingdom.
The book is not overtly bad, just uninteresting. There is a small twist which might be cool latter, the Shadow, magic users stripped of their magic powers. Magic users are bellow regular humans in the food chain, and Shadows are even lower. They have no right and absolutely no power whatsoever.
This begs to the dramatic side too much for me, but again, the book isn't even that good for me to complain about that.
Read 4:05 / 25:29 16%
Anyone else find Islington over explained everything? I felt like there was little mystery left to explore because my hand was held the whole way. I really did like the book but would have enjoyed it more had everything not been stated so matter of factly.
I also felt that there was so much dialogue, ha! Normally not a bad thing but it felt like action scenes were placed just to break up conversations.
Again, still enjoyed it, just being nit picky.
What I liked: Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy? What the hell is going on here?
What I'm mixed on: The magic system. Essence is meh, but Kan seems pretty cool. Shadows are cool, but the reasons they become shadows kind of sucks. And why do the people seem to hate the people that can't do magic so much more than they seem to hate the people that can do the magic they hate? I don't want to spoil things for you, but when one character meets Malshash, interesting times begin. It's very mixed because some stuff worked for me, but some explanations did not.
What I didn't like: Arbitrary, poorly thought-out limitations on magic users. The entire general setting of the world grated on me.
Very occasionally a book comes along that makes you drop everything and just immerse yourself in it wholeheartedly in its story, taking you into a cocoon of the world in which it is set. It's been a little while since I had a book that captured me so completely that I literally lost a whole day to it, never moving from my reading chair until I'd absorbed every last bit of it. The Shadow Of What Was Lost is the only book that in 2019 has so far grabbed my attention so singly.
This is an amazing debut novel by James Islington, an epic fantasy that forms the first in the Licanius Trilogy. Initially it doesn't give you much information, you put yourself wholly in the hands of the author as he spins the tale of Davian and his best friend Wirr who are told that because of Davian's special powers as an Augur he should flee his school and make a perilous journey to find those who can help him understand his powers. As he and Wirr head out on their strange quest their friend Asha wakes up at the school to find everyone has been murdered and that her own magical powers are to be removed from her by the very person who sent Davian and Wirr on their quest.
This is a hugely complex novel, there's a whole magic system of Gifted people who can use magic called Essence but are restricted in how they can use it by tenants that mean they are unable to use it to harm any non-gifted people even in self-defence. Alongside this we learn about Agur's who in the past were able to see visions of the future but their visions stopped being reliable and they were all slaughtered and they are now seen as the enemy. We also learn of a boundary behind which the evil of the world is being held but in which cracks are now being found forewarning that the great evil trapped their thousands of years before could be about to escape.
Much of this information is relayed through multiple viewpoints including Wirr, Davian, Asha and a stranger Davian and Wirr meet whose memories have been lost called Caeden. There's also a little bit of time jumping going on in this book which means we have information that is coming back to us from the past and potentially the future meaning we are drip fed lots and lots of information about what could be about to happen of has happened which make us question everyone and everything around our characters.
This means it's a greatly complex fantasy novel but there are so many twists and turns and information about the world that mean you are literally hanging on the edge of every single word. There is great political maneuvering going on as the city from which Wirr and Davian are from fight to defeat a mysterious army known as the Blind, where the King seems unwilling to use the gifts available to him through magic to help him defeat the oncoming threat.
I fell in love with this story wholeheartedly, the characters are ones you really fall in love with, you are behind them 100% and even although there are some questions around their potential future actions you want them to be good guys. There is some real cliff-hangers at the end that ensure you are fully invested in Book 2 of the series and it is one I will absolutely be picking up in the very near future, maybe not too soon though as Book 3 hasn't been released yet and is due to be in December of this year so I don't want to read Book 2 too quickly and then spend the rest of this year just anticipating the release of the end of the series.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough to those who love high fantasy and are fans of the Nevernight series of Brandon Sandersons' Cosmere. I have started Mistborn this year and whilst I've loved it I have to say that The Shadow of What Was Lost has eclipsed it so far as my favourite book of 2019 so far.
False advertising
If you, like me, were taken in by the alleged claim that lovers of Robert Jordan will enjoy this book... run. It lacks the complexity and logical background... the understandable reasoning for actions taken by individuals or groups. Avoid it.
An intriguing start to the trilogy. What initially appears to be a standard Tolkienesque Hero's Journey gradually develops into something more interesting. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the sequence.
The writing is very good, but the story is 100% YA - and does not “suffer” of any trace of originality. I've already read most of its parts before, in other books, but probably its intended public did not - and in here they are well crafted. So I would recommend it to under 20 yo readers, but not for me. And hopefully mr. Islington will also write for adults eventually, cause I would like to read that.
3.50/5.00
The Shadow of What Was Lost, or the shadow of the Wheel of Time is a good book, slightly better than okay. This book feels like an homage to the Wheel of Time, shamelessly retelling several themes, ideas, and concepts from the epic series. However, this series introduces an interesting twist with an enjoyable magic system. The story begins with many tropes, but lays over interesting new ideas on top of the existing tropes. We have the chosen one trope, the aes sedai trope, the mysterious and lost civilization trope, and yet it all feels somehow fresh. The story is very quickly wading into deep thematic issues and challenges the readers to take sides, which I find very enjoyable. The pacing is relentless, as the author punches through the plot, with things that I thought would happen later in the series happening right away.
However, this pacing is both a good and a bad thing. While things happen fast, we don't get to sit with the characters. We don't get to understand or think about this world, as interesting as it is, the grand sweeping events that take place in this book fall flat and lack the feeling that should go along with the book. For an WoT/stromlight style epic fantasy, the John Gwynne action style pacing is not working. The characters are good but that is not the focus of this book. Many times everyone is just playing the role they need to play to move the story along. I do think that this series will get better though.
Full Review on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz1WuEg0lIo
Overall, a good book with some potential for a great series. The premise of the book is interesting but there was a little too much mystery for my taste. Had some pacing issues with the book feeling a bit sow in the middle and the climax of the book was mediocre. Character work was pretty good with Caeden being my favorite by far.
The beginning didn't grab me. It was too based in fantasy tropes and not in interesting characters. But I loved other books by this author so I'll try again later.
Pretty good for a first novel. I had read his Will of The Many earlier this year, and that book was 5 stars, but I can see the growth between this book and that one.
A good start to this trilogy and I expected each book to get better. I am interested in where the story goes. I did see the twist at the end coming a mile away, but it was executed well. Book had a slow patch in the middle, but picked up pace towards the end and had a satisfying conclusion, while still setting up the next phase of the story.
There were some bright spots. The last 10% was pretty exciting, with some actual surprising reveals.
Most of it felt like a bit of a slog for me, mostly because:
(1) it had way more of a YA tone than i expected. I naiively thought from other reviews that it was a more grown-up fantasy story. YA can mean a lot of things besides the characters being YA's... for me it meant there was constant explicit disclosure of what everyone was feeling and thinking all the time. There was no subtext. Like the author's expectation that the reader could understand anything themselves was extremely low and had to be told “he felt worried”, “he felt X”, “she felt Y”. And some very dumb adolescent boy descriptions of the female characters. Like disney-princess-level stuff. And a lot of very basic moralizing like, “he was his friend... of COURSE he could trust him.” That kind of adolescent view of the world typical of YA writing.
(2) magic system was fairly annoying to read about. Lots of magic and blasting things, which is fine. After awhile i found the constant reveals of new things the magic-users could do, could not do, “in this situation i can do this, but not that”, and there was absolutely no reason why they would know most it. They just told you it was this way. Throughout the entire book reveals of what this magic could do or not do were happening, so i always felt like, well, there's no way for me as a reader to know if this thing that happened makes sense or not, because some new rule about how the magic works would just be arbitrarily proffered.
Tell me if it gets way better in the second book. Otherwise i'll try a different series.
One of the Best of Fantasy
To those who will know, this is easily Sanderson and Jordan tier. you can see the inspiration from the very first chapter, but somehow it feels entirely unique. I highly suggest that you buy and love the book.
2024 Update:
I still stand by my original opinion that the book features too much. There is no possible way to fully enjoy it from the first read and any book that needs multiple reading to understand and enjoy can't be rated 5 ⭐️
Other than that, I did love the story and this time I was able to get way more and even have some wild theories.
2022 Original Review:
3.5 stars
I am so conflicted on this one.
To begin with, the story is quite interesting and rather complex, which I like. The world has debt and a lot going on. There were also some nice twists.
But there is simply too much going on. Too many storylines, too many mysteries, too many reveals.
That's not to say that I haven't read stories with just as many of the above and more, but they were never contained in just one book.
The amount of stuff the author has tried to stuff here, is way too much for even a trilogy, in my opinion.
I think it would've been better had he made the book slightly shorter and the series slightly longer, in order to pace the reveals a bit better. Maybe spend some more time on character development and interactions, flesh out some of the mysteries better, give us time and space to digest some of them before moving on to the next one.
Reading this book often felt like overeating - past a certain point, you stop enjoying the food, despite how good it is and need time to digest it before you are hungry again.
Despite all that, I will continue with the series as I am curios about the reveal of the set mysteries (the ones that I can remember).
It has been eight months since I finished this book, and what I've learned from this experience is that I should never TBD a review and instead just do it immediately, as it is a certainty I just end up postponing it to the point that it's not even useful anymore.
I barely remember it, but the things I do remember were great. I liked Davian, the main character, but I got less interested in him from a specific plot point. I was very intrigued with Caedan. The plot points (and certain twists) were interesting.
Don't think I'll be continuing the trilogy though. I'm not reading enough as it is, so that's only reserved for obsessions :D Though I do recommend the book!
19/08/2021
It took me months but we made it! RTC when I have time.
i can def see why the WoT comparisons have been made. it kind of felt like a more modern take on a similar type of adventure. although i liked what i felt was the quick pace, it did make it so that events seem to come and go really quickly, before we got a chance to really connect with a setting or character. the many characters with their fantasy names could be hard to keep track of, and even the main ones were a bit flat.
Oh how I love a multi POV “complete your destiny” type fantasy read! I truly did not think that this book was going to be that great halfway through. I thought that it would be just good enough for 3 stars and keep me invested enough to read the rest of the trilogy. It was very slow but by no means boring due to the constant suspense of trying to put the clues together of who Caeden truly is since his memory was wiped, and everyone is slowly but surely figuring out their powers to fight the enemy. I loved all the characters but Davian and Caeden were a lot of fun to read about. The second half of the book was totally redeeming and so freaking awesome. I haven't been this excited to read a sequel in a long time. Very descriptive death scenes and simple but unique magic systems paired with a crazy “holy shit balls” ending and you have yourself a dandy of a book!
4.5 stars officially
That was bananas! This book was recommended to me as being better than Patrick Rothfuss, George R. R. Martin, and Robert Jordan...so, I had to read it. I'm not sure I can agree with my friend outright but my apprehension in doing so is steeped in ignorance.
Fantasy stories aren't what I deem “my wheelhouse.” However, given my last few excursions into the genre I have considered seriously reconsidering my taste preferences. And I can safely say this book was the final straw in my transformation. I'm officially a nerd, thank you James Islington.
Good grief this story was awesome. Great characters. compelling sub plots. Nearly flawless development woven almost seamlessly with solid pacing. There were a few (very few) times I felt myself wandering. My interest didn't wane but I was wishing I didn't need the critical details I was gathering...which I always ended up needing...so I re-read some things to make sure Islington hadn't cut some corner. In each case, he didn't skip stuff, I simply missed it.
The crown jewel of this book, though, was the writing. Spellbinding and smooth. Hints were dropped, strong visuals throughout, and an emphasis on dialogue over exposition through prose conquered all.
Do not stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. DO NOT WAIT TO READ THIS BOOK!