As of writing this, I have read all five released books, and will be picking up the next whenever it comes out!
Our MC, Theo, has spent decades searching for a way back into the magical realms of the Nine Worlds. After a bitter life with no success, he eventually finds his way back, only to confront the fact that the ideals of his younger self are only a distant memory to the man he now is.
The story follows Theo, and two of his companions, Fiyu and Nauda. They are all from different worlds, with different biology, different methods of communication, cultures, diets, everything. And those different worlds and cultures are done amazingly, I just wish we, as readers, got more time to experience each one before the relentlessly grinding wheel of progress and plot force us to a new location. From the farmlands of Taitan, the darkness of Ichil, or any of the other settings, I found myself desperately wishing the books came with illustrations so I could get even further inside the setting.
Tied into this setting is the cultivation system. To summarise, in ones core / dantain (a soulhome in this work), you construct—you guessed it—a soulhome. This is building constructed of sublime materials, where the architecture, materials, and items determine how a persons power works. For example, a specific sort of magic tree might generate cantae (read: mana or qi), and then this might flow from the room in which the tree is growing into an adjacent room, wherein various items would turn that cantae into a technique. Fiyu has material that generates lots of light, and thus she has an attack which shoots out bolts of light. Theo focuses on gravity, and he has lots of super heavy things, so he generates gravitational fields. I’m not sure on the exact details (though there are appendixes to delve into it), but I just love the imagery of someone sitting in their soulhome and slowly carving away and making surfaces smooth because that means their cantae flow will smooth out.
The different approaches people take to building their soulhomes is always intriguing and still hasn’t gotten old after five books.
Character wise, no complaints. I’m not rooting for any of them like I do for Lindon or Zorian, but perhaps that’s because Sarah isn’t afraid to show the good and the bad side of each character’s personality. Awkward romances subplots are kept far away from the plot (though I’ve seen people complain about the tiny romance part of the latter books for no good reason) and many of the annoying tropes of the genres (young masters, plot that would resolve if two characters just communicated, etc) are entirely absent.
Actually, there was one point in book five where I was worried for a bit, but then Nauda did talk to Theo, and the plot point was resolved, and I thought “Well, isn’t this nice. Characters that both have emotions, but aren’t also morons.”
So, good characters, amazing magic system, fantastical setting, and progression elements are unique and earned. This is definitely my favourite (and fastest-paced) Sarah Lin series so far.
