Desolada - A Blade Through Time

As of the time of writing this review, I have read the available book: A Blade Through Time.

Blurb

A young man with magical gifts is caught in an immortal battle between demons and demigods in the first book of this grimdark fantasy series.

Leones Ansteri was only sixteen when they came to kill him for the heresies his father had committed against the Archons—the mighty demigods who keep the peace in the Civilized Lands and prevent the evil Goetia from enslaving all of humanity. But even as the flames of the Magisters burned everything Leones knew to the ground, they awakened in him a power he didn’t know he possessed: the ability to manipulate time.

Alone and on the run, Leones finds refuge in the city of Odena, seeking out the opportunity to apprentice with the philosophers and build his skills in magic, mental manipulation, and swordsmanship. But as Leones grows more confident in his temporal abilities, he realizes all is not well in Odena.

Demons, long thought to be banished, have been spotted in the city, and Leones soon discovers he can’t trust his friends, his teachers, even his own memories. For unbeknownst to him, he’s become embroiled in a desperate battle for domination that will alter not only his own fate but the destiny of the entire world…

Thoughts

This was one of the few books I’ve read this year really had me appreciating the worldbuilding going on. There’s obviously been so much effort put into the world, the factions, religions, mythology, and it shines through. You don’t feel like you’ve teleported into Generic Isekai Land 8193.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I can go into detail here about the Goetia and their role in the plot, because it will probably be spoiler heavy. And none of that here! If the blurb is only going to hint at things “not being well in Odena,” I’ll do the same. I’ll add this is a massive understatement with what goes down though, and the final quarter of the book is filled with twists, turns, and situations going to absolute shit. I loved it.

The start of the book has a faster pace, with the middle of the book devoted to a bit of training, a bit of worldbuilding, a tiny hint of friend-making (singular, though Felix is a good lad to make friends with). There are a few other secondary characters, but none of them really loom large in the story. There’s the MC’s philosopher master, Augur, a few of his instructors and other philosophers the MC trains with, but they very stuck stay in the background of the plot.

The time-mechanic powers don’t play as critical a role as they do in books like A Perfect Run or Mother of Learning, especially during the mid-book slice-of-life pacing.

I am, however, very keen to see how far those powers can be stretched, because there’s a nice twist right at the end of the book showcasing just how crazy the MC’s powers can become, and I’m eager to read about how Leones will be able to pull it off.