Disclosure: I received this book in advance and without cost in exchange for an honest review. Counter-disclosure: I already pay for KU, so I would have been able to read it for ‘free’ anyway.
Initially, the premise of this book seemed super intense. Lightblades obviously give you some Star Wars vibes, the magic system is focused around different wavelengths of light, which gives me Lightbringer vibes, and then the focus on dreams, time-dilation, and the existential question “Is this the real world” combine Inception and the Matrix. Luckily for me, I like all of those things, so I tore through this book.
Without spoilers, the premise is simple. Jyosh, our effectively enslaved MC, wants to kill the Emperor. After all, the guy had his family all murdered, and shipped him off to the work camps. To try and achieve his goal, Jyosh swaps out his government-given dream stone, with a bootlegged stone with a lightblade training program on it, with its own more advanced, sentient training AI. Let’s just say that things don’t go as planned.
This is a frustrating review to write, because one of the best things about this book is that you don’t know where its going, you don’t expect the twists and turns, and I can’t talk about really anything without giving away something, and I don’t want to ruin the experience for anyone else. So, let me just make a list and hope that its useful.
Look at how diplomatic that heading is.
The big, shining caveat to the above is that perhaps there were hints about these reveals, but either they passed over my head, or I just wasn’t quite smart enough to figure it out.
They are good reveals though, and I am definitely curious how the twists will impact Jyosh’s journey in the next book. This was a fun read, and if you liked either Inception or The Matrix, give this one a read.
